Images in Motion

Moving images that have been created at the VAA PHAMA department for the last three decades still appear to be invisible and obscured. A few go public thanks to their authors' successful careers or garner acclaim in festival programmes. Yet it is VAA that is the cradle of artist-made moving image in Lithuania. It was home to the first local experimenters in the sphere of video art, and the conditions for this form of creative expression were provided by Vaizdo studija (Image/ Video Studio), established in 1994. This studio and the Photography and Video Art study programme launched on its basis in 1996, as well as the department of the same name founded a year later, offered access to the then unaffordable imaging technology. Accounts of the development of Lithuanian art omit (or perhaps even are ignorant of) the fact that this not only opened up new creative paths, but also granted an opportunity for women to enter the current art processes, in which contemporaneity became associated with new media and moving image, on equal terms.

The terms media and media art appeared in the department's name and the study programme descriptions just a few years later, when they were still not in official use in Lithuania. In terms of the evolution of moving image, it is important to mention that animation, which has been created at the department for more than two decades, is also understood as a medium in the expanded field. This is phenomenal in the Lithuanian context, where animation is conventionally associated exclusively with cinema.

The Images in Motion project opens up the audiovisual archive of VAA PHAMA - drawing from the latter, the invited researchers of video art, animation, media art and experimental cinema have prepared talks and compiled thematic moving image screening programmes for a series of six events at the National Gallery of Art. It will be started off by Gintaras Šeputis, one of the pioneers of Lithuanian video art, founders of Vaizdo studija, and former lecturers of the department. He invites the audience to a performative feast celebrating the 30th anniversary of Vaizdo studija, an opportunity to see early Lithuanian video art works and meet those who contributed their work to the success of the studio. Artist, curator and moving image researcher Gerda Paliušytė intends to overview the evolution of video technology, abstraction and documentality in Lithuanian art, illustrated by a visual programme compiled mostly from works created at the VAA PHAMA department. The creative legacy of the VAA alumni also interests the curator and contemporary culture researcher Jurij Dobriakov, albeit in his case the focus is on the video documentation of site-specific and processual works of media art that transcend the plane of the screen. Issues of documentality are relevant to the film, photography and visual studies scholar Natalija Arlauskaitė, who has authored several monographs on the topic. Basing her analysis on examples of animation in the expanded field, she delves into accounts of private relationships, social issues and historical events that emerge from the interaction of animation and the photographic document. Artist, curator and alumna of the department Aurelija Maknytė reflects on the screen(s) from a personal perspective, referring to experiences and works that expand its (their) notion. Meanwhile, VAA art doctoral candidate, filmmaker and screenwriter Miklós (Miki) Ambrózy explores the context of experimental cinema in Lithuania and proposes a discussion of the current situation of this art field's communities of practice.

The talks, discussions and screenings curated by the researchers will take place on September 6-20, 2024, in the auditorium of the National Gallery of Art.

The programme of the event series can be found here.

Throughout the project's duration, visitors will have an opportunity to view a retrospective of moving image compilations from the archives of the VAA PHAMA department, NGO Meno Avilys and NGA (compiled by: Arturas Bukauskas, Eglė Davidavičė, Jurij Dobriakov, Anders Härm, Audrius Mickevičius, Gerda Paliušytė, Irma Stanaitytė-Bazienė, Simonas Tarvydas, Gintaras Šeputis, Gintarė Valevičiūtė-Brazauskienė, Sonata Žalneravičiūtė) on the computers in the NGA lobby.

The programme of the retrospective can be found here.

Project curator: Irma Stanaitytė-Bazienė

Project coordinators: Gailė Cijūnaitytė (VAA), Eglė Nedzinskaitė (NGA)

Visual identity designer: Dovydas Černiauskas

Lithuanian language editor: Margarita Gaubytė

Translator: Jurij Dobriakov

Archive consultants: Gailė Cijūnaitytė, Irma Stanaitytė-Bazienė, Gintarė Valevičiūtė-Brazauskienė

Archival material and screening programmes technically prepared by:  Viktorija Balkutė, Rimantas Oičenka, Margarita Valionytė

Project documented by: Masha Frolova,Rokas Gelžinis

Project organised by: VAA Photography, Animation and Media Art Department

Project partners: National Gallery of Art, NGO Meno Avilys

Project financed by: Lithuanian Council for Culture

Thank you: the project team; authors of the art works used in the project; compilers of the moving image collections; VAA staff Rasa Bliakevič, Arturas Bukauskas, Marius Iršėnas, Agnė Kaminskienė, Gintas Kavoliūnas, Vytautas Michelkevičius, Vidas  Poškus, Neringa Savickė, Laura Stasiulytė Gudaitė, Ričardas Šileika, Irena Turčinavičienė; NGA staff Lolita Jablonskienė, Austėja Tavoraitė; NGO Meno Avilys staff Žygimantas Jančoras, Gerda Paliušytė; Lithuanian Council for Culture curator Lina Lagunavičienė

Images used for the visual identity of the project:  detail of the poster for a screening of video works created at the VAA Vaizdo studija (1996); stills from the works Buttermilk (Agata Tracevič, 2020), Capsule (Julijus Balčikonis, 2007), Swanback (Marija Nemčenko, 2023), Snow (Dainius Gasparavičius, 2000), Light Therapy III (Aurelija Maknytė, 2006)