TRANSACTION at haus.0 Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
interviews, session, film collection (3 DVD 30 min.), film archive (56 VHS), sign system / haus.0 / Kunstlerhaus / Stuttgart / 2000
“… Working within the haus.0 framework could allow TRANSACTION focus to really be more equally shared between the methodology which was shaping it, and the results obtained, addressing the communication of a political, gendered, social space.
The haus.0 program allows artists the possibility to develop or just fix some anchor points to such ideas within a specific economy of means, that already brings with it a philosophy of media archives (the program plug-ins) and resources, media production, art practice and is not so much being placed into a room, but two systems set in exchange – the invited artist’s and the program. Therefore the project must fit into some aspect of exchange with the institution around for example video or audio media, like the Lithuanian videos were added to the collection. After a few years, there is an artist’s space program, with a collection of resources and overviews from projects, where one sees Transaction’ providing some of the scripting of the program, and leaving a trace.
TRANSACTION is perceived as ongoing project which linked to nation and identity, history and future as routed through gendered spatial narratives. What is felt, or palpable, is not the three points that mark off the transaction process’, but how these points assist in triangulating around a type of ‘void’ – one situated in regards to identifying the contemporary society concerning post 1989 Lithuania. So it joins notions of history and future to own positions regarding the role of the artist within that society, and importantly, a uniquely Lithuanian set of issues that offers a new refraction on an old vantage point – an East perspective, yes, but now introducing itself in between a cultural West and East, i.e. America/Europe and Soviet Russia.
In that way, while there was this missing communication that is articulated through de/referring to national cinema and memory, it was not going towards nostalgia. The cinema resulted in a rich interface to the present, due to the way the one section of the population, women interviewees, are recalling films through the women’s roles, and within a specific national – Lithuanian – cinema, one that was already under the Soviet censor, and as discovered, often only available in Moscow archives. It was easy to see how it could be well suited to the haus.0 philosophy, with its initiated projects such as Norman Klein’s Scripted Spaces, or Ruby Sircar’s a.m.p…”
From chat conversation with Fareed Armaly, artistic director of Kunstleraus, Stuttgart
