Doctoral studies
Laima Kreivytė7th October 2022 "C(U)R(E)ATing. Curating as Art Practice and Politics" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
Photo: Laima Kreivytė announces the declaration of February 17 from the balcony of the "Narutis" hotel (2018) Curating is a creative activity that combines art and scientific methods, analyzing and influencing contemporary cultural processes through exhibitions. In the last decade of the 20th century, hybrid curatorial strategies began to emerge in Lithuania: collective actions, collaborations, the delegation of functions, questioning the boundaries of public and private, embodied by artist-curators and curator-artists, who perceived curating as a continuation of their artistic and/or activist practice. The thesis explores contemporary strategies of curating as an artistic practice and politic through discourse analysis, feminist theory, queer studies approaches, and autoethnography. Through case studies, it reveals the expansion of the boundaries of curating: from artist-curated site-specific projects to discursive post-curatorial interventions, as curators treat the exhibition as an art medium. The creative part of the thesis raises the three following questions for artistic research: Where? Curating? Creating? (Lithuanian: Kur? Kuruoti? Kurti?) Two of the three questions form the title: "C(U)R(E)ATing". The question of place is one of the most important in contemporary art. It refers to the context of creation and curation, whether institutional or independent, as well as the location of the exhibition/artwork and its relationship to its surroundings. Even more important is the theoretical context: in which philosophical, cultural, and discursive context the artist-curator‘s ideas unfold. How does the curation of ideas take place? What is the relationship between conceptual gestures and activist practices? How does the curation of situations unfold in a specific place? The artistic part of the research – curated exhibitions and post-curatorial interventions – provide answers to these questions.
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Vitalij Červiakov29th April 2022 "Walking as a Pretext and Space in Contemporaneity" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
I have been exploring walking as an artistic and thinking practice for over a decade now, initiating various series of walks. These works inspired me to further deepen research, explore and create, investigating the change of the relationship with oneself and the environment, in which artificially staged rules and scenarios come into play. Thus the main problematic questions of the art project and the research are related to walking, the perception of the environment and imagination. How are they affected by various artificially created/staged rules and anthropological, social, technological as well as neurobiological contexts? How and when can walking be a means and/or condition of non-linguistic communication? How can walking be an urban, anthropological and sociological method for studying urban culture? In order to address these questions, I create a network of walks in the respective locations, staging events that reflect different contexts and situations, and writing-curating this collection of eight essays. The experiences that emerge from the walks become material for further research. This way, as walking connects different fields, it becomes a specific instrument (“įkojis”) as well as a tool for research and a source of inspiration. This work is a complex and transdisciplinary artistic research where different paradigms interact for the sake of a single goal. Art Project
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Eglė Grėbliauskaitė15th April 2022 "Sociopsychological Mechanisms of Repression – The Fight for the Value Center, or – In the Maze of Hungry Shadows" Creative part supervisor prof. Deimantas Narkevičius
Grėbliauskaitė, E., Gintalaitė, A., Lets Not Forget Not To Remember, a performance of everyday, P. Cvirka square, Vilnius, 2021. Andrius Seliuta von Rath photograph. This text is an artwork of institutional critique, notes of artistic research or a painting in matter and words. It does not reflect the whole of the artworld, it deconstructs the sustainability of its foundations and the boundaries of the frames drawn. This text analyses the conflicting vectors of action by different art institution functions, discusses the origins of differences in the worldviews, interests and activities as conditions of the inevitable conflict and the freedom of art as a possible common vector, a unique feature for the positioning of art – a precondition for the sustainability of the value of the art institution. Discussions about the practices of art institutions and the norms that discipline art are the object of the institutional critique. Therefore, this research of the institutional constraints includes the institutional critique discourse issues and the institutional critique discussions such as the politicality of art, the notions of loyalty, the autonomy and their affiliation with the institution as well as the alternative scenarios for the power play in order to develop the bargaining power of the art institution in society. The aim of this research focuses at discussing the assumptions, limitations and opportunities that allow or prevent the establishment by an art institution of its position in the market, strengthening of the institution's value center – art – and the role of the institutional critique in this process.
