Born in 1974, Siauliai, Lithuania. Lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Works with different media including videos / films, photography, graphic art, installations and objects.
In artworks by Kristina Inciuraite we see static images that imply a kind of social paralysis, suspense, and expulsion. A stage that metonymically depicts the representational stage itself always remains empty or, to put it more exactly, is consciously emptied out. On the socio-political level it can be related to the changes of economic formations - places, important in the period of socialism, have now become either abandoned, or have been appropriated by different aesthetics or ideology. Why do these empty abandoned stages become a theme for visual narration? Is it a consistent attempt (for example, by an ethnographer- researcher) to register the disappearing ‘civilisations’, or merely an endeavour to define the ideologically changed meaning of public spaces? The question why this empty stage has to be exposed, exhibited and in this way preserved, as if trying to restore the ideological balance, seems much more important. Of course, this empty stage is not totally empty: indirectly it bears witness to the past and recalls what the voices backstage do not know or do not remember; on the other hand, in a negative way – in absentia – it hints at other existing ideological scenes, which are not renowned for this kind of moderation. It is these ’other’ scenes that never appear in the frame (mainstream, popular commercial culture) that help us to realise that we have found ourselves in a particular and exceptional zone. An empty representational stage not only points to certain areas of social isolation, but also talks about the crisis of representation itself. If we agree that the mainstream ideology is totally obscene or, in other words, it contains certain information (sex, violence) devoid of a stage or screen for symbolic representation, here, on the contrary, we are being ‘pinned’ to an empty stage, the contents of which remain suspended.
Audrone Zukauskaite
from the catalogue Scenos/ Stages 2002-2005, Vilnius, 2005
Dr. Audrone Zukauskaite is Senior Researcher at the Culture, Philosophy, and Arts Research Institute, Vilnius