[spectre] Hacking Public Spaces in Vilnius, an interview [u]

[Sonar Radar]

are either of them hot?? we only care about hot chicks
in LA.

ciao -

ga.

--- "Geert Lovink [c]" <geert at xs4all.nl> wrote:

> Hacking Public Spaces in Vilnius
> Politics of a new media space inside the Lietuva
> (soviet) cinema
> 
> Interview with Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas
> By Geert Lovink
> 
> Ever since I met Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas in
> 1999, two contemporary 
> artists from Lithuania, they have been in search for
> an art space where 
> they could establish a media lab, host talks and
> exhibit new media 
> related art works. In August 2004 their
> organization, Vilma, hosted the 
> RAM 6 workshop in Vilnius--yet another example which
> showed how well 
> organized they were, and how desperate in need of
> their own 
> infrastructure to do critical and innovative
> projects. This spring, 
> Nomeda and Gediminas suddenly saw a chance--and
> grabbed it. They 
> occupied the huge voyer of the privatized Lietuva
> cinema, over which a 
> controversy had arisen. In May 2005 Nomeda and
> Gediminas were in 
> Amsterdam briefly for the opening of the Populism
> show at the Stedelijk 
> Museum, a moment we used to catch up and prepare for
> the following 
> interview, which was done through email over the
> past few weeks. The 
> situation of their exciting projects is changing on
> a daily basis and 
> we'll hope to keep you informed. In the meanwhile,
> if you would like to 
> support them, for instance by sending them taping
> which they could 
> screen, please contact them. Email plus URLs can be
> found below.
> 
> GL: Hi, how are you? It's been an exciting few
> months for you. Tell us 
> all about the space. How does it look inside? And
> what's happening 
> inside, for instance last week?
> 
> NU & GU: To tell all about the space, we should make
> a short story long 
> and introduce you to the context. Since independence
> in 1991 Lithuania 
> has been caught in an insane period of
> privatization, property 
> development and demolition. Like a Wild West
> land-grab or a gold rush, 
> speculators and real estate tycoons have joined
> forces with corrupt 
> municipal bureaucrats to redevelop the country at a
> mad pace. Profit 
> has been their only motive. Public space, landmark
> buildings, cultural 
> life, and public opinion have been the principal
> victims. Their method 
> is simple: tell the population that economic
> development is good for 
> everyone. Convince them that Capital is King. Remind
> the public that 
> making Lithuania look like the pale shade of a
> Western European city is 
> the best way to scrub the Soviet past: and make the
> country attractive 
> to even more investment and development.
> 
> During Soviet times, cinema played an important role
> in public cultural 
> life. Large movie theatres were built in central
> locations around 
> Lithuanian cities. The theatres filled a crucial
> role as places for 
> public meetings and gatherings. After independence,
> as Soviet 
> structures rapidly crumbled in a wholesale fashion,
> the cinemas caught 
> the attention of the real estate market. In a short
> time, private 
> enterprise managed to take over and destroy almost
> every cinema in 
> Vilnius, turning them into apartments and
> supermarkets.
> 
> More than 15 cinema theatres disappeared including
> such urban landmarks 
> as Ausra (Dawn), Zvaigzde (Star), Spalis (October),
> Pionierius 
> (Pioneer), Pergale (Victory), Tevyne (Motherland),
> Kronika (Newsreel), 
> Aidas (Echo), Planeta (Planet), Neris, Vingis,
> Lazdynai, Vilnius, 
> Maskva (Moscow), and LIETUVA (Lithuania). In poor
> replacement, and 
> mirroring the tragedy of cities all over the world,
> two 2 multiplex 
> cinema monsters were constructed: the suburban Coca
> Cola Plaza and 
> exurban Akropolis Cinemas. The latter, that is part
> of Lithuania’s 
> largest shopping mall, is representative of the
> 'mallification' of 
> Lithuania. With the multiplexes came multiplex
> Hollywood movies: so the 
> demolition of cinematic space encoded a demolition
> of independent film 
> programming.
> 
> Now, in 2005, there is only one cinema standing:
> LIETUVA. And a battle 
> has emerged to save it. Cinema Lietuva was built in
> 1965 and, 
> significantly, is the largest cinema in Lithuania
> with over 1000 seats 
> and a screen size of 200 square meters, offering an
> ideal image size. 
> It is the home of the Vilnius Film Festival and as
> such has played an 
> important role in the imaginative life of a whole
> generation of Vilnius 
> people. The title of the enterprise “Lietuva”
> (Lithuania) is also an 
> important signifier of national identity, as its
> name never bore any 
> Soviet overtones (i.e. it wasn’t called the Cinema
> of the Soviet 
> Republic of Lithuania). To say to somebody “let’s
> meet at Lietuva” 
> really meant something during Soviet occupation.
> 
> In 2002, the Vilnius Municipal authorities quietly
> sold the cinema to 
> private property developers; with a caveat that it
> had to operate as a 
> cinema for a three-year period. That term is ending
> on 1 July 2005 and 
> a protest to save the cinema has begun.
> 
> In March 2005 we infiltrated the former ticket
> office of the country 
> largest cinema, staging the 'pro-test lab', which is
> the embodiment of 
> VILMA – Vilnius Interdisciplinary Lab for Media
> Arts. Pro-test lab is 
> constructed as a spatial device to register the
> scenario of protest and 
> generate an action. The logic of the spatial device
> refers to the 
> Brothers Lumiere early model of the cinema camera
> that performed a 
> twofold function both recording and projecting the
> action. Pro-test lab 
> is generating and archiving all available forms of
> protest against the 
> situation of the Cinema Lietuva focusing on the
> discourse of public 
> space vs. corporate privatization. The protest is
> aimed at reclaiming 
> the now privatized space.
> 
> Pro-test lab is testing the understanding of
> possible and/or impossible 
> forms of protest. It is inviting participation in,
> and facilitating, 
> protest from groups which as yet are unidentified
> and are searching for 
> ways of making their opinions heard: and the
> particular activity that 
> would best support their protest. Pro-test lab is
> actively advertising 
> itself as a space in which anti-establishment, or at
> least 
> anti-hegemonic, opinion can flourish. The officers
> of the pro-test lab, 
> and the technical support structure, will help give
> form to these 
> opinions. Pro-test lab will help develop a protest
> scenario. It is a 
> production house of protest.
> 
> The space of the former ticket office is build as
> separate segment of 
> larger architectural set rendered in grayish stucco.
> We have got access 
> to such relatively big space (250 square meters),
> thanks to the fashion 
> of queuing, largely rehearsed in former times.
> 
> Even after the 1997 renovation the space preserved
> the charm of a 
> modernist glass pavilion that encloses the ground
> floor of the whole 
> building, facing to the larger square of one of a
> main streets in a 
> 
=== message truncated ===



		
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