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Dovilė Bagdonaitė8th March 2022 "The Album of Phantom Don Quixote, Artworks that Come to Life, Poisonous Flowers, Systems Dreaming of Themselves, Popping (up) Letters and the Pastoral that Encompasses it All" Creative part supervisor prof. Konstantinas Bogdanas
In the art field it is important for me to be site-specific and pay attention to the conditions I am in. Therefore, during my studies my goal was to create specific works which I could only make during my PhD studies in order to contribute to the discourse of artistic research, as well as to polemicise or collaborate, to interact, albeit indirectly, with other PhD students. One could say that the object of the research was art itself in a general sense, the artist's self-consciousness, and the methods used were fluid. One of the components of the work became the text, or – writing – if I wanted to emphasize the processual. I dived into it like a territory that I was not entirely familiar with. Writing itself became an object of research, a method and a tool of inquisitorial interrogation, the linear pliers of which could not be shaken off, no matter how much I tried to squirm and to branch. I began to think of these works as extended, discursive works, because they don't fit into one physical space. They stretch out in the same way as the duration of my PhD. But sometimes a piece gets lost from another and branches out on its own. I put their parts in the album and included their key-words in the album’s title. The pastoral motif became the way out of the research. Before his death, Don Quixote, after his chivalric illusions have dissipated, dreams bucolic dreams of his life as a shepherd. He doesn't achieve it, but I want to create it. The exhibition accompanying the defence of the art project will not be a presentation of the works created during this time, but an exposition with its own concept. This exhibition will be like the closing credits at the end of a film. Credits containing the (key)words: pastoral state, conscious naivety, underwater dreams, movement, anamorphosis, dream, film reversal. Art Project
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Ieva Bertašiūtė-Grosbaha4th February 2022 "What artist's hands know - material intelligence and tacit knowledge in creative practice" Creative part supervisor assoc. prof. Remigijus Sederevičius
Artistic practices directly related to craft are inseparable from the handwork and natural elements that make up the materials. The distance between the resources found on earth and the pottery, glass or textiles is particularly short. But how to find a relationship with the material not from the position of the ruler but in cooperation with it? Is it possible to create with material instead out of it? Through my artistic research, I seek to draw attention to, discuss, and promote a different way of perceiving the world - by accepting the environment around us and the elements within it as equal to us, living and non-living beings and objects. This research is based on the concept of material intelligence, a definition introduced by art critic Glenn Adamson, which we might otherwise call material cognition. This kind of intelligence means we know, perceive, have experienced from whom, how, and where the things around us are made. The research is carried out deliberately on the basis of clay material and ceramic discipline techniques. This choice is made, because of my experience in the ceramic field and opportunity to be critical in this area. Different ways of perceiving the environment, especially the sense of touch, are particularly important in my artistic research. Tacit knowledge - a term introduced by Michael Polyani – which can also reflect the skills needed to do one or another hand work, is one of the axes of my creative practice. Excerpts from the creative diary play an important role in the art project. They help to reveal my relationship as a creator and researcher with materiality, the childhood experiences that influenced it, the opposition of material to intellect, its existence in the context of contemporary art. Art Project
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Juozas Laivys24th November 2021 "Kleopas Society. Spectral Analysis. Dissemination of the Post-Production Phenomenon in Creative Practice" Creative part supervisor prof. Deimantas Narkevičius
The essence of the artistic project is the written text that created a work of art. The writer of the text manifests himself in the presence of this work as a research associate and co-author whose verbal/written experience is limited in comparison to his visual erudition. The position of the artist who refrains from producing individual works concentrates here on the search for structures and their interrelations, which allow to identify broader trends and the possibilities of moving in more diverse trajectories. The work is presented as a gift that unfolds not as science derived from art, but instead as art extracted from science. Although the study process noticeably focuses on the written research work, the purpose of this artistic project is to ensure that art is not neglected. The research part is integrated into the creative artistic one, and vice versa. The bookmark, which materialises from aestheticised conclusions, is the artistic expression of the written text. The entire text can be considered the author of and a long signature under this work. As war is only staged rather than actually fought in a military academy, art in the academic context can likewise be perceived as imitation. Although this imitation does not lead where it is expected to, the present book with a bookmark can function as a work of art simply because it sticks to what is visual and beautiful. Art Project
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Arnas Anskaitis10th June 2021 "Knowledge That Artist Has at Their Disposal: Seven Trace-Maps" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
