Vilnius is a 2009 European Capital of Culture and Artothlon, a reality show for artists, will run for six weeks over the summer. I’m in it, along with 15 others from Lithuania and abroad.
Here’s a record of the project, the work and the adventures…
Meanwhile, Emily Speed is on a residency in Linz, Austria, another Capital of Culture. Here’s her blog.
Holding post – just for info.
I’m home – decided I needed a break and some time to get my domestic stuff back in line.
I’ll write about the project, what went right, what went wrong, in a day or two when I have the energy to construct sentences again, properly.
Then I’ll be able to tell you about Interpol looking for Tom, the paranoia, the mis-information and the other funny and frightening bits I’ve not written about in this public forum.
Hopefully, some sort of analysis about the business of working with public money and the conflicts of having many players with different agendas.
I’ve started to collate archive material (emails, pics, videos). There’s definitely work to be done with all this – after a decent break. Maybe you’ll see it at some point, with me behind a microphone in a room above some pub in Peckham.
Back in a few days.
Justin, Eero and Ania are furiously sifting through footage. Here’s some to be getting on with.
The moment we walked out of a dismal reality TV show
Error show Lithuania a simple condom demonstration
Where I would be now if I hadn’t come home – in Paulius’ flat
And a slice of history: Radiohead’s exit interview
Spent some time looking at Eero’s work on Facebook: when you’re there, tap in Tukk and you’ll find it.
He finds pictures that people have uploaded and Photoshop’s Tukk into them, sends them to the owners of the photos and sees if they like them. Most people do.
I like the idea of this virtual itinerant character visiting virtual places all over the world and making new virtual friends. An important part of it is taking time to make relationships with the people whose photos he intervenes in, he says.
Also looked at the page of the Polymer factory in Tallin.There’s an ancient printing press there – a functioning one, with lots and lots of the cyrillic type that I loved so much in the Technology factory here.
They have a sauna made from old windows, workshops – it looks great. Used to make plastic toys in the daytime and sex toys at night, on the quiet. The old people who used to work there all came to a big perfomance party there – called the Homecoming.
Another project is Migrating Realities – Miga’s been working on it for a while and in September, a group of people are going to travel, across three borders, ending up in Linz.
I’m interested in migration. There’s a part of me that’d be happy to take the bus back to London, I see them through Peckham and down the Camberwell New Road on their way to Victoria all the time.
Paulius has arrived. My stuff is now off the laptop. He wants the Sim cards back – they have under a fiver’s worth of credit.
The milk has run out. I’m off to the CAC for some breakfast.
continued from last post…
We phone Zilnas, Eero was expecting to do a lecture – paid – on the Wednesday – he’d been booked, after someone else dropped out. Zilnas is out of town but agrees to get on to Kornelya to find out wtf is going on.
Meanwhile, Paulius is frantically trying to retrieve kit – laptops, cameras and tripods. IHaving spent four weeks dancing to someone else’s tune, ‘m not up for being harrassed. I have a bit of work on the laptop – and Justin has almost the whole memory used up on his. I say to Paulius – lovely Paulius – that I’m not trying to make his life difficult, I’ve always been helpful.
No you haven’t, he says. Your blog, it started off alright, but it hasn’t been helpful at all. It went from being quite objective to being really subjective and negative. He then went on to pretty much accuse me of wanting to steal it. Unpleasant, to say the least.
Hmm. I think it’s been extremely clean – immaculate, even, Too clean. I’ve edited what I’ve written with an acute sensitivity in the knowledge that it’s being read by people that I’m working with – the crew. But I didn’t come here to write propaganda for the Lithuanian TV industry.
Speaking of which, it doesn’t bode well for the twenty thousand litas book.
More later.
We all met at yesterday at five. I mean, us, the artists. Agreed that this couldn’t go on – but we were invited here to do work, we want to do it, we can if they let us get on with it – and we take footage and edit it and give it to them. Then we can show how making art works – not the tedious footage they’ve been showing.
Much discussion – is it that they don’t know, or just don’t care? I know for certain that I don’t want any more microphones stuck in my face asking me ČWhat do you feel about art?Č We agreed that we were up for doing an event at the studio, invite people, show some films, do some workshops and performances – I had a great one lined up – though a few thought having a party and calling it art was unconvincing. The studio is a wonderful place – and it needs love. It’s an light, airy monastery building that’s about to be given back to the Franciscans.
The TV people had not responded to text messages or phone calls – but they announced a meeting at seven at the studio.
We didn’t know what was going to happen but we knew we didn’t want to be on a game show any more.
Donatus, the director, took the floor. With ČinfoČ, he said.
They’ve done some eliminations. Everyone’s been eliminated, except for Pavel, Tadas and Darius. Pavel’s in Denmark, of course, and Tadas and Darius don’t speak.
The ruse is that we broke our contracts by walking out, the night before. Though everyone had done that. We are each given a short termination of contract paper – with Jonas’ name on it. Jonas is the number three at the TV station – very young, pencil moustache, rolled up jacket sleeves – crashed our dinner weeks ago with the grace of an elephant in a china shop – as they say round these parts.
Our flights have been reserved and – this is absolutely true – there’s a camera set up next door for us to speak, directly to camera, one by one. The Lithuanian artists are expected to leave the dorm immediately. Of course, this doesn’t happen. Kornelya comes over to me to try to discuss a flight on Monday.
Continued next post…
Just coming to the end of my first year fine art degree at Chelsea College of Art. I'm a part-time student there and I pay the mortgage through freelance journalism and teaching. Day-to-day art work can be found at fionaflynn.wordpress.com