GIRLS AND BOYS __2014

installation of found slides and moving images

An attempt to remember one’s childhood is a parallel space where lies get mixed up with truths and real events with imagined or dreamt ones.
Keywords: (childhood> fairy-tale> dream> uncertainty> secret> strangeness> fantasy> lie> suspicion> prejudice> premonition> fear> phobia> sensitivity> trust> vulnerability> ridicule> menace> limitation> duplicity> different> the other)
Works:

Granny – “Why are your nails so sharp?”------double slide projection
In The Bath – “Why is your eye so big?”-------video projection 1 min 22 s loop
Smile – “Why is your head so big?”-------------video on screen 2 min loop
Natalia – “Why are your legs so white?”--------video projection 2 min loop
In The Woods – “Why is your sack so big?”----double slide projection
Boy – “Why are you so small?”------------------two slides in a viewer
Laughter – “Why are you silent?”----------------one video projection and two videos on screens, continuous loop
Bench – “Where is your leg?”--------------------two slides in a viewer
In A Chair – “Where is your ribbon?”-----------double slide projection
Family – “This is a piece of wood!”--------------two slides in a viewer
Little Window – “There is a cellar”---------------one slide in a viewer

Little Red Riding Hood questions to the fake Granny – or harassment of the Other?
(Twin Peaks, Alice In Wonderland, “Things are not what they seem”, children in cellars)

“Repetition, double exposure and unexpected juxtaposition of found anonymous slides from 60s and 70s not only create new meanings, open the dark corners of consciousness, and pull hidden suspicions and phobias out into the daylight, but also raise important social questions.”

PUKYTE-8

_______________________________________________________________________

LITHUANIAN FOLK TALES
__2012

video with sound ___9 min

text and Google translate
voice and Dragon dictation

Paulina Pukyte
Anton Lukoszevieze



Folk Tales still_Folk Tales still3

_______________________________________________________________________

THE BOY WHO COULDN’T SPEAK
__2011

3 channel video installation with sound ___45 min loop

video - Paulina Pukyte
sound - Anton Lukoszevieze

The video is composed from three very short pieces of found footage. It includes improvised sounds and music, organised according to chance determined timings and repetitions. The work is about entrapment, being stuck in a loop, be it of social conditions, status, rituals, patterns of behaviour or trauma. The musical structure is inspired by Music for Everyman, the 1962 work by George Maciunas and the use of found home movie footage is redolent of Jonas Mekas' film of Maciunas' life, Zefiro Torno, which has an informal 'handheld' style.

_

THE BOY WHO COULDN'T SPEAK 1 min demo

________________________________________________________________________

SATYR AND SCYLLA
__2009

2 channel video installation _____12 min loop

Satyr and Scylla form a pair of short videos, featuring 'real life' footage that observes a man and a woman. Through titles these accidental images are juxtaposed with myth, the traditional meaning of which is thus changed and subverted.

Read more

__
________________________.SATYR and SCYLLA_4 min demo

________________________________________________________________________

FLOWER IS FOR FAILURE
__2001

Switzerland, Bern, 1945 video, 3 min 45 sec (from a feature film Seventeen Seconds of Spring, 1973)
flower_
Flower Is For Failure video, 1 min 14 sec

Flower Is For Failure - motion book, digital prints on paper, 7 X 12 cm
Flower
Flower video (projection), continuous loop

No Entrance black-and-white photographs of flowerpots in windows in Bern

Bern Postcards black-and-white inkjet prints from film stills, 11x 14 cm

During my childhood and and youth in Lithuania my only experience of Switzerland was from a famous 1970’s Russian World War II spy movie, part of which was set in Switzerland of 1945 - with its streets, churches, cafes, advertising boards, bears in the zoo - all filmed in a very particular documentary style, but in Eastern Europe (as I found out much later). The characters of the film became folk icons in the Soviet Union and are still living in contemporary folklore, in the form of anecdotes and catch phrases.
When I was invited for an artist residency in Switzerland, the first thing I thought of doing was finding those places I knew from the film, like Blumenstrasse (Flower Street) in Bern. I discovered that there was no Blumenstrasse in Bern, but almost every window had a flowerpot in it, which, under given conditions, is a “NO ENTRANCE” sign. So, in the end, there is nowhere to go. Total failure.

