We notice a rising practise of shamanism, magic and spirituality in the West since the late nineties. Moreover, terms such as technomagic, technoshamanism and technopaganism have been surfacing to designate a rising movement between art, spirituality and technology and still create confusion to this day. But the intertwining of the notions of “technology” and “magic(s)” could be seen as evidential when one operates spiritual practice as a technique to be studied, or when one faces the many ghosts animating technology.
This compilation of interviews engages different practitioners from Brazil, Belgium and Lithuania across multiple fields whose work is embedded within this subject to create a composition of points-of-view in relation to this movement.
Into the Forest (of Technology)
A conversation with Jurij Dobriakov and Jogintė Bučinskaitė about technopaganism and related currents, the (re)constructed pasts, and the current expressions of traditional knowledges on the Lithuanian contemporary art scene.
Jurij Dobriakov is a writer and curator based in Vilnius, Lithuania. His research interests include the intersection between art and technology, contemporary folklore, psychogeography and underground cultures. Jurij has recently curated Timestamps, a retrospective of Lithuanian new media art at the Lithuanian National Gallery of Art (2021).
Jogintė Bučinskaitė works as an art critic and communication curator in multiple projects of contemporary art, cinema and other fields of culture. She graduated in Journalism and received her MA in Culture Management and Cultural Policy. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Representation of Contemporary Art at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. Jogintė has also worked for the Lithuanian National Television, edited publications and actively publishes various texts in Lithuanian and international cultural media platforms.
Numinosum: Incubation by Dovydas Korba at the 8th Inter-format Symposium on Rites and Terrabytes, VAA Nida Art Colony, Nida, 2018. Photo by Andrej Vasilenko
Malgorzata Zurada Let's talk about technoshamanism, technopaganism, technomagic(k) in the context of contemporary culture and of contemporary art in particular. For the sake of clarity and conciseness in our conversation, I will use the terms 'shamanism', 'paganism' and 'magic(k)' to talk about beliefs and practices that are rooted in traditional lore and are connected, most often but not always, to local contexts. I will use the terms 'technoshamanism', 'technopaganism' and 'technomagic(k)' to talk about practices that stem from traditional knowledges but attempt to enhance, preserve or reimagine them through the use of digital technologies. There are of course other ways to understand these terms. Have you come across any? What would be your definitions?
Jurij Dobriakov In Lithuania we see terms like ‘shamanism’ or ‘rituals’ evoked in the contemporary art scene increasingly often, although they are probably used in relation to some generalized imagined global spirituality rather than local tradition (for instance, ‘shamanism’ is not really applicable to Baltic pre-Christian religious practices and must refer to something elsewhere). This interest is mostly visible in various new materialist streams of art which have evolved out of post-internet aesthetic and ideological sensibilities and have recently turned towards what is commonly called ‘indigenous knowledges’, ‘networks of care’ and so on. So in a sense it is a kind of technopaganism inasmuch as digital technologies of production are involved, but in the white cube reading it all seems to be very metaphorical and neutralized, often pointing to practices but rarely enacting them. Meanwhile, there are groups of people here involved in linguistics, archaeology, ethnomusicology and mythology studies who are trying to recreate or reinvent the ‘original’ Baltic pagan spiritual tradition (they prefer to call it ‘the ancient Baltic faith’), and although in many ways their practice is inevitably very modernized and relies on digital means of communication, I doubt they would agree to call it ‘technopaganism’ or anything similar. They want to make it look like ‘the real thing’ as much as possible. There is little to no communication between them and the contemporary art milieu. There is also a lot of appropriation of traditional folk culture elements in the heavily mediated popular culture and influencer domain, but that is a different story.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė If we understand technoshamanism or technopaganism as an attempt at reflecting on a historical trauma, rebuilding the relics of traditions, or demonstrating a disillusionment with the capitalist system - in the Lithuanian context, particularly in the Lithuanian contemporary art scene, processes do not work like this. I am convinced that we are under the influence of two forces. The first is the entrenched myth of ‘Europe’s last pagans’, which seems to suggest that we have a much stronger relationship with polytheistic beliefs and nature. Among other things, all the conquests and occupations that sought to undermine our traditions proved to be too weak against the local dwellers’ determination to preserve their identity. If we are to rely on these strong mythological and actually implemented narratives, we could say that the link with the traditions has remained for the most part unbroken – at least with those documented in the written sources. However, for technopaganism to function here as a method of resistance to capitalism today, we are still too much engaged in the process of development and catching up with the West. Even if we think that over the 30 years of independence we have formed a solid contemporary art scene, winning Golden Lions and ensuring our artists’ international visibility and acclaim – those are signs of integration into the global art market, and conscious attempts at challenging or criticizing this system with the help of traditional knowledge remain to be seen. It may be that they will never come, simply because there will be no demand for them. Perhaps that is why all the pagan rather than shamanic inclusions in contemporary artworks Jurij has mentioned are often illustrative and autoexotic, paradoxical as it may sound. We probably need a new, more capacious term that would describe the approach of the artists working here and employing such motifs in their work, which simply does not fit in the definition of technopaganism due to its specificity.