In this art project-dissertation, the artist Arnas Anskaitis explores the relation between their own artistic practice and artistic research along with all the conceptual, epistemic, aesthetic, and other dilemmas that might result from it. The artist questions how the voice of a specific artist-researcher, with their own ways of conceptual or material thinking and forms of individual articulation, contributes to the emancipation of the specificity of ‘artistic knowledge,’ and analyses the possible roles of a written component in an art project. The aim of the research is to examine the methodological capacity of the creative-artistic practice and rethink it as a system of artistic knowledge, thus contributing to the discourse on artistic research and the epistemic boundaries of the doctoral studies in art. The art project is comprised of two parts: “Research Essay” deals with the questions of methodology, and “Trace-Maps” provides an exposition of seven artworks. The dominant paradigm of academic artistic research can be overcome and played over by the ‘artistic expositions’ and ‘artistic arguments’ which are laid out in “Research Essay,” and which Anskaitis has put to an experimental use in his “Trace-Maps.” The ‘artistic argument’ here can be understood as an irreducible assemblage of artistic ideas and epistemic claims, where the material and epistemic types of ‘noise’ play a positive role. The work draws from the discovery that, while writing in the narrow sense appears as an (epistemic) obstacle, the notion of writing in general offers itself as the first and most adequate possibility of artistic research that might actually contribute to the positive (epistemic) break. Art Project
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Tomas Martišauskis18th December 2020 "Hypothetical Sculptures. From Myth to Method. Tensions, Coherency and Hybridity Between Art and Technic" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
I often get a question: “What is your artistic research about?” It was not until I started my studies that I realised I didn't actually know how to respond to it. I even got used to experiencing a micro panic attack whenever an interest is shown, even during casual conversations. I flinch each time I hear the distinctive tone of voice that betrays curiosity and is followed by a polite pause; meanwhile the expectant gaze of my interlocutor subtly transforms the question mark into a rest that no longer seems to require a reply. Taken by the strange feeling of déjà vu, I take a good look into the eyes of my interlocutor, trying to reach as deeply as my optical nerve allows me to. With the question still resonating inside me, I start frantically searching for a fitting answer. The pause continues until I finally utter the words: “I am researching the tensions between technology, world, and art.” Art Project
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Indrė Stulgaitė-Kriukienė6th November 2020 "Studio Glass Movement Transformations: From Functional to Conceptual Art Creation" Creative part supervisor prof. Valmantas Gutauskas
Today’s glass artists strive to keep up with global art tendencies and prevailing trends, breaking the boundaries of traditional art and looking for a creative medium in the contemporary art world. However, the terms “glass artist” or “glass art” remain in the postmodern context for one particular material-related reason. This is due to the properties of the glass, such as transparency and its optical properties, which are not characteristic of other materials and which give the glass both visual and conceptual distinctiveness. These properties are obtained by processing glass using traditional technological methods. However, it must be acknowledged that glass often finds itself on the fringes of contemporary art and exists as a distinct (separate) branch of art, although both technologically and ideologically it has many points of contact with various other fields of art. We are often confronted with art critics or art connoisseurs’ fear or unwillingness to analyze a work made of glass precisely because of their lack of technological knowledge. And because of the same technological importance of a glass work, it is often equated simply with a craft, categorized as applied art, which has long been untrue, as the movement of studio glass - as well as the spread of visual media - has fundamentally changed the meaning and importance of glass in the world of artists. Following the widespread point of view that the so-called conceptuality is most hindered by the material itself, because for a conceptual work of art the physical piece of art itself is not necessary, as the idea is the most important, we pronounce a harsh sentence to glass art, ruling out the possibility that it can indeed be conceptual. However, perhaps in this case, it is not so much important to strive to make sure the piece of glass is able to express conceptuality as to discover its possibilities as it departs from functionality. Art Project
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Saulius Leonavičius23rd October 2020 "Vydūnas’ diet 2.0" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
The idea of this research is simple - the work of the soul happens inside the body and depends on the body. Knowledge, imagination, intuition and other powers of the soul are connected to the body and are maintained through it. There are strong connections between the soul and the body the sound of which is tuned through diet and ascesis. Diet allows you to consciously participate in subtle movements of the soul, the body, thoughts and sensations. Without diet cognition is loose and unpredictable. A unified regime of soul and body allows one to take responsibility for one's own life, fate and visions. How is the work of the soul conducted, how does one work with the matter of the soul? How is the soul nourished? This research is a testimony to my preparation, a prologue to such work. All efforts were made to create conditions, foundations for working with the matter of the soul. In order for that to happen I took it upon myself to investigate disciplines of the soul. I looked to Vydūnas to find proven methods of nourishing one’s health. Vydūnas’ diet 2.0 is a condition, a method, a practice. It can only be understood by realising it through yourself. Its criticism and reflection only becomes possible through experiencing it in the body, thoughts, senses, consciousness, dreams. That is why the beginning of this new research was a description of the diet, recipes, its conditions, naming the principles, drawing up of daily regime. The research turned into performative writing - writing influenced by the diet. Art Project
