Istvan Cs. Bartos (aka. Bartos the Great Human Muck Pit, born 18 January 1979, Csikéria, Hungary) (hungarian pronunciation: [bɑːrtɔʂ]) is a hungarian cynic philosopher, performance artist and spoken word performer mostly known for his notorious subversive acts in which he eats dirt, garbage, raw meat, animal cadavers, excrement and drinks his own urine representing the decay of human condition. He lives voluntarily homeless and in constant travelling according to the drifting poet tradition. His work is similar of the ones by Antonin Artaud, Alejandro Jodorowsky, William S. Burroughs or Hermann Nitsch[1]. Consideres himself as a "philosophical cannibal".
Early life
Born in a communist family tradition (his grandfather was a member of ÁVO, the hungarian NKVD) he was strongly influenced by the lifestyle of his predecessors dominated by the stalinist agricultural and heavy industry. This world was destroyed by the turn of the regime in 1989. Most of Bartos’ early work such as The IBM Factory Moves Out of Town (2004) or The Closing Down of the Coal Mine in Balinka (2004) tries to track down the downfall of the traditional hungarian working class. He was born in Budapest, but later moved to Székesfehérvár with his family. He lost his father as a child. His extreme habits became visible in a very early age. In school he rejected the bourgeois etiquette and the conventional way of feeding, insisting upon the (mostly fictional) customs of his peasant ancestors. He’s commited to a primitive way of life from his early childhood. After school he started to work is an abbattoir then in a rubber factory where he became obcessed with the industrial way of transforming material into something else. Later he broke with his remaining family and started his life as a voluntary outcast.
His work
Started as an anarcho-primitive communist activist of the newly born Hungarian Communist Labour Party[2] but strongly influenced by Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and hungarian conservative thinkers. He published a few pieces of sociographic fiction. The most famous of them was the short story The Muck Pit (in the periodical Árgus, 08. July 2004.[3]) in which he depicted the life and social connections of homeless people living by a muck pit which serves as their only resource of self-preservation. His Martin Walser-like social awareness accompanied with a pessimistic world view. His views became too nihilistic and controversial for the hungarian anticapitalist scene which leads to rupture. Later, under the influence of the mathematician and mystic-psychedelic poet Lazlo Varecza (aka. St. Varecza the Corpse[4]) his work became more allegoric tending forward a radical abstract-naturalistic style. Side by side automatic writing became more dominant. Then came the fusion of writing and performance art. He accompanied his essays with his notorious lifestyle which he ironically calls Bartosism – The Ultimate Philosophy. The great turn became visible with his flamboyand apocalyptic vision The Bartosistic Dialectics (around 2006) – a grotesque parody of Pol Pot’s theory of the state, based on significant researching work. Since then he’s dedicated to performing acts and philosophical poetry.
He is always conscious about his audiences, accompanies his writing work with performing tours among the socially oppressed. He rejects the bourgeois institutions of literary life. Most of his works are published on his own account, some of the are in literature periodicals.
The Bartosism
The Bartosism is not a theoretically manifested and well-structured philosophy but a definite way of life. It is based on materialist metaphysics and strongly influenced by Bartos’s experiences as a butcher and factory worker. All social interactions can be considered as transformations of the matter in both allegorical and empirical aspect. For Bartos political philosophy is social alchemy. In tradicional societies the circulation of matter was maintained by the local composting of garbage. In industrial (capitalistic) societies the alienated matter (trash) is stuck out of the control of the world of production either real or virtualized. There, in the merges of civilization it can be seized and put back to circulation by social rejects of whom Bartos consider himself as symbolic leader. The Bartosistic Act is an allegoric reprezentation of this social-political alchemy. It is clear that for Bartos all ethical, aesthetic, social or other values are part of this circulation, just as academic philosophy. His cynic standpoint comes from his materialist fundamentalism.
Today
His current location is always changing, he’s travelling within the ruined hungarian rural areas listening to the voice of people forced to the merges of society. Most of his work today aren’t written, his interests are mainly in the oral history and his observations are presented in his performance acts and video massages which can be seen on his website created by his friends and comrades.
Selected works
Alulnézetben (From Beyond), 2001 – poetry
A sötétség rabságában (Prisoners of the Dark), 2001 – poetry, short stories
Pesszimizmus (Pessimism), 2003 – short stories
Csőd (Bankrupt), 2003 – short stories
Emberek a lomok között (People in the Garbage), 2003 – sociographic writings
Jegyzetek egy pusztuló világról (Notes from a World of Decay), 2003 – essays
Elköltözött Székesfehérvárról az IBM gyár (The IBM Factory Moves Out of Town), 2004 – sociography
Bezárt a székesfehérvári Ikarus gyár (The Closing Down of the Ikarus Factory in Székesfehérvár), 2004 – sociography
Bezárt a balinkai szénbánya (The Closing Down of the Coal Mine in Balinka), 2004 – sociography
Katasztrófahelyzet Magyarországon (Situation of Social Disaster, Hungary), 2004 – sociographic writings, short stories, poetry
Szent Varecza élete (The Life of St. Varecza in Three Pieces), 2005 – biography
Dialektika (The Bartosistic Dialectics), 2006 – philosophy
Sztálin-kép a falon (Picture of Stalin in the Wall), 2007 – poetry
A Pol-Pot dosszié (The Pol-Pot Files), 2007 – poetry
A mezei Vörös Csepel (Red Csepel of the Fields), 2009 – poetry
A részeges filozófus (The Drunken Master of Philosophy), 2009 – poetry
References
[1] http://www.sunvalleyresearch.com/hermann_nietzsche.htm
[3] http://www.inaplo.hu/_mut/filtered_szepirodalom_szerzo_szerint002.html
http://www.argus.hu/2004_07/i_bartos.html
[4] http://www.unknownartists.hu/gazlo5.php
External links
Bartos Cs. István’s Official Website
A Blog Dedicated to Bartosistic Thought
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