SALA (Audrius Šimkūnas) at the 8th Inter-format Symposium on Rites and Terrabytes, VAA Nida Art Colony, Nida, 2018. Photo by Andrej Vasilenko
Malgorzata Zurada I agree that such definitions may be imperfect at best, especially when applied to contemporary practices that are more often than not reinvented to some extent. Still, technoshamanism, technopaganism, technomagic(k) are different terms that are often used interchangeably to describe similar concepts and practices. Would you even make a distinction between them, and if so, on what basis?
Jurij Dobriakov As mentioned, in the Lithuanian context they would probably be understood quite differently. ‘Paganism’ would be the closest to the actual local cultural heritage, which is indeed a big thing here in terms of the country’s self-image and cultural narrative (e.g. ‘the last pagans of Europe’). Meanwhile, ‘shamanism’ would probably be understood most readily as referring to the spiritual traditions of the Americas, Northern Scandinavia, Siberia, etc. – in other words, as something ‘exotic’ and maybe even ‘New Age’ as opposed to the ‘authentic’ local practices (as romantically constructed as they often are). Meanwhile, ‘magic(k)’ would likely be associated first and foremost with the particular Anglo-Saxon esoteric tradition, which has some following in certain niche circles, but again not really related to the ‘local’ animistic lore, where the emphasis on magic is not so heavy. There is, of course, some intermixing and syncretism between these spheres, much more evident in the art world or popular culture than in the milieu of religion reconstructors, but the nuances are quite pronounced.
Malgorzata Zurada How do the above concepts manifest themselves in contemporary art or contemporary culture in general? Could you give examples of art practices that you find noteworthy and are developed on the basis of, say, ritual, divination, trance-states, etc.?
Jurij Dobriakov In recent contemporary art, there is a widespread obsession with masks, amulet-like objects, ‘primal’ materials like wood and fur, ‘traditional’ crafts like sourdough bread baking, fermentation, or brewing. It is difficult to say how much actual research goes into it and how much is speculative or purely imitational, but this sense of ‘ritualism’ is certainly there. There is also literal wording in the spirit of ‘artists are shaman-like figures’. This has become very evident in recent years. I would say, though, that a lot of it is still very much aesthetic- and object-oriented rather than performative – maybe that still has to develop, but so far I haven’t seen that many actual rituals beyond the verbal in contemporary visual art. There is more of that in the music scene perhaps. As for contemporary culture in general, ‘folkish’ elements have been booming in design and branding in the last five years or so, and this trend does not appear to be fading yet.
Sunset ritual/performance by Obelija at the 8th Inter-format Symposium on Rites and Terrabytes, VAA Nida Art Colony, Nida, 2018. Photo by Andrej Vasilenko
Jogintė Bučinskaitė In addition, I would like to point out a few more aesthetic and discursive trends evident in the contemporary art scene. I have an impression that technoshamanism and technopaganism manifest themselves here as an effort to imagine the Earth and the humans after a total catastrophe. It's like an imagination exercise that allows for creating anew the primal creatures, new species, communities and their new rituals, and that is done with the help of already existing examples of primitive, antique, or mythological art. You have probably noticed the recent increase in the popularity of tribal ornaments, images of devils and witches, clay, hair locks, chains, resin and latex – such motifs are travelling from exhibition to exhibition. It has become a standard language with certain safe gestures which enable participation in the artistic communication processes. Surely, this vocabulary will change after a while and will not necessarily be related to shamanistic or pagan practices.
At the moment though, new visions of the old world are being created in a pseudomythological way, when the aesthetic is cluttered with dirt, chaos, and rudiments of unsustainable technologies, bearing witness to the dreariest eschatological prophecies, while the discursive level speaks of uncanny valleys, post-anthropocentrism, indigenous epistemes, and the permanently updated political correctness as well as attempts to come to terms with the existence of multiple ‘natures’. I find the Slavs and Tatars collective to be the most productive in this discursive range related to traditional knowledge, as they manage to capture the paradoxes, similarities and differences of the various faiths and traditions without exoticising the past or demonising the future.