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Dovilė Dagienė20th March 2020 "Here Then, There Now" Creative part supervisor prof. Alvydas Lukys
The interaction between a human, photography and the world consists of many causally related findings that have been bound into a single whole with the help of words and images, by giving them the coordinates of a place and time. Photographs create an impression of witnessing place and time. However, they possess something more than mere traces of past events infused with memory and suspended in the present. In today’s world, the intensity of photographic media results in surplus of images, visual archives grow exponentially; nevertheless, certain phenomena of photography raise questions about meaning and determine the emergence of a new value. This research aims at reassessing and discussing several of these phenomena by elaborating on the artist works and reconsidering the works by other authors. The attempt is to get as close as possible to producing a method of self-reflection in order to show how the mind of an artist works. The methodological access to the reseach is microhistory. It implies microscopic inquiry, a comprehensive insight into a certain small-scale event. In microhistory, the meaning is attributed not to the case itself, but to issues raised while exploring that case. Findings are considered the object of the research – some significant trifles that are usually skipped in case studies for their insignificance, although, they hold the key to the rudiments of the past and to the promise of the future. Transferiring microhistory into artistic research as an approach that pins the fragment in artist personal interpretation, it becomes a key leading to the coordinates of place and time and by doing so reveal the volatility of these stable concepts and deceitfulness of a correct testimony. Photographic practice added new unexpected insights to this research and, during the creative process, highlighted the importance of intuition and coincidence. Project “Here Then, There Now”presents an artistic research on time and place that focuses on the eight-minute delay before sunlight reaches the surface of Earth. In the series, such as Suspended Light: Two Suns and Eight Minutes the resulting images are experiments in representing the irreversible flow of astronomical time, through the limited means provided by flat photographic surface. |
Vygintas Orlovas13th December 2019 ”Transformation: Relations of Image and Sound. Analysis of the Strategies for Creating Sound-image” Creative part supervisor prof. Alvydas Lukys
By using theoretical tools, I explore strategies that artists use to answer this question through creative practice or theoretical approaches. I look for similarities and differences in the underlying assumptions, transformational directions, media used for forming the connection between the two With a practice-based approach, I apply the strategies for creating sound-image and analyze the process to at least partially answer the above question. Through the analysis of the similarities between visible light and sound wave frequencies, through organizing a workshop on vaporwave and releasing an album, the visual analysis of sound propagation is gas, translation of poetry and other activities carried out in the research, some noises and idioms embedded in the media become apparent. Furthermore, tacit knowledge is revealed. Art Project
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Tomas Daukša29th November 2019 "System Derived From Equilibrium with the Feedback Loop" Creative part supervisor prof. Konstantinas Bogdanas
The creative part of the art project System derived from equilibrium with the feedback loop consists of 16 projects, 12 of which have been implemented and 4 have not been realized. The work began at the beginning of the doctorate studies (October 2014) and was in progress throughout the period of the studies (until October 2018). Several projects were being developed beyond the formal study period and are likely to be developed in the future. The exhibition t accompanying the defence of the art project presents the work called No Limit which was created at the very end of the Art doctorate program and possibly summarizes the studies. The exhibition space is filled with moving shining and sound-emitting artificial creatures. Viewed separately, brightly coloured creatures may look cute and playful, but their chaotic movement and noise they emit disturb and frighten. The atmosphere fluctuates between something resembling a game and a nightmare. Potential thoughts of animal-machine hybridisation may arise, that – together with considerations where to draw the line between the living and the lifeless, between a toy and something else – can be interrupted by an encounter with one of the creatures inhabiting the space. Art Project
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Rūta Spelskytė-Liberienė22nd November 2019 "How to Get Out of Your Head. Story of Love, War and Clouds" Creative part supervisor prof. Rimvydas Kepežinskas
