Nomeda Urbonas
Fellows & Affiliates
Professor Gediminas Urbonas and Affiliate Nomeda Urbonas presented their 2001 piece KARAOKE at Transmediale 2013, a Berlin-based media art festival and year-round project that draws out new connections between art, culture, and technology. Their video piece stages a karaoke performance of ABBA`s “Money, Money, Money” by employees of The Lithuanian Savings Bank. In 2001 the bank was the last state owned bank and was privatized by Swedish investors the day after the performance took place. The artists intervening the “no man’s land” – property that is in-between of belonging explain: “even without understanding the [ . . . ] the lyrics—often the essence of the song—inhabitants of the newly privatized state have penetrated their bodies with rhythms and melodies of a new utopia.” At Transmediale, the piece was screened as part of the The Economy, Stupid!, a collection of films that address capitalism and Marx’s claim of the “‘complete alienation”, the “dehumanization” of people, in the credit system. Twelve years after the original performance, the screening event at Transmediale recasts this project in relation to other interpretations and to the new conditions of credit and labor: “today, algorithms carry out economic categorization of individuals.”
Learn more about Transmediale 2013
Events where the work was earlier featured:
Gender Check, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland, 2010
Gender Check, MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria, 2009
Peripheral Vision and Collective Body, The Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art (MUSEION), Bolzano, Italy, 2008
Still Here: humour in post-communist performative video, Art Space, Sidney, Austràlia, 2007
Woman at crossroad of ideologies, HULU Split, Croatia, 2007
Exploding Television – Satellite of Love, Platform Garanti, Istanbul, Turkey, 2006
Exploding Television – Satellite of Love, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2006
Femme Totale, International Film Festival, Dortmund, Germany, 2005
Show Unit, Riksutställningar, Sweden, 2004
Social Affairs, Den Haag, The Netherlands, 2004
Extended Views, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 2004
Money for nothing, Wellington City Gallery, Wellington, Australia, 2003
Money for Nothing, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand, 2003
It is hard to touch the real, Kunstverein Munich, Germany, 2003
Voice Session. Karaoke, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, 2002
The Music in Me, Chapter 1 – (concerting an exhibition) – GAK – Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst e.V. Bremen, Germany, 2002
Learning And Singing, Hansapanga Galerii, Tallinn, Estonia.
Learning And Singing, Contemporary art center, Moscow, Russia, 2002
Transat video, France, 2002
48th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany, 2002
Self-Esteem, Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania, 2001