Traditional midsummer rites with spells and ritual foraging of herbs and flowers in the Valley of Silence near the Curonian Lagoon during the 8th Inter-format Symposium on Rites and Terrabytes, VAA Nida Art Colony, Nida, 2018. Photo by Andrej Vasilenko
Malgorzata Zurada Can you share what the Lithuanian scene looks like regarding traditional knowledges and their current manifestations as technoshamanic, technopagan or technomagic(k) arts, music, writing, etc.?
Jurij Dobriakov I see these elements as most vibrant in the more or less underground electronic music scene (drone, dark ambient, post-industrial, etc.), where the intuitive ritualistic element has been present for a few decades already. There is a whole, quite insular micro-scene that actively infuses its sound with an evasive yet profound sense of genius loci without resorting to actually quoting from folklore. In other adjacent but distinct scenes like post-folk music, the manifestations of traditional culture are more straightforward, although often also more New Agey. Meanwhile, in the visual arts (except for relatively ‘outsider’ artists closely connected to the community of the ancient religion reconstructors), the preoccupation with ‘traditional’ themes seems to be based primarily on their specific material qualities and association with some form of ‘otherness’ (a long-standing currency in contemporary art in general), as well as with temporary disillusionment with ‘Western values’, ‘Enlightenment’, modernization and technofetishism of the previous decades. I think this trend will mostly pass as soon as mainstream contemporary artists discover new objects of mimicking and ‘othering’. Oddly enough, in Lithuanian literature (other than the so-called ‘art writing’), these themes do not have much presence.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I find that the greater the emphasis on the magical or ritual layer in artistic practices, the less art there is in them, and vice versa. This is precisely why Lithuanian artists who actively exploit these themes often fall into the trap of selling uniqueness or esoteric, didactic, quasi-therapeutic practices relevant to themselves or a narrow circle of people, often related to ancient crafts: ceramics, yarn spinning, felting, brewing, or baking. Occasionally these activities are accompanied by sophisticated concepts, but we are always sceptical of artists’ attempts at appropriating everyday practices by presenting them as ‘weird’ and distant from the elitist art milieu. Yet most of these traditions are still alive and practiced by the ‘common people’, thus such art projects lack deeper reflection beyond the exploitative gesture.
Among the Lithuanian artists who are the most prominent explorers of these themes or employ a kind of folkloric aesthetic, I would like to single out the following ones. The practice of Žilvinas Landzbergas, who represented Lithuania at the 57th Venice Biennale, has a very strong element of nature-based magic and collective consciousness. His tendency to use ornaments, motifs of wood, antlers, water, and even live birds makes him an artist who probes the world through primitive means, trying to bring us back to a magical fairytale. It is also important to mention Anastasia Sosunova, who is increasingly visible in the international art scene with her amalgamation of religious studies and present-day human states and habits. Saulius Leonavičius meditates on contemporary rituals and shamans, creating uniforms for them, setting up various kinds of tents and baking acid pancakes. Indrė Šerpytytė makes abstract ornaments based on the ancient Lithuanian woven sashes. Meanwhile, Juozas Laivys has set up a cemetery for artworks in his homestead.
Vegan on Acid. THE HOTEL OF WORLD NATIONS by Saulius Leonavičius, exhibition 2090 at Lokomotif, Lentvaris, 2019. Photo by Laurynas Skeisgiela
Malgorzata Zurada And if we were to mention particular artists (musicians, writers) who actively use digital technology? How conscious are they in their use of technology?
Jurij Dobriakov In the post-industrial music scene I mentioned, I would distinguish artists like Sala, Girnu Giesmes, Oorchach, Skeldos and Daina Dieva. I think they are quite conscious, but this consciousness probably comes from some intuitive poetic and animistic sensibility of the digital as an extension or transformation of the analogue rather than in-depth theoretical reflection on the phenomenon and philosophy of technology.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė All of the visual artists I have mentioned use technology probably to the extent that a particular idea or the expediency of producing a work demand at the time. Perhaps it is as important as the ‘archaic technologies’ they seek to reflect on in their projects.
Malgorzata Zurada Do you see any differences between Lithuania and other parts of Europe when it comes to techno-shamanic/pagan currents in art and music? Where does this distinctiveness stem from?
Jurij Dobriakov I see some difference in that in Lithuania there is this popular perception or myth that we have a folkloric and spiritual tradition that is somehow more ‘alive’ and ‘unbroken’ than in most other places, particularly Western Europe, which is often seen as irreparably tainted by Christianity, modernization, liberal values, and so on. So in the case of Lithuania you could say that quite a big proportion of the artists think that they are in fact continuing this ‘indigenous’ tradition, no matter how modern or syncretic the means they employ in their practice. My feeling is that in some other parts of Europe there is less emphasis on this kind of ‘authenticity’, and artists are more comfortable with (re)invention or artifice as an inevitable element of such approaches.
