THE PRO-TEST LAB

HAPPENINGText: Emanuelis Ryklys

The pro-test lab was initiated by VILMA (Vilnius Interdisciplinary Lab for Media Arts) at the cinema Lietuva in Vilnius and was testing the understanding of possible and/or impossible forms of protest.

Protest, which is accumulated, maturated, yet unidentified, unvoiced, still in search for its form, format and voice. Protest against control, our own inability and drift. Protest against our inability to protest against the undisputed scenario of a single system. The pro-test lab addresses citizens with a request to propose a possible scenario of protest.

In defeated battlefields of the privatization, Lietuva cinema theather has become a significant orienting point. A defeated Vilnius cinema theather has bestowed the keys to Benetton.

Now the turn of Lietuva has come. The pro-test lab tried to addressed the citizens with a request to propose a possible scenario of the protest. The form of scenario was open: audio or video interview, texts, schemes, posters, performances or other expressions that represent wishes of the citizens, finally – circumstances of impossibility of such a scenario, contexts and reasons.

Therefore pro-test lab addressed cultural producers and theorists, who have recently discussed a lack and yearning for certain protest or political will, reflecting various issues ranging from monuments, urban development to lifestyle, consumerism, dominance of labels.

The pavilion, a former ticket office at the cinema Lietuva was converted into a pro-test lab to perform a function of recording device. Referring to the brothers Lummiere early model of camera, that performed twofold function (filming and screening), this recording device generated an action, registering the scenario of protest.

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