I had a plan to have an extended dialogue. It did not go as planned. I went on hyper analyzing what went wrong. Research evolved into a broad investigation of mass conflicts, wars, terrorist attacks, massacres, bombings, poisonings. I spent years visiting locations of the conflicts and producing prints of the places. The dialogue did not get better, so, I thought, ok, there is no use from this research, I need to get rid of it. It appeared to be hardly possible. I turned to neuroscientists, shamans, Buddhists, chemistry, meteorology, psychology, gardening - anything that caught my attention and seemed relevant. By reading of W.Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, D. Bohm quantum organism, and J. Lovelock's theory of the Gaya, I started to think of the impossibility to know and to be sure about things. But also I began to think about the world as a constant movement of interconnected agents and information that can be grasped in many unexpected ways. I got interested in relationships and communication not among people but also plants, forests, animals, clouds, and planets. Art Project
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Konstantin Gaitanži25th April 2019 "Monstruarium. Analysis of Perspectives of Construction and Visualization of Monsters of Consciousness" Creative part supervisor prof. Jonas Gasiūnas
The “Monstruarium” art project consists of the theoretical text "Monstruarium. Analysis of Perspectives of Constructing and Visualization of Monsters of Consciousness” and exhibition of artworks. Theoretical part explores the specifics of the “monster's” phenomenon expression, its relation to the perception of the humanity’s place in the Universe, and the expression of various "monsters" concepts in visual art. It is an attempt to associate contemporary philosophy of consciousness with artistic practice by exploring various aspects of the phenomenon of "monstrous". The work consists of an introduction, three chapters and conclusions. The first chapter presents the general field of change in theories of consciousness and the concept of "monsters". The use of this concept is analyzed in mythological discourse, during the reign of mechanist philosophy, in the era of romanticism, in the cultural situation of modern scientism. Attention is drawn to its relationship with the dominant theories of interaction between the mind and the physical world. The second chapter examines the main ways of solving the problem of consciousness in the analytical philosophy of 20th and 21th centuries, and the impact of these solutions on the theory and practice of artificial intelligence and creation of artificial beings. The third chapter explores the possibilities of artistic visualization of the concepts of “monsters”. The artistic exposition consists of various forms of painting, the narratives of which, in different respects, relate to the issues of "monsterism" and "boundaries of humanity." Also, the exhibition presents works performed in “collaboration” with artificial intelligence systems. Art Project
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Renata Obcarskė23rd November 2018 "IMPRISONED MASCULINITY" Creative part supervisor prof. Konstantinas Bogdanas
The Art project “Imprisoned masculinity” analyses Lithuanian male prisoners’ representational forms, images as well as the influence of artistic activity to the concept and expression of masculinity. The problematic starting point is formed by such questions: which forms of masculinity dominate in the prisoners’ subculture? How artistic activity affects the concept of masculinity? What happens when authoritative convicts get involved in artistic activity? What changes can be seen in the lives of convicts who participate in artistic activities? This Art project introduces the prisoner subculture’s traits, hierarchical rank system, slang, unwritten “laws”, body cult, the artistic activity achievements of inmates in the Vilnius and Kaunas prison establishments, etc. The research is based on empirical data – conversations with convicts, reflection, observation and interpretation as well as a theoretical base: studies of sociology, masculinity and gender. The work uses diary-like monologues after visits to prison facilities. The text is written in a synthesis of academic and essayistic styles. Throughout the whole project I consciously refuse any sorts of critique, moralization, guilt analysis. With my participation in the prison establishments I do not aim to condemn nor to rehabilitate the prisoners. The selected position is one of an artist-observer-interpreter. Art Project
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Eglė Ulčickaitė26th October 2018 "PARALLEL CARD CATALOGUE" Creative part supervisor prof. Konstantinas Bogdanas
This art project explores the means of perceiving time and temporality as well as work of memory. I aim at comprehending where the state of experiencing parallel times comes from. The starting point of this project is the union of faith and doubt. Based on the mathematical theory of sets, this unity can be written down as follows: {past is absent} ⋃ {I have no doubts about existence of the past} = {there is no past, I have no doubts about its presence} Coordinates of time and place, which I term “place-specific time”, provide limits to this study. I explore manifestations of everyday life: things, interiors, spots, and sites – common-places that humans establish, reconstruct, and abandon. In particular, I focus on that part of local environment that gradually loses its utilitarian purpose. In paintings, I seek capturing time through pining difference in meaning of a thing and its function. This study could be qualified as a phenomenological observation of time, however its method is experimental discussion shaped by discourses of humanities, social sciences, and fiction. Concepts-analogies borrowed from different disciplines correspond to the creative (thinking) structure of the project: find (pre-painting plane) → clue / trace (painting plane) → symptom (post-painting plane). I consider paintings as peculiar containers of time(s) – as if I catch bygone time in painting at present. I reflect upon present experience of things that belong to the domain of the past, but not to my autobiographical memory. When painting, I create place-and-time-specific facts. Painting herein is a medium with the help of which I transform the unfamiliar into familiar. My creative method is borrowing. I imagine that this is the way to compensate for the lack of clear apprehension of what the lived present is. For it might be that what I do not remember is not mine. However, that does not necessarily mean that it is not part of me. Art Project