Malgorzata Zurada That's my observation as well. And how closely are these artistic currents tied to contemporary folk religiosity and pagan movements in Lithuania, for instance Romuva?
Jurij Dobriakov I don’t have any in-depth experience of Romuva1 and similar reconstructionist communities, but from what I see, my impression is that there is currently almost no communication between them and the art world. For one thing, quite a few artists, particularly from the music scene, used to go to Romuva’s summer youth camps, or even sang and played in Kūlgrinda2, its central musical and ritual outlet. But they seem to have outgrown this affiliation (though surely it must have left some imprint on their later creative practice). Meanwhile, the artists who are currently closely related to those reconstructionist circles would probably not be considered part of the ‘in’ crowd of the contemporary art scene that, despite all the recent ‘care’ discourse, remains quite exclusive and self-conscious with regard to who belongs and who does not. The ‘insiders’ of this field refer to and borrow from folklore and ritual traditions via imagination or abstracted metaphor rather than by going to researchers and enthusiasts seeking to reconstruct ‘the real thing’. Maybe there are several reasons for that, one being the strong association between those reconstructionist practices and ethnic nationalism, another being the general preference for inventive fiction over scientific or other kind of evidence in today’s contemporary art.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I have a pretty close relationship with the Romuva community, and over the last 15 years I’ve seen how many progressive peers of mine were raised by the Romuva summer camps. Most of them today are active thinkers or researchers (historians, philosophers, ethnologists, linguists). I also know a few directors and photographers, but there are not many members of the Romuva community who can be recognized as contemporary artists. Perhaps because the contemporary art scene avoids literality and straightforward religious connotations or discourses.
After all, Romuva itself can be considered as a creative project, which required certain circumstances, knowledge and imagination to appear in the late 70s.
Malgorzata Zurada To what extent are these traditions (re)constructed, including by means of the new media?
Jurij Dobriakov In my opinion, the invented part is very big, and I’m completely OK with that. Invention is inevitable when there is limited information about ‘how things really were’. And the use of new media is also very logical and very predictably prevalent if we think of them as the new ‘vernacular’, something that works for us as ‘the tools at hand’, like other means and materials worked for people in the past (e.g., when metal replaced stone, perhaps it was perceived as a kind of new medium). I see a problem in two cases: when people who definitely engage in invention or construction to a certain extent (ancient faith reconstructionists) try to disguise it by wrapping it in an aura of historicity and unbroken continuity, and when other people who do not lay any claim to ‘authenticity’ (contemporary artists) refer to folklore and rituals in their practice utilizing new media, not out of some genuine inner necessity or because it says and does something essential, but merely because it fits the current trends. So I’d say the traditions are inevitably constructed to a considerable extent in almost all the forms in which today’s young and middle generations employ them, but the important thing is how people deal with and acknowledge this. There are (rare) cases where construction actually acquires some peculiar authenticity precisely because it does not hide its use of new media and does not imitate or directly quote from any kind of ‘true tradition’. Rather, it channels some ‘here and now’ flow that is hard to pinpoint, but has ritual quality based in the continuous present rather than in a fantasized past.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I agree with Jurij. Recently I’ve had plenty of occasions to reflect on artists’ relationship with the rural, when they move to work in the countryside or try to employ rural elements in their practice. Hence, if we maintain that the countryside is, in a sense, a repository of tradition, then it is intriguing to think about how artists engage in applying, documenting, and pondering these old knowledges.
One of the most interesting recent works is the film Gustoniai in Gustoniai by Darius Žiūra. Visiting the same village over a period of twenty years, the artist was capturing its inhabitants on video, taking a one-minute-long portrait each time. To me it seems to be one of the most consistent works dealing with a place and its change, which shows the aging of not only the people but also the capturing technology itself, while going to the same place and meeting the same people becomes much more of a ritual than those we try to reconstruct.
One might say that Nida Art Colony captured the momentum of these questions quite early with projects like Climbing Invisible Structures. Ritualized Disciplinary Practice, in which the works pointed to a wide range of ritualized practices, connecting performances executed by people who lived ages ago, and whose activities can only be traced by means of archaeology, to contemporary rituals. Last year the curator Rado Ištok curated his exhibition The Spectral Forest here, which referred to spectres, ghosts, and spirits traditionally residing in the forest. One should also mention the 13th Baltic Triennial, entitled Give Up the Ghost, in which the theme of newly constructed identities was closely associated with the rejection of trauma, prejudices, and outdated views. In other words, such mythological figures are increasingly invoked as capacious metaphors for new rituals, which are inevitably entangled with technology.
