“Where do you want to take me'” asks Kylie looking through the window of the car. “Well, first I would like to show you what I’ve got inside”; I close the window. “Could you please open that thing in front of you… sorry, I cannot remember its name in English, but you won’t be disappointed, there’s a surprise inside.” She shrugs, “There’s only a book of Paul Morley¹ that I know well, and A Tribute to Kylie CD. “Exactly, A Tribute to Kylie CD that I always wanted to show you,” a smile reaches my face. “It’s a record of your songs that have been performed by unknown international singers and released by obscure offshore labels, which made them available in our economic zone. They are much cheaper than the original and still remain a sort-of-original (I bought it in a supermarket) due to the fact that its a tribute, unlike the pirate CDs of your albums that you can get on the streets of Vilnius or Prague. What a great invention! Studio 99 perform hits of Kylie Minogue. Can I call you Studio 99'“

“Can we play the CD?” asks Studio 99. I don’t mind, although I would love to introduce her to the song by the Lithuanian participants of Eurovision who came in 16th this year, despite their camp mix of Mediterranean looks and Baltic passion. Music slowly fills the saloon of the car². Slow. We follow our thoughts about the value of intellectual property, the black market and piracy. “Are there many pirates in your town?” asks Studio 99. “Not everybody,” I say, “perhaps it’s more expensive to copy local pop music than to actually produce it. Its cheapness has become its main trademark. And the supply of local information has far outrun the demand for a foreign one. Plus the local market is extremely small.” “What about books?” asks Studio 99. “Well, there’s only one spot in town where you can get THE FACE,” I grin, “Nevertheless there’s a Lithuanian version of FHM, along with Cosmopolitan and Harpers Bazaar and many other mostly women-oriented publications.“ “So men read less?” questions Studio 99. “Of course, look at those videos: men either stand around in some prehistoric nocturnal ritual or play war games at various stages of their life, while teenage girls send letters to the magazines wondering about their sexual identity.” “Yet both actions perform a function of socialisation and inscription within the community,” Studio 99 helps to move the conversation towards its subject: “Maybe that’s the reason women are more open and inventive than men in your country?” she adds. “But they sing as badly as men,” I say, disregarding the fact the female voice has become the main voice (-over) of the films of Lithuanian artists (as well as the subject of complex investigations like in Ruta Remake by Gediminas and Nomeda Urbonas.) “And perhaps those people in Vilnius who make videos about singing are more successful abroad than those who simply sing?” she brings in. “It might be that the pop scene is strictly a product of the local market as opposed to contemporary art that has learned the global language and rules of export. While singers try to get rid off their accent (who is going to listen to them singing in Lithuanian?) video-makers successfully market it as an artistic commodity. “In English?” Studio 99 winks. “Sometimes not even a single word is involved, and yet one can still find a number of local peculiarities and bizzarizms that are valued outside, but have no market inside. Can we call it successful?” I wonder. “What are those videos about³?” asks Studio 99. “Memory. Margins. Tradition and identity. Transition and translation from one set of circumstances or languages into another. Folklore as a possibility of subjectivisation. Gender roles. Ritual, game and media as tools of socialisation in a rapidly changing environment. Sex and drugs.” “Sex?” Studio 99 turns back. “Well, teenage only, and it’s not a video, it’s a slide-projection by Laura Stasiulyte, and with drugs there’s a video by Evaldas Jansas, but for a far more mature audience. Don’t forget that in our Catholic society sex leads toward the family; drugs lead toward the exit.” “What about guns?” Studio 99 digs deeper. “Well, perhaps a couple of years ago I might have taken you to Gariunai market where Egle Rakauskaite did a video⁴. But I think the times of flashy outlaw glamour are over and most of the shady deals went deeper into social relations and corrupted institutions. When Egle visited Gariunai she was guided by a representative from the market, which resulted in a rather touristic depiction of the subject: for example, we see two vendors playing chess, but noone playing cards which would be much more appropriate to the context. That’s why I will not bring you to Gariunai. “Do you still want to take me somewhere?” muses Studio 99. “I can take you anywhere, maybe the place where Werner Herzog shot his movie about inter-war Poland or the place where Americans did their version of Robin Hood. Didn’t you know that Vilnius is a good place to travel in time? As my friend Rene Gabri put it “it’s a patchwork of different cities, constructed in different periods through different visions of a present-future. Sets of streets often refer to streets in other neighborhoods, sometimes in other cities, possibly with other purposes or headings in mind.” Once actors from Lithuania or other Baltic States used to perform the roles of Germans and Americans (but never Lithuanians) in films about World War II or the Cold War produced in Moscow, and films about the West filmed at the Baltic sea were highly popular in the whole USSR.” Studio 99 listens. “Actually we don’t have to go anywhere as we are on screen already,” I keep going, “There are surveillance cameras installed in the key public spaces of the city so we can experience more than fifteen minutes of fame.”

