Photo/audio reportage from "Tap VVater" exhibition at the Russian drama theatre of Lithuania

The stream doesn’t have to be ours; the water doesn’t have to be ours. The anonymous water knows all my secrets. And the same memory issues from every spring.

Gaston Bachelard

A peripatetic is well aware of our spaces being a karaoke for many mouths: the words by which our paths are drawn leak down the pipe-ways into a total circuit. These utterances wash out foundations of our shelters and hideouts, that smoulder in quicksand of memory. A peripatetic has a sense that a gaze is filled with appetite and the eyes, like tongues, stretch through alleys and corridors finally interweaving into an untieable knot. It drips.

The group show “Tap Water” opens on 2nd September, 2015 at the Russian Drama Theatre of Lithuania in Vilnius. The exhibition is presented as a research into folkloric geographies and linguistic communities of the city, treating the historical theatre building as both a ready-made and an active character that could be found sipping on a glass of tap water amongst the exhibition guests.

Arturas Bumšteinas (LT), Ivan Galuzin (NO), Laurent – David Garnier (F), Monika Kalinauskaitė (LT), Laura Kaminskaitė (LT), Valentinas Klimašauskas (LT), Marija Rasa Kudabaitė (LT), Žilvinas Landzbergas (LT), Lietuvos rusų dramos teatras, Nicholas Matranga (US), Rūtenė Merkliopaitė (LT), Darius Mikšys (LT), Kęstutis Montvidas (LT), Beatričė Mockevičiūtė (LT), Robertas Narkus (LT), Jonas Palekas (LT), Post Brothers (US), Augustas Serapinas (LT), Gintautė Skvernytė (LT), Rokas Valiauga (LT), Lina Zaveckytė (LT).

Tap Water is curated by Audrius Pocius (LT).

The opening ceremony, scripted by Valentinas Klimašauskas has taken place on Wednesday, 2nd September at the Russian drama theatre of Lithuania. The guests were treated to a special menu devised by Jonas Palekas and Rūtene Merkliopaitė, complemented by Laurent-David Garnier’s special cocktail. Together they have invited guests to dance, read, engage in conversations with local plants and get lost in the theatre’s orchestra pit.

The exhibition was accompanied by a Tap VVater dinner.

Arturas Bumšteinas, Ventus Ex Machina, 2015, 4:40 min stereo audio file

This demonstration of sound was recorded specifically for the exhibition „Tap Water“ using a synthesizer „Polyvox“, engineered in USSR in the 70s. This synthesizer was used in the Lithuanian Russian drama theater for many years in order to illustrate various nature phenomena, such as, wind, thunder or rain.

 

Laura Kaminskaitė, A verbal, motion piece, 2015 (no image)

The piece manifests itself in complimentary moments for its appearance.
An abstraction, which is neither a precise address nor a familiar taxi driver.

 

The object on display is a rock formed in junction of two tectonic plates during orographic process. The exhibit is part of a permanent exposition of the Museum of Geology of Vilnius University.

Marija Rasa Kudabaitė, Tap Water, a five-piece soundtrack for the exhibition, duration variable

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

 

Upon his arrival to planet Earth, ALF is eating, arguing, setting kitchen fires, destroying the car, digging the pool, saying “hello” to strangers and many more.
In this episode, ALF finds himself in the theatre control booth during the play.

Photographs by Rokas Valiauga

The opening ceremony, scripted by Valentinas Klimašauskas, has taken place on 2nd September at the Russian drama theatre of Lithuania. The guests were treated to a special menu devised by Jonas Palekas and Rūtene Merkliopaitė, complemented by Laurent-David Garnier’s special cocktail  “D.U.S.T.”. Together they have invited guests to dance, read, engage in conversations with local plants and get lost in the theatre’s orchestra pit.