Detail of the group show Timemaker at the Pamarys Gallery, Juodkrantė, 2020. Photo by Gintarė Grigėnaitė
Malgorzata Zurada Technoshamanic or technopagan practices are usually related – in one way or another – to what we can call 'root cultures' or 'indigeneity'. How would you interpret indigeneity in the context of contemporary culture?
Jurij Dobriakov It is a complicated question in the Lithuanian, Eastern European context. Since much of Lithuanian history is marked by some form of colonization-like experience (starting with the ‘last pagans’ I mentioned), there is a tendency, particularly within the romantic-nationalist milieu, to picture ethnic Lithuanian culture as resiliently ‘indigenous’ (as opposed to Polish, Russian, Soviet, currently even ‘Western’, ‘European’ or ‘global’ culture that has some supposedly homogenizing and dominating power). This produces an impression that Lithuanian culture (including its core traditional values) was somehow ‘always here’, in this place, while other cultures are perceived as migrant, colonizing, encroaching, placeless and alien. Such a perception effectively excludes Lithuania from European, white, colonial, hegemonic history, and equates it with other dominated, colonized ethnic groups and cultures around the world. But a lot of people outside Lithuania would surely contest this perception, because globally ‘indigeneity’ has quite a different connotation and is usually associated with non-white, non-European identities and narratives. People within the art field predominantly subscribe to the latter paradigm, which inevitably brings them into ideological conflict with those who believe that Lithuania qualifies for that category of an historically oppressed culture that is transcendentally entitled to its ‘native land’ other cultures attempted to occupy (hence the still widespread wariness of the various kinds of otherness). I personally would love to see and enact a notion of indigeneity that is not deadlocked in this exclusive dichotomy – neither defined solely in terms of the history of colonialism (though I understand its immense gravity) nor connected to any kind of transcendental birthright, but instead developed through very personal and immanent investment in the place one finds oneself in, supported by the (re)constructed traditions that arise out of a sense of connection, but are not insular or hostile.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė We follow the dynamic of this question in different disciplines with great interest. While earlier it used to be relevant to ethnologists, ethnographers, and archeologists engaged in the search for, and substantiation of the ‘Lithuanian DNA’, currently the topic of indigeneity is increasingly addressed by artists and philosophers, whose focus transcends the boundaries of Lithuania. This can be easily traced by looking at the thinkers quoted at the time. For instance, one cannot but notice the current popularity of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Déborah Danowski’s ideas, or Isabelle Stengers’ reflections on witchcraft and the neopagan Wicca movement. I think it is one of the hottest topics at the moment, following the attempts to talk about decolonization and deimperialization. I see the ongoing foray into different cultures in contemporary art as an effort to resist the dominant global art discourse. David Joselit writes about it in his recent book Heritage and Debt. Art in Globalization (2020). It is difficult to compare the different ‘root cultures’ or versions of ‘indigeneity’, because they were inevitably influenced by completely different geopolitical circumstances, but it is crucial to understand their diversity and peculiarities.
Malgorzata Zurada And what about nature? A symbiotic relation with nature was at the core of pagan and shamanic practices, and so was a non-linear perception of time or inter-dimensional communication. Would you say the same applies to the shamanic/pagan practices of today in the so called 'developed' world or not?
Jurij Dobriakov Nature is definitely very much fetishized in this context, perhaps more than ever, because it has become a conscious discourse rather than a natural habitat (if it ever was). Talking about ‘going back’ to nature is a value statement, and a very commodified one at that. Again, there are different circles with differing perspectives here, of course. The reconstructionist circles have adopted a very romantic and essentialist understanding of nature, though their actual lifestyles might be very urban. The contemporary art and philosophy crowd, by contrast, emphasizes things like ‘natureculture’, ‘technoecologies’, the all-encompassing digital domain / the Internet as ‘second nature’, interspecies communication and the human as just one part of the complex system of living and non-living things, though recently it has also started flirting with such notions as animism, (re)enchantment of the world, and so on.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I think that the current fetishization of nature is very much influenced by the volcanic eruption of the Anthropocene discourse in contemporary art, the ecological crisis, even Greta Thunberg. Curiously, the almost literal incorporation of nature in works of art often translates into an even greater divide between the civilized and the natural, few artists manage to avoid apocalyptic nostalgia and find original ways of invoking nature instead. One of the most thought-provoking Lithuanian authors in this regard is Aurelija Maknytė, who co-curates her exhibitions almost in sync with nature, finding intriguing parallels with cultural contexts instead of taming it. Other artists also increasingly give prominence to natural materials and integration of timeless motifs – Evgeny Antufiev is one such example.