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Jolanta Kyzikaitė21st June 2018 "PAINTING AT PLAY" Creative part supervisor prof. Jonas Gasiūnas
This artistic research chops too broad reality into individual situations and solves them creatively by inventing formative scenarios for the painting process. They prompt me re-thinking my artistic positions as I go. I take game as my research strategy. My tactics consists of trying out various game scenarios. Each stage of painting involves choosing a character, a persona. The phrase “let’s say…” is the key that unlocks conditional reality of artistic practice placing me into a kind of performance for myself and my works. Invisible to spectators this creative attitude transforms the studio into a playground for images and words articulating the doubled conditionality of my chosen character. I create different scenarios for painting in an attempt at escaping from tacit knowledge of a painter. Uttering the phrase “let’s say…,” I cloak myself with a skin of the other, as if animating stuffed animals, masks, and dead images. Stuffed animal is a creature of the past; therefore, in my game, not the skin, but the actions that this skin conditions are important. To put it simply, my painting is about playing cloaked in skins. The animal of my games has never been alive. All my attempts are about raising a stuffed animal from the dead. Parents allow children believing in Santa Claus to destroy this myth later. This is how the world of games, illusions, and imagination breaks off from the world of the “real.” Perhaps this is why my paintings become a “stuffed paintings” – a kind of tapestries – yet another decoration on prop-palace walls. In a single exhibition, two projects merge –choosing of a particular skin (the game) and time of becoming as well as painting by means of the embodied animal. As I change skins, I invite you into my playroom – the painterly reality, each time a different world in a “different” reality. This time, it is the Trakų Vokė Manor. “Let’s say” I’m a princess. I dress up in a new dress and go to the carnival. My face is covered in a layer of powder, my eyelashes are hidden under black mascara, and my lips under pink lipstick. Today is my festival – my exhibition. This is the end of one stage of creative work. So, I need to pick not only a fitting outfit, but also to “turn on” my smile. May I celebrate? Why not? The works have been painted. They are what they are. My creative successes and failures until now known only to me are public –you can see them too. For this carnival, I put on a mask (or maybe take it off). Join in, please! Scenarios for paintings, conditional situations, games, let's say, performativity. Art Project
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Laisvydė Šalčiūtė20th April 2018 "MELODRAMAS. THREE STRATEGIES FOR THE VISUALIZATION OF THE BODY" Creative part supervisor prof. Rimvydas Kepežinskas
Our everyday life brings us to the realization of Western society being not only a consumer and spectacle – but a post-truth – society as well. The post-truth, just like consumerism and spectacle, relates to the emotionally charged communication of knowledge and the manipulation of our feelings. The key-word of this practice based research, (Melo)dramas, is of the artist’s coinage from the melodrama genre, one of emotionally strongest appeal on the viewer. The accent is on melo- element, as the artist plays with its homonymous meaning of falsehood in the Lithuanian language. This research is experience based. It proceeds in a methodical manner to unpack the subjective principles of the author’s artistic sensibility. These principles are articulated through the frameworks of the contemporary theories and three anchor concepts that refer to the phenomena of diverse nature: the bricolage, diary and melodrama. The research demonstrates and substantiates how these three phenomena – three creative strategies – mediate the artist’s subjective experience and observation of contemporary routine life; playful examples function as self-ironic illustrations of a (melo)dramatic emotionality of an individual living in the Western consumer society. Throughout the research, the artist has the opportunity to reconstruct herself and her immediate surroundings, taking mundaneness as a kind of adventure. Commonplace experiences and random events are inserted into the context of this research in reflection of emotional excess of the surrounding emotional culture and our relation to it. As the research unpacks the strategies of the bricolage, diary and melodrama, it also uncovers specific contents and experiences of creative activity. The author articulates such creative methods as mythopoetic intellectual crafting, self-reflective observation of everyday circumstances and their possible impact on the process of becoming of a work or art. Critical approach to the post-emotionality and falsehood of our contemporary consumer society serves the goal of deconstructing, with melodramatic methods, the very reflections of the melodrama genre in immediate everyday routines. Art Project
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Akvilė Anglickaitė6th October 2017 "UNCERTAINTY IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE. PHENOMENON OF PHOTOGRAPHY" Creative part supervisor prof. Alvydas Lukys
