Siri Harr Steinvik & Ignas Krunglevičius [Videonale.11]

Siri Harr Steinvik & Ignas Krunglevičius x

Is that all there is?, 2004, 8:00 min, colour, sound [VIDEONALE.11]

A text scrolls through the opening credits, providing the viewer with background information on what he is abut to see. Is that all there is? documents 25th anniversary of a turbine at the nuclear power plant in Visaginas, Lithuania, whose first reactor is to be decommissioned a few days after the festivities, as a requirement of EU membership. Wobbly amateur shots show a couple up on stage announcing the next part of the program: a film is to be shown about the power plant and its workers. Siri Harr Steinvik's camera slowly moves to a frontal position before the stage, letting the video-watcher share the viewpoint of the guests. But the microphones on the stage partially obstruct the view of the film within a film. They develop a shadow play on the screen, creating a meta-level and becoming an element in their own right. People keep walking past the screen, further heightening our distance to the filmed reality. In the background, a medley of rousing well-known classics plays, underscoring the 'ceremonial' nature of the occasion. And thus the company celebration vacillates just like the projected film between nostalgia and Communist propaganda. The viewer of Is that all there is? finds himself in the bizarre staging of an illusory world, critically illuminated here by Siri Harr Steinvik and Ignas Krunglevicius. 

Cécile Zachlod