Malgorzata Zurada And what's the role of technology in all that?
Jurij Dobriakov In the latter case (the contemporary art and philosophy crowd), technology is central, and one could even say that it is perceived as an integral part of the expanded notion of nature. Technology is employed by contemporary artists to contact, replicate, construct or collaborate with nature. In the former (reconstructionist) case, my guess is that there is a desire to create an impression of a completely technology-free, primeval nature and to resist any technological intervention in it.
Malgorzata Zurada In the context of Lithuania – or more broadly the Baltic region – how are local traditions and beliefs related to the political imagination? In what ways are they being used to justify or create political narratives? I know it's a complex topic deserving a whole other conversation, so let's limit ourselves to the sphere of culture. Are there political implications for using traditional beliefs in the field of art?
Jurij Dobriakov Within the contemporary art domain, traditional beliefs seem to be almost completely depoliticized, or used in such a way that strips them of any clear ethnopolitical and sometimes even geographical associations. This itself is a political gesture, of course. If we are speaking about the more ‘modernist’ forms of culture, the motives for using traditional ethnic elements are usually either purely aesthetic or emphatically romantic/nostalgic/’patriotic’, with little if any critical deconstruction.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė It seems to me that ethnic symbolism in art can easily serve as a litmus test for political views, particularly if one carelessly manipulates solar signs (presented as Baltic) that inevitably resemble the swastika. The same goes for the uncomfortable tradition of Shrovetide celebrations in Lithuania, where people still dress up as ‘Jews’ or ‘Gypsies’. I do not mean to say that all traditions should be censored, especially retrospectively, but they must be rethought if they carry offensive, traumatic experiences with them.
Malgorzata Zurada You both were part of the curatorial team – along with Andrew Gryf Paterson and Vytautas Michelkevičius – of the 8th Inter-format Symposium on Rites and Terrabytes held at the Nida Art Colony in 2018. You gathered a diverse collection of voices, works and thought currents there to reflect on the notions of indigeneity and traditional knowledges in digital times. What are your thoughts about the differences in how the participants approached the topics of the symposium?
Jurij Dobriakov There was an obvious difference in how representatives of the conditional ‘East’ and ‘West’ interpreted the notion of indigeneity itself and who has the claim to it – I have touched upon this problem already. Some of the participants even emphatically reinforced this geopolitical and ideological split, which I do not think was a productive strategy. Another major difference was that some of the participants approached the topics and themes of the symposium primarily discursively, while others (mostly artists) contributed more tacit and intuitive knowledge and practice. In the end, though I myself was part of the ‘theory’ camp, I found the latter to be far more convincing and constructive. It established connections rather than detected rifts.
The group show Timemaker at the Pamarys Gallery, Juodkrantė, 2020. Photo by Gintarė Grigėnaitė
Malgorzata Zurada Nearly three years later, have the approaches and strategies you observed changed (globally and locally)?
Jurij Dobriakov At the time of the symposium, I would say this interest in how traditional beliefs, folklore and rituals could gain new relevance in present-day mediated culture was still relatively niche and even rather marginal within the contemporary art field, at least here in Lithuania. Now it has become mainstream, but at the same time it has lost much of its critical currency, in my view. Especially because I am not sure how many of the people professing their interest in it today will still care for it in a couple of years.
Malgorzata Zurada I guess that's always the case when certain trends gain momentum – and a new following. Time will tell.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė This experience also clearly demonstrated the differences between us and the various participants – how uneven the awareness of this topic is, and how multifaceted are the diverse approaches that involve many different aspects of tolerance and equality related to gender and race. I think it became an excellent panorama of the widely varying attitudes that exist despite the fairly homogenous globally-minded contemporary art field.
Malgorzata Zurada Are you aware of any other initiatives or research projects similar to the symposium?
Jurij Dobriakov The most recent example is the announcement by the Rupert centre for art, residencies and education, one of the most prominent contemporary art institutions in Lithuania, of its 2021 theme: ‘Magic and Rituals’. It aims to employ these to ‘critically reflect on sociopolitical enclosures’ and ‘foster rituals of care’. Here are a few lines from their statement:
With acknowledging the importance of rising questions and opening spaces for discussion, we also aim to provide answers. Answers that assure multiplicity of voices, encourage exploration and lauds playfulness. Every now and then abandoning the piercing gaze of a stringent researcher, we want to get our hands dirty and feel the body shivering. Increasing interest in magic and rituals opens possibilities to rebuild and reclaim worlds that have been neglected or wrecked. Feminist struggles, utopian techno imaginaries or animist ecology creates hazy pathways and promising alliances with defiant worlds of enchantment. It generates a potential to find ourselves in a situation where everything suddenly is permeated by magic. Where for a brief moment our senses are hacked and we are absorbed by the otherworldly.