Uncertainty in contemporary culture and its connection with the phenomenon of photography are the main themes of this dissertation. The aim of this work is to show, that uncertainty creates resonance between an art peace and spectator. When uncertainty, created by an artist, coincide with a viewer’s uncertainty that the one is facing in cultural environment, it creates greater artistic impact. Uncertainty is both – the aesthetical principle and cultural context. The latter leads us to the question which is one of the main questions of philosophy – what is real? Or what are the basis of reality. Through the story of Don Juan, which begins in 17th century and lasts till now, we see how metaphysical basis of reality collapse, causing the uncertainty. But at the same time, the basis is establishing on the ground of laws of physics. That’s where I continue to investigate the uncertainty through the medium of photography. Photography encompass two opposite notions of time. One is inherited from Newtonian physics that state absolute time, the other from Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle. Former leads to the notion of unchanging, unmovable, fixed and objectified time in photography. That’s where the objectivity and the claim of certainty in photography comes from. The latter embraces the accident, probabilities, unforeseen movements that are also imbedded in the medium of photography and leads to the truth of the impact for the viewer. Photography creates conditions for this by its very nature, when uncountable details are fixed on the surface of any light sensitive surface. They cannot be controlled or deliberately are not controlled by a photographer and in the interaction with the viewers consciousness or unconsciousness can created unpredicted collisions which are certainly true. So there is a tremendous dynamic power embodied in photography, created by these two opposite notions and applications of time. Photographic image constantly oscillates between certainty and uncertainty and if consciously used, these oscillations can benefit in the process of creating an art peace. Art Project
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Darius Žiūra12th June 2017 "SWIM, MONUMENT FOR UTOPIA, GUSTONIAI, METATEXT" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
The Doctoral Art Project consists of a methodical development of my continuous long-term projects, which often involve other people belonging to different social groups. The inhabitants of one village have been filmed every three years for fifteen years (Gustoniai, 2001–ongoing). Illegal sex workers in the area around the Vilnius railway station have been portrayed in the photographic series Faces and Figures (both 2008–ongoing). Each of these projects has a documentary element and presents the results of a performative observation of social and cultural phenomena. Participants in different socio-cultural contexts have been involved in creating Monument for Utopia (2015). The doctoral thesis is constructed according to the principles I use while developing most of my art projects. The four-year time frame of the doctorate has been treated as a format to be gradually filled with text. This textual volume is time-based in two senses: the specific interval of time during which it was written and the chronological sequence of the presented texts. My choices of themes and topics have been dictated by the questions and problems that shape my self-understanding as an artist: re/presentation; the relations between personal experience and artistic expression; the relations between the writing process and different levels of objectivity; the problems of legality and ethical paradoxes grounded in our socio-cultural realm. The resulting body of text does not have a linear structure but rather applies different writing tactics and polyphonic narrative strategies. At the same time it is a study of an individual’s writing potential. Its contribution to academic knowledge is not based on formal, theoretical, research and ‘knowledge production’ in a traditional systematic sense, but instead reveals the position of a practicing artist. The text embodies my understanding of what a doctoral text project in the art field could be. Art Project
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Adomas Danusevičius31st March 2017 "CAMOUFLAGE MASCULINITY AND CAMPISH DAZZLE" Creative part supervisor prof. Henrik Bjørn Andersen
The art project is directly related to artworks created during it. The interdisciplinary works of art are based on theoretical insights by using an autoartresearch-based approach. The works created by the author do not only represent the theory but also, by employing different creation techniques, create new effects and meanings. Art Project |
The subject of the artistic research part of the art project Camouflage Masculinity and Campish Dazzle is the culture of homosexual individuals within the context of heteronormativity. The research part establishes historic and ideological beginning of the concepts of camouflage masculinity and campish dazzle and their opposition to each other. These two concepts are developed based on the analysis of profiles on online gay dating website PlanetRomeo.com and individual works of art. The analysis of alternative masculinity types contributes to deconstructing heteronormativity. The art project reveals the flaws of camouflage masculinity and campish dazzle and looks for an alternative attitude. Attempts are made to find a “middle ground” between the existing extremities through the analysis of artworks of Forest Bess and spirituality research. The key aim of the art project is creating artworks associated with the concepts of camouflage masculinity and campish dazzle and the analysis of their interrelationship in the context of the developments of images of homosexual individuals. The analysis of individual motion pictures, which reveals the development of images of homosexual individuals and its impact on the works by the author, adds to implementing this aim too.
