Artothlon, Summer 2009

So today’s the big day. We may be doing some aesthletics morning exercises, once everyone’s up.

A few who went out on the town last night met one of the Lithuanian artists, mid 20s, very nice, lives in Vilnius, hopes she can stay with us.

We think we get the contracts today. The original idea, thought up by two Miga and Vylnas. They’re pretty prominent in their fields – we’ve not met Vylnas yet but for sure, Miga’s got integrity. He’s planning a project on migration, involving travelling across Europe in RVs, down to Linz (where Emily is). God, I’d love to be involved with that.

But like I mentioned before, the original team are no longer in charge. There was, thanks to (apparently) absurd restrictions put on the original producer by the TV company, a last-minute walk-out and the runner-up producer brought in with his own team. Hence the vague plans, non-appearance of contracts and general all-round uncertainty.

The new guys that we met the other day, I think their portfolio is the usual run-of-the-mill reality tv shows, with an emphasis on FREAK.

Talking of contracts, we’re worried. We all signed up to do an arts/TV project. Dining out on being on a Lithuanian reality TV show for artists at home before the event isn’t the same as being in Lithuania and realising, en famille, that we’re being turned over to a production team that intend to put out a “REALITY TV SHOW” involving weirdo artists.

We’ve talked about it, and we all think that the most important thing about the project for each of us is collaborating with each other and the Lithuanians. In fact, we’d be pretty happy all round if the teams were to rotate so we all got a chance to work with each other.

That’s happened already – Justin and Nat on their radiohead, thinking up ideas together and playing wiffle hurling in the park, some random play and lots and lots of documenting…

We’re all agreed that we have to stick together to keep some control over what we do. The production team are talking about monetary fines, for example, if we don’t do as we’re told. We think they can go jump in the River Neris.

Can we be in control or have we been naive?

So we find out this evening that we’re meeting the Lithuanian artists tomorrow. All eight of them. And then they move in with us.

We’re wondering – do we take shots of vodka? or flowers? or both?

Meanwhile, the TV company’s PR team are very taken with our facebook group.

At the moment, our PR seems much more pro-active than the TV company’s.

We’re planning a glamour shot for facebook. It might be my only chance to get out my whore heels.

Staring at an empty browser window is never good for the soul, so I’ve de-camped to this excellent little internet cafe round the corner.

After the filming session yesterday it all seems to be getting even odder than it was before.

We still haven’t met the Lithuanian artists, the “home team”, and with no assignment until Saturday, we have nothing to do for three more days. We’re getting tetchy – not with each other – but to get working.

A couple of the guys thought it’d be good to get some publicity going so we’re going to set up a session to draw each other and use the results as publicity for the project.

They’ve set up a facebook group too.

A group of us took a long walk around the city this morning, to a) find an electric components shop and b) find the city beach by the river. We found both, eventually.

It’s an interesting time to be in Vilnius. The city’s changing rapidly and radically, and the pic I took on a bike ride illustrates this – a mix of medieval Old Town in the foreground, corporate capitalist shiny tower blocks to the right and soviet-era apartments in the backround.

If we can capture a sense of that energy in our work, we’ll be rockin.

I was undecided about whether to put on record the conversation I had with a young Byelorussian I met last night.

But after this and this came to my attention, I feel bound to add this story to the whole sorry UK immigration shame.

He’d promised to try and find us some more Soviet bikes (he’s a bike punk) so I invited him to join us for our traditional Lithuanian dinner.

This guy in his mid-20s is studying here in order to keep away from Belarus – during the protests after the President was re-elected with 80 per cent of the vote, my lad was arrested and spent 10 days in jail. He’s been avoiding the Byelorussian KGB ever since. It’s only 40km away from Vilnius, but it’s like (according to another young Byelorussian who’s staying in our dormitory), a different world. A dictator state: the young people are desperate to leave and make a life for themselves in the 21st Century as there is, for now, little sign of change.

He tells us that a pal of his, same age, is a trained designer and wants to get some experience abroad. He has a job offer from someone in London who he knows, who vouches for him and will pay for his flights and his accomodation and generally ensure that this ambitious young man is looked after while in London.

It cost him £100 to apply for the visa. This is, for Byelorussians, is a phenomenal amount of money – a month’s average salary.

He was turned down, with no reason given and no return of the £100.

He’s stuffed. And all he wants to do is go develop his skills and make a better life for himself.

It stinks, doesn’t it.

Any way you look at it, having a cameraman and sound man catching your every move is horrible. Especially when we’re sitting around trying to say hello to Anna, who’s just off a really terrible flight from Moscow.

They did the intro footage today – in different locations (mine was on the Fluxus Bridge) with us, in first person, talking to camera about ourselves.

What is your art like, what do you want to get out of the project, what kind of human are you – were just some of the questions we were prompted with. Yoiks.

It finished with a shot of us all holding hands around some big metal pipe structure, as the camera panned around us. It doen’t get much cheesier than that.

How we play Monday’s press conference is up to us, but the team were happy for us to do one of Tom’s games – maybe inviting the press to join in. Justin’s pushing for a pool party and I must be seen as the journalist of the piece, since I’ve been designated with the job of introducing all the non-Lithuanian artists to the assembled reporters and photographers. I’ll draft something in the next day or two.

Who, by the way, we still haven’t met. It’s the question we ask more than any other and we never get a straight answer.

Nate continued to wear the radiohead today, as it’s developing into a critique of media and control.

We’ve gotten into trouble with the supervisor at the dorm for dismantling the radio – even though it hadn’t been working. Paulius had to deal with the flack so Justin whizzed it all back into place – AND got it to work.We might be a bunch of twit artists, but we’re good people.

If we were a jewellry heist team, he’d be the one hunched over a combination lock and devising the explosives.

I want him on my team – trouble is, so does everyone else. We might have to hire him out by the hour…