This gives me a sense that their approach to the theme will be performative and poetic rather than discursive and critical. But as they promise a multiplicity of voices, I am curious to see who will feature in their programme – for instance, will they invite someone from the reconstructionist and romantic nationalist circles, the group that was (perhaps deliberately) quite underrepresented in our symposium?
Malgorzata Zurada It seems such groups are rarely invited to the contemporary art discourse. I would be interested as well to see how the plurality of voices will be exercised in this case.
When you curate art that references traditional knowledges, what is important for you? What do you look for, and do you have any specific motivations?
Jurij Dobriakov My curatorial experience related to traditional knowledge and its permutations is mostly limited to sound, particularly the post-industrial, neofolk-inspired scene I mentioned: for instance, putting together music compilations or moderating a group reflection on the state of the scene. Within this field, I am looking first and foremost for an evasive quality of being ‘chthonic’ without using any direct explicit quotes from preserved actual folklore (this kind of ‘sampling’ tradition seems to me to be the most straightforward and uninventive way of infusing artistic practice with a sense of place). My motivation is to bring such oblique, understated practices into the light without exoticizing or commodifying them, and instead highlighting their value despite their possibly limited appeal. I like to position them as ‘present-day’ folklore that becomes such without necessarily trying to sound ‘folkloric’.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I deal predominantly with thinking and writing, thus I always feel drawn to original projects that reflect on these themes in their own way. How they notice the idiosyncrasies of places and people, the knowledge passed by word of mouth, and conceptually invoke remoteness, old crafts, language, aesthetics and symbols not yet rendered trite by the tourism sector, how they intertwine singular contemporary experiences with inherited customs or transcultural archaic motifs. I am interested in projects that undermine the seemingly steadfast foundations of traditional culture, demonstrating that various traditional practices can consist of minimal gestures, mundane daily rituals and choreographies. I admire artists’ efforts to actually create new systems of thinking and preserve a grain of the unknown beyond the theoretical attempts at rationalizing everything.
From.Between.To by Indrė Šerpytytė at the Vartai gallery, Vilnius, 2019. Photo by Laurynas Skeisgiela
Malgorzata Zurada To what extent does technology – or awareness of technology – influence your curatorial strategies?
Jurij Dobriakov Since I have been interested in the intersection of art and technology for most of my involvement in the cultural field, I am inclined to look for instances of employing technology in creative practice that combine intuition with self-consciousness and awareness of the effects of technology that go beyond the merely aesthetic. I guess that personally this technological aspect helps me to develop the initial engagement with the work and then to see if it goes to some territory that is in some way mystical or hard to explain but does something to me almost on the subconscious level.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I am interested in the forms of representation of contemporary art that are inevitably related to communication and information transmission technologies. It is always intriguing to think about the intranslatability of certain artworks into a technology-based language and, on the other hand, the successful transfer of all forms of culture into all kinds of mediated formats.
Malgorzata Zurada And in what ways does technology influence the thinking/awareness of artists working with the themes of traditional knowledges?
Jurij Dobriakov I think at least some of them have developed a kind of techno-mythology of their own. For example, Audrius Šimkūnas, the founding member of the Sala project/band, systematically works with field recordings in such a way that it becomes something more intricate and charged with meanings than simply capturing sound via all kinds of microphones. It starts to work indeed as a technologically augmented form of divination, of ‘listening to the voice of Creation’ when done with a particular consistent commitment and a certain ‘psychedelic’ perspective on the world and how technology expands and transforms the experience of its manifestations.
Malgorzata Zurada That's exactly what I'm curious about.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė Speaking of the visual art field, I think that artists who explore these themes try to avoid direct use of technology, or at least it is not directly reflected in the works. They seem to give preference to handicraft, thus trying to re-create the principle of work itself, not just the idea part. Naturally, in video works the technological imprint is inevitably visible, such as characteristic ‘dated’ graininess, or conversely, impeccably clean and pixelated image with elements of augmented reality (e. g. in the video works of Anastasia Sosunova). On the other hand, in Lithuania few artists consistently employ computer technology in their work, and even if they do that, their work usually follows thematic paths other than traditional knowledge.
Malgorzata Zurada What I often observe is that in techno-shamanic/pagan/magic(k)al practices, the technology – i.e. the computer, the internet, the code, etc. – is used merely as a tool, a medium to express traditional practices in a way that is more relevant to our times. Sometimes the technology is simply seen as handier, and it substitutes, say, a pen and paper or a musical instrument to create sigils, mantras, rituals, etc. But there are also other instances where technology is elevated and treated as having the equal ontological status to that of its 'users'. Have you come across such artistic or curatorial approaches?