Read more

__
FLOWER_______________________________FLOWER IS FOR FAILURE__________
________________________________________________________________________

SOAP___2001

The soap bars in this collection have been collected (pinched) from toilets in various public buildings: theatres, art galleries, courts, schools, petrol stations, restaurants, museums, etc. Bars of soap as a phenomenon, as well as the need to steal them, are rapidly becoming a relic of the past. Here they are exhibited as specimens, with the exact addresses of places they were taken from, thus preserving them from disappearing (dissolving) in the hands of the public.



________________________________________________________________________


NEW GIRL IN TOWN
_2005

40 originals – felt-pen on paper

40 digital prints, 21x29 cm

video on DVD, duration 3min

Artists Minna Haukka and Paulina Egle Pukyte, in a sense “new girls in town” (in London) themselves, have collected posters drawn by workers of illegal brothels in Soho, London. They were intrigued by the amateur designs, childish, almost sweet handiworks – so in contrast to the business they advertise.

Taken out of context these words can be about anyone of us – the way we might like to describe ourselves or to be described.
This work is also about stereotypes and preconceptions we employ so often in our lives without giving it any thought, without even noticing, without hearing the real meaning of the word
s.

________

NEW GIRL IN TOWN __1 min demo

____________________________________________________________________________________________

CHEWING GUM COMPETITION_2001

40 inkjet prints 30 x 40 cm

A series of photographs of chewing-gum on the streets of London. Each photograph is accompanied by the description of its location, in the way that people describe a meeting place somewhere in town. For some obscure reason the amount of chewing-gum that has been spat on the street is different in different places.




__..__.__..
____________________________________________________________________________________________

A TROLLEY-BUS NO.3 NAMED DESIRE 1999

All handles of a trolley-bus covered in padded pink lace. Site-specific installation - part of the Identification project in a number of city trolley-buses in Vilnius. Duration on the route - 1 week. Documented by the artist.

_____


_____


____________________________________________________________________________________________


MONEY AND PROSPERITY 2000

sound intervention in a found space (disused factory)

space – typical post-soviet style foreman’s room in Lithuania: tables, chairs, cups of coffee, magazine covers on the walls, empty vodka bottles in the drawers, candy wrappers under the tabletop glass, an old radio on the table.

sound – “Money and Prosperity” self hypnosis tape, mass-produced in USA for those who want to become rich, persuading the listener that he/she is/will be rich and prosperous.


MONEY AND PROSPERITY. SELF HYPNOSIS (transcript from audio cassette):
 
Hello, greetings and welcome.
Reflect with me for a moment upon the nature of money, wealth and prosperity. And the more time you will take reflecting upon it, the more varied and abstract your thoughts concerning money, wealth and prosperity will become. Consider first money, and soon your knowledge concerning money will bring your mind to money’s truest nature, and you will be guided to understand, that the value of money is determined by you with each and every transaction that you enter into. And that the value of money is determined by the number of zeros on the bill. And the zero is nothing. Allow your thoughts to roam upon the question ‘how was wealth created’ and you will soon discover that all wealth is created in the mind, and that every person who has ever created wealth, created it first in the mind and then proceeded to project into physical reality the mental images they have been nurturing and holding within their mind. Consider as well the nature of prosperity and you will discover that true prosperity includes much more than money, it also includes peace of mind, physical and mental health and, of course, financial abundance.

______
_____________________________________________________________________________________________


DOOR STATEMENTS 2000

30 colour prints, 30x21 cm each

This is a series of 30 photographs of exterior doors in the old town of Vilnius, bearing particular handwritten messages. The project documents these often bewildering inscriptions as urban folklore of the second half of the 20th century - a certain socio-cultural layer, rapidly disappearing under the unifying ‘euro-renovation’.

_______

_Beauty Parlour_____________________No Parking When The wind Blows______Find Key in 4-50 Pylimo Street

______________________________________________________________________________________________