Continued from last post…
Where to begin?
The agenda was to present our work to each other in an relaxed, informal setting. I’d intended to write about the practice of all the other artists on the project. I’d have mentioned that I now realise why we’re always being reminded at college of the importance of critical selection when presenting one’s work. I might have mentioned the heat of the day, the laws of Powerpoint and the fact that we did it for THREE AND A HALF HOURS. I’d certainly have talked about how genuinely useful I found it to hear the other artists talk about their work.
But frankly, that all fades into insignificance, compared to what happened next.
We’d spent all morning talking with each other about the contract. The damned contract. The bit we all object to – including the Lithuanian artists who are now staying with us – is the clause that says we must “unconditionally” do whatever the producers say we should do. And, of course, the clause that says if we don’t, we get fined. Yes, fined. Proper money.
Of course we understand the importance of having us commit to the project – after all, TV crew and kit cost big bucks. But the memory of the, frankly, crass “elimination” business of the Lithuanian artists a couple of days ago is still rattling like a caged rat in our collective memory.
So anyway. Zilvinas Lilas, the author of the project, alongside Miga, had arrived off the plane from Cologne where he’d just finished teaching the summer semester. Zilvinas is an art-maker of some repute. Having worked in “the trenches” (as he describes it), painting cells for Disney for some years, he got a teaching job and has been building up his artistic practice ever since.
Given that he’d been the author of the original project, and one of the main players who’d interviewed us, we were keen to meet him. The project we’d signed up to was one that, while being a reality TV show, had shown a commitment to rigour and critical enquiry. We’d been hoping that he’d be able to re-assure us that while they’d sold the idea to the TV company, he and Miga would still be able to ensure that if we put our professional (or emergent) reputations on the line for this show, we wouldn’t be subjected to some sort of humiliating Reality TV nightmare.
Continued on next post…
