ARTURAS BUMŠTEINAS & LAURA GARBŠTIENĖ
APPLAUSE
2004
Video installation, transparent screen projection, DVD loop, sound, 10′
Members of Parliament stand up and applause while the emblem of the Soviet Republic of Lithuania is being covered behind them. It’s a symbolic adieu to a former epoch, whose emblem looms behind a monochrome cloth. Centimeter by centimeter, the black and white historical truth is being covered with the bright colors of the Soviet emblem, scanned from an obsolete schoolbook. What do the members of Parliament applause for, and when? As soon as the history of the past decades is reassembled in its last detail in front of the viewer, the video starts running backwards, examining (again) one centimeter after another as if to probe whether the content has remained the same after being hidden by the cloth, time and video manipulation. Members of parliament continue applauding and, right when their non-manipulated black and white reality is being returned to them, they start executing their authorized decision - the canvas moves up again…
(V.J.)
ARTURAS BUMŠTEINAS (1982, Vilnius, LT) is a sound and visual artist. As a sound artist Bumšteinas has completed a number of musical scores for different instrumental ensembles and orchestras, has released albums of electro acoustic music, founded the Laptop Quartet Twentytwentyone, which is devoted primarily to performances of graphical notation scores, and has performed at festivals and concerts of experimental music all over Europe and the US. As a visual artist Bumšteinas started to work together with Laura Garbštienė. In 2002, during the exhibition Parallel Progressions 3 in the Contemporary Art Center Vilnius they founded the G-Lab duo, devoted to video art, audiovisual installations and performances. From 2002 Bumšteinas has participated in more than twenty exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad. In addition to his continuous artistic work in G-Lab (2002-2005), Bumšteinas has also collaborated with artists such as Simon Wickham-Smith, Jeff Surak, Jesse Glass, Borut Savski, Max Reinhardt, Rytis Mažulis, Anton Lukoszevieze and many others. He is based in Vilnius.
LAURA GARBŠTIENĖ (1973, Vilkija, LT) received her MA degree from the Vilnius Art Academy in 2000. Her artistic practice, based on the media of video and photography, often relies on process and performance. She often makes herself the subject of her work, responding to a place or a situation, with an interest in the manipulations of language, coincidence, subjective emotional experiences and common traits in multicultural contexts. In 2008 she was awarded an International Studio Program Residency at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede in Germany and received a grant from the Ministry of Culture of Lithuania. In 2006 she was awarded an International Studio Programme Residency at Residency at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck, Austria, a residency at the state of NRW Studio, Düsseldorf, Germany. Recent exhibitions include: It Happens To Be This, Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, Germany; 2420 Ciurlionis, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Prague Biennale 3, Czech Republic, Selfobjects, Radvilu palace, Vilnius Art Museum, Lithuania. She is based in Vilnius.
