Karaoke

Nomeda and Gedeminas Urbonas 2001, Video projection 15 minutes.
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Artists about their work: It’s all about singing. Independence as the aim of “Singing revolution” has brought us capitalism with post-colonialism as a paradoxical consequence of political freedom. The capitalism, which replaced the socialism, involves wild privatization, and therefore features of oppression, is stoically persisted as a free will by frightened citizens to disappoint our Western tutors. How come, that grandpa’s Marx’s lessons were so easily forgotten. Or maybe just Marxism as well as Leninism had a bad connotation in Lithuanians mind due to well-known reasons. Capitalism had a positive reception, because of seductive mundane welfare of the market: chewing gum, bananas, jeans, sex, money and... ABBA. Even without understanding the text, therefore the lyrics [often the essence of the song], inhabitants of the big state have penetrated theirs bodies with rhythms and melodies of a new utopia. The new utopia of the market became a fetish accepted what was imposed on them as originating in their 'nature'. The power of Karaoke [DIY] enabled people of replay of something that has happen before - they become even no longer aware of their subordination, so the lessons of dialectic and historic materialism were easily forgotten.
The fascination with Estrada borrows from ABBA’s song “Money, Money, Money”, which is performed in English by the volunteer employees of LTB - The Lithuanian Savings Bank. The work is exercising the performing without reading the message.
LTB - The Lithuanian Savings Bank is the last state owned bank, that was privatized by the foreign investors. LTB is the point for the departure to cash the outdated memories about ourselves. And the point of return it is as well.

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas, born in Kaunas and Vilnius, respectively, in 1966, live and work in Vilnius. Active as artists, the past few years mostly with video. They met in 1986 on a train to Moscow, on their way to the opening of Russia’s first McDonalds. Since then they have started the Jutempus interdisciplinary art program, the first artist-driven art institution in Vilnius, and VILMA, the Vilnius Interdisciplinary lab for media arts. During the spring of 2001 they have worked at CRAC and in the IASPIS ateliers in Stockholm.

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