Artothlon, Summer 2009

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.”

The good news is, all our Lithuanian artist friends are great. And Miga has organised for us to present our work to each other at the Contemporary Art Centre, the CAC, tomorrow afternoon.

The bad news is, we’re very worried, now, about what we’ve let ourselves in for.

For a start, we had bought flowers, vodka and pickles to welcome our eight fellow artists. Ten turned up – which didn’t seem to make any sense.

It got more bewildering when the director put us all into the studio with the sofas and started calling out names. This was in Lithuanian, but Renate, our facilitator, whispered a translation for us. He called out two men, then a woman.

Then he announced that the remaining seven people had to find bananas – if they found one, they’d be in – otherwise they were out. It became apparent that the crude foil packages that looked like giant Hershey kisses on the floor were key to this.

Some had bananas, some had sweetcorn cobs.

Devela, who the lads had met in the bar the night before, was not in.

Aukse, who had a banana, decided she didn’t think she wanted to be in this show any more, and gave her banana to Romeo, who’d found only sweetcorns.

Each of them then had to say something about themselves, on camera.

It was excruciating – we squirmed, and so did they. Whoever updated our facebook page got it right – it was totally disrespectful to the artists.

Turns out that these guys had only recieved an email the day before, telling them to be at the studio at the alotted time. They had no idea what was going to happen after that.

There’s more. The director spoke to the remaining Lithuanian artists while we looked on and they told us, later, that he said they all should stay in the dorm – because they want to film us there.

As far as we’re concerned, that’s just NOT going to happen. It’s not what we signed up for. What’s more, most of them don’t want to, and why would they? As it happens, our communal area can barely accomodate us as it is.

They were also told that the project goes on till the 7 September. Er, no it doesn’t. We’ve all made arrangements to be back home at the beginning of September.

Strangely, only me and Tom were miked up, but the filming only stopped half way through our barbeque.

Right now, none of us are kicking our heels with joy – and neither are our new Lithuanian friends, who, it appears, are even more guinea pigs than we are.

It all reinforces our concern that the new producers aren’t concerned with making a show about art, which is what we came here for, but intend to go for sensationalism – of the most crummy kind.

Let’s just say, we’re considering our options.

A bunch of us are just back from the flea market, and we’re ready to help Paulius carry some old furniture from the dorm to the studios. We ain’t just the talent – we’re talented labourers, too.

I’ve always wanted long hair.