“And we can still play the CD?” asks Studio 99. “Of course. I am sorry to forget to put it on... Let the music take control.” I slide the CD into the deck. Music slowly fills the car. Studio 99 looks like Kylie, her thoughts are catching the wind and she’s lip-synching to the beat. “Is it a rule of a genre always to compare the situation in your country ten years ago with the current situation?” – a surprise question. “Well, the acceleration of change, and external demand did indeed create a specific genre,” I say, “But I can assure you that people here never used to party as much as they do now. Growing economic power, the optimism of the present, and euphoria of consumption make it into a pretty memorable continuous event, even if we still dance along to A Tribute to Kylie instead of the original tracks.” Studio 99 looks amused and searches for an accelerator, “Come into my world,” I hear her voice.

Raimundas Malasauskas is an artist and critic from Vilnius, Lithuania.

1 – Morley, Paul (2003) Words and Music: a History of Pop in The Shape of a City, London: Bloomsbury. (“Paul Moorley takes the reader on an epic drive through the history of music to find out has pop burnt itself out. The drive is inspired by the video for Kylie Minogue’s hit single ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’; it’s as if Kylie herself is driving towards a virtual city built of sound and ideas. A succession of celebrities, geniuses and other protagonists led by Madonna, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Erik Satie, John Cage and Witgenstein appear in Kylie’s car to give their points of view.” (excerpt from the annotation of the book). Well, while none of the aforementioned above was in the car I’ve decided to join Kylie on her trip too.

2 – “A fundamental element of the cityscape in post-Communist countries kiosk like the cars with darkened window glasses mark an individual ambition for privacy. A kiosk – for individual activity (small business), the cars – for personal space. We are concerned about them because both a kiosk and car are highly important elements of the cityscape. Their significance in the life of contemporary Lithuania is well enough witnessed by an enormous growth of the amount of kiosks and cars in the post-Soviet times. The cars with darkened window glasses legalise their privacy by way common to a post-Communist society – here privacy also implies secrecy similar to the criminal’s unwillingness to be seen in public. The public importance of the subcultures of a kiosk and the car with darkened window glasses can be proved by one more fact – the authorities have made repeated attempts in the course of the recent ten years to limit and regulate their existence in a legitimate way.” Valatkevicius, Jonas (2001) Social Situation of Lithuanian Architecture at the End of the 20^th Century. Practical Approach. Example – Metropolis.

3 - Video has become widely accessible and relatively cheap medium in the beginning and mid 90s when state support for art production has basically stopped. On the other hand video was a medium fast and sensible enough (thus most appropriate) to catch the rapidly changing environment in flux. So video at some point has become the key medium in Baltic States. Basically it fell on two lines of production: video-installation and a single-channel video, perhaps the latter becoming the main medium of telling a personal story. Most of the videos produced in Lithuania were unscripted documentaries and interviews examining the social circumstances and the personal drama of a marginalised society members.

4 - “What is Gariunai?” asked Vilnius in Your Pocket guide in 2002 then and provided an immediate answer: “The sketchiest market in all of Lithuania and all Baltic countries. You can really find anything here. Basically all sorts of goods are available from cars to house wares to (so I’ve heard) guns.”