VIDEOBAR #91

Residency :

Eglė Razumaitė is in residence at the Chapelle de l’Oratoire with VIDEOFORMES in Clermont-Ferrand to write her next film. She wants to approach women’s bodies as a political battlefield and biochemistry as a violent natural force. During this VIDEOBAR, she will present an installation Radical tolerance as well as 3 of her short films (Notes from the underground ; Origin record (work in progress), The Fall (work in progress). The screenings will be followed by a time of exchange with the public on her new project.

Presentation of the artist :

Eglė Razumaitė is a contemporary filmmaker and artist based in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 2016 she finished her studies of philosophy at Vilnius University, in 2017 she participated in the alternative education program of Rupert Art Center, in 2019 she founded the analog film studio Spongé, she studies film making. Her works are mainly motion, audio-visual or photographic films. Eglė is part of the Research Institute of Lithuanian Culture. She is mainly interested in the themes of nationality, attachment to a specific land or space, the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion of power centers as well as social groups, violence – its types, the violent nature of human beings.

Artist’s website : https://www.eglerazumaite.com/

Residency project presentation :

Eglė continues her work drawing parallels to her undergraduate thesis, which analyzed the possibilities of transformation of everyday life in the theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau.

His paper examines two main forms of transformation of everyday life: the production of new spaces (in the context of H. Lefebvre) and the development of tactical movements (in the context of M. de Certeau).

Eglė is interested in the junction between M. de Certeau’s “place” (i.e., a place for tactics but one that always belongs to the other) and violence. Passively, we are constantly harassed while operating in a territory, which we cannot consider our own; it is organized by the strategies of a more powerful dominant culture, which physically forces us to move in directions that are not always acceptable to us, just as our bodies are always organized by more powerful biochemical processes.

By finding territorial parallels to the woman’s body, Eglė is able to interpret women’s bodies as possible locations for political battlefields, as territories, which always belong to the other. The other refers to an abstract unity, which is something that cannot be controlled, which is the unknown for a woman herself. In this context, we are able to consider the different biochemical processes as a violent natural force. Biochemistry itself is never fully understood, which is why it is so violent.