Algirdas Gataveckas25th November 2016 "RELATION OF ARTIST AND PORTRAYED SUBJECT THROUGHOUT CREATIVE PROCESS: THE CASE STUDY OF IMPACT PROJECT" Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
The visual shape of the project consists of eight photorealistic full-length (194x102 cm) portraits of orphans during their last year in the orphanage. The idea took a great deal of will-power, very thorough and precise four-year-long work. Throughout the project I started “living” in the orphanage in Alytus once again in order to develop a direct relation with its environment and daily rituals. Remigijus, who we work and live with as an inseparable tandem, participated in this mission as well. While creating, we constantly look for a connection with the audience, we try to influence them – not only on the aesthetic, but also on the ethical level. The children used to observe and reflect on our persistent work that required focus and professional skills; that was how I tried to introduce the ethical dimension, i.e., by means of diligence to inspire the orphans for a creative life, to give them impulses to open up to creative powers, to see life in a different light, positively, to inspire them to create something on their own (even if it was not art-related). Aim of the theoretical work – to analyse the relation between the artist and the subject represented in the creative process and project Impact. The work analyses reactions of young people living in an orphanage in Alytus to the artist’s creative process as well as the impact of the project on the development of their creativity (in the broad sense), and reveals features of the social environment shift and its impact on the secondary audience. Art Project
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Jovita Varkulevičienė11th November 2016 "CREATIVE PROCESS IN THE APPLIED ART THERAPY ENVIRONMENT" Creative part supervisor prof. Laima Drazdauskaitė
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Monika Furmanavičiūtė8th November 2016 "TENDENCIES OF NEW REALISM IN THE YOUNG GENERATION OF LITHUANIAN PAINTERS" Creative part supervisor prof. Arvydas Šaltenis
In my research work, I examine my painting within the context of the work of young Lithuanian artists in the first decade of the present century. In the process of formulating my creative development from the beginning of my studies, I devote significant attention to the cultural surroundings in which I was enmeshed, for in looking at the work of my colleagues, I recognize elements of my own. Self-observation through the reflections of my surroundings became my creative foundation, which I understand to be an incessant process of re-creation influenced by my environment which plays the role of a curved mirror in my work. The influence of photography takes pride of place because the use of this medium in the process of painting cannot be separated from the work of contemporary painters. I assess changes of expressive means by relying on the experience of Western countries. I trace the tendencies of Western art in their influence on the context of Lithuanian painting. I also devote significant attention to identity the themes of contemporary female identity, finding interesting parallels with the use of photography in painting. Art Project
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Art project is based on the core provision that collective art processes and the experience gained from them have a potential to help an individual integrate into society, adapt to its requirements or to have self-confindence to stand up against the social pressure. The impact that such collective art projects have on the target group, on the relationships, interests of its members is analyzed in the work, considering also the influence that artistic experiences and insights have on the communication, interaction, socialization and recovery dynamics of the project participants. In this study, I initiate art activities for a selected group of mental hospital and social care facility patients, as well as participate in the activities of the institutions as their equivalent member. I do not limit my project to only organizing the social art therapy activities, but also seek to transform the experience gained in them to a painting activity, carried out separately from the group activities. I do not intend to capture particular persons in the portrait series “Borderline portraits”, what I intend to do is to visualize the memory – the form and state of the moment. The objective of my paintings is not to represent the body as a traditional portrait would do, but to reveal the state of the portrayed person. That, on the other hand, is only my personal view of a human being.
Žygimantas Augustinas
27th November 2015
"PICTURE DEMAND"
Creative part supervisor prof. Artūras Raila
Theoretical part supervisor prof. dr. Giedrė Mickūnaitė
Artistic research project ”Picture Demand“ explores human characteristic to simultaneously trust and doubt of the credibility of an image. Tragicomic role of subjectivity come to the fore during research of the existing and newly created portraying methods. The inquiry into forensic approach of facial reconstruction relying on various picture research theories, has revealed the impossibility of objectivity. Subjectivity is implicit in any human creation, regardless of attempts in camouflaging it under the concepts of “objectivity” or “scientific validity.” Alongside the awareness of subjective nature of images, the research explores the new ways of portraying that would convince the dubious but also humorous viewer.
The research has revealed intangibility of the appearance of Kristijonas Donelaitis (Lithuanian poet, for whom we do not have reliable portraits) and inaccuracies in his facial reconstruction carried out by scientists. The project has once again undertaken the attempts to reconstruct the poet’s face and these pictorial experiments resulted not only in portraits, but also three conceptual approaches in portraiture: “Craniometrical Portraying” – a method of assumed objectivity, “Ethical Self-Portraying” – a method of open subjectivity and “Appellative Portraying” – a method of uniform portrayal. In order to test these new methods new portraits of Kristijonas Donelaitis, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus and Homo Catinus have been painted. The conclusions have been derived from three series of paintings and their accompanying visual artefacts: The Case of K. Donelaitis, The Case of “In”, and The Case of Homo Catinus. Each one of them is related to a physical person’s demand for a picture, and could therefore be titled as a picture-demand portrait.
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