Artothlon, Summer 2009

The wifi at the CAC is stronger than back at the dorm, so the Lithuanian baby death metal footage has only just been uploaded now.

Aren’t they wonderful?

In the middle of discussing the contract – which is, in English, eight pages long.

Mantas showed us the host – the pop producer, Egmontas Bzeskas. Apparently he’s hugely popular and will be a big pull.

Here is some of his work.

Enjoy. With the secure knowledge that you are far, far away.

Oh yeah – I almost forgot: the TV commercial is done. We don’t know if it’s been aired yet, but here it is…

There are three bikes in the dorm hallway this morning instead of the usual one. Some of the Lithuanian artists have moved in. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes the dynamic of our group.

Meanwhile, many are sleeping, Saulius is prepping for his presentation while Nat and Justin play chequers.

A few people in the group had decided some days ago that it’d be good to do a bit of a show and tell – informal presentations of our work, to each other.

It’s a little intimidating when you’re only a student, like me, Andi and Ania, but as Eero pointed out, it’s good professional practice – and it gets easier, the more experienced you become.

The Lithuanian artists are up for it and the production crew are delighted. This afternoon at the CAC, at two.

Yesterday was very much a day off while we each ruminated. The crew called a meeting at our studio, with wine and copious smoking, to discuss the project, our concerns and, of course, the contracts.

I think we, the artists, are pretty much agreed that we wanted to do this project in order to:

a) make art

b) to work collaboratively and

c) to explore the idea of making art, on TV, with a mainstream audience.

We also concur that, as Tom pointed out last night, the “reality” bit is fine – as long as the intention is to make a show that is about making art – not some cheap, sensationalist nonsense. For example, through the business of working together and competing against each other, there will, inevitably, be emotion, conflict and drama. And that’s fine.

And, we reckon, that’s going to be much more interesting than any contrivance created by the director to provoke these responses.

He pointed out that the show has to appeal to the mainstream Lithuanian audience – which won’t switch on to a programme about contemporary art unless it’s geared to a “reality format” – for example, the elimination that we were all so cross about.

Nat suggested that we can not and should not “dumb down” for the director’s purposes. What’s more, we think he should have more faith in his potential audience.

We learned two more things.

The show is going to be aired on a Thursday night at 10pm on the national television station. This is primetime and the Lithuanian artists are impressed.

The show has a host, whose name escapes me, who is, apparently very well known in Lithuania. An arts academy graduate, he has produced pop bands and is generally known for being extremely controversial. A Lithuanian Howard Stern?

All in all, the purpose of this meeting was to throw water on the fire, as the director said. If we’re hostile, we’ll clam up and that isn’t likely to make good telly. We hope they’re not cynical – now they have to prove it.

After the meet we went to the CAC to chat. Kornelija’s pal Elisa was there – her band, Zimbabwe, is (or has been, they’ve just disbanded) Lithuania’s only all-girl punk band.

We’ll be looking at the contract this morning.

Eero just now:

“How many performance artists does it take to change a lightbulb?”

“I don’t know, I left.”