Jurij Dobriakov Using technology like this simply out of convenience or for the sake of its novel/advanced status is indeed widespread. I enjoy it when artists use technology as something that defines the world that we inhabit no less than trees, rivers, rocks and so on, as something that has really acquired an extent of autonomous existence already and can be equally ‘enchanted’, so to speak – meaning that the ‘age’ of objects and phenomena is not the only possible measure of their ‘magical’ quality. The above ritualized recording of the flow of the world is perhaps an example of such an approach. When you think of it, any technology of automated recording, be it a sound recorder with a contact microphone or a repurposed CCTV camera (here another artist, Vitalij Červiakov, comes to mind), has in itself an element of magic, with all the accompanying mythology of making a cast of the world, ‘stealing the soul’ of living beings, capturing ghosts, and so on. I believe technology is capable of creating strange spectral worlds through its very ambiguous relation to reality.
Malgorzata Zurada Obviously, we can find examples of people benefitting from the techno-shamanic/pagan/magic(k)al practices. Can we think of practices, or more specifically artistic practices, where non-humans become beneficiaries (e.g. nature, ancestors)? Can art contribute to making a change for other-than-human realms in current times?
Jurij Dobriakov Again, this act of using technology to record nature and other milieus, could we say that it ‘gives voice’ to non-human entities, in a sense? Can it make them be heard and thereby endow them with greater agency and prominence? I hope it can make people care about their environment at least a bit more.
Malgorzata Zurada Hopefully so. I wonder, however. Are they really given a voice, are they really beneficiaries?
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I am sceptical of speaking for other entities or trying to look at the world from their perspective. I think it is always a speculative gesture that we feed through the prism of the human consciousness in any case. It is difficult to tell whether art can contribute to making a change for other-than-human realms when it is not vital even to the majority of human inhabitants of the Earth. Being part of the cultural field, we must be aware of our privileged position in relation to not only the nonhuman entities, but also the marginalised social groups. I would see it as a much greater achievement if art tried to change the dominant perspective on such issues, and allowed us to see the world not from the point of view of different entities, but from the different positions of humans themselves in relation with their environment.
Malgorzata Zurada Ok, so even if it's only a speculative exercise: can techno-shamanic/pagan/magic(k)al art help assume or cultivate other-than-human points of view?
Jurij Dobriakov I have no idea, to be honest. I am not sure such points of view are at all attainable to us on a level that goes beyond rhetoric or metaphor. But some forms of this kind of art can at least make us more attentive to the world we find ourselves in and make us recognize its vitality.
Malgorzata Zurada And to continue the notion of realness. How often do you see techno-shamanic/pagan practices – in the context of art – being 100 per cent real? And how often are they treated metaphorically and practised purely for the sake of aesthetics, politics, fabulation, etc.?
Jurij Dobriakov Yes, a lot of it is very metaphorical and aesthetic, even fetishistic, sadly. On the other hand, if such practices merely replicate, say, the rites performed by the members of Romuva, then it is something other than art, or at least art that does go a long way in terms of added value. I guess it has to be metaphorical to some extent, but the sense of right proportion is key here. Very often, when artists claim to replicate an authentic rite or ceremony (for instance, build a temazcal in Vilnius), I wonder whether it doesn’t work as ‘art’ solely due to its perceived exoticism. I don’t find simple replication or spatiotemporal transference of ritual practices to be enough. There must be something else, some unexpected rupture.
Malgorzata Zurada Maybe we – as a global society – are detached from nature (and our true selves), to such an extent that in order to experience a ritual, or any form of transcendence, we need the mediation of art/music/culture?
Jurij Dobriakov Actually, lately I’ve been feeling that art is increasingly failing to do a proper job in this regard. By giving all kinds of things special status and significance, it often tends to achieve quite the opposite – making them banal, empty signifiers. In contrast, things that are seemingly banal and routine, or things that people do not do as ‘art’, can be much closer to rites and rituals and therefore to the transcendental sphere. For example, walking with an open mind, or just doing something small with great commitment and enjoyment. This seems to be much more in line with nature, even though I don’t think we can ever be fully ‘back’ to it.
Malgorzata Zurada Agreed. What I meant is that many people will not be inclined to experience a real thing, say, a rite of some sort. They will rather choose to go to a concert or a performance evoking the ritualistic themes in a metaphorical way. It will feel more comfortable and socially acceptable for them to remain an observer rather than engage in something perceived as irrational and unscientific.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I believe that art can become a pretext for learning, recalling, or drawing attention to something. I have suddenly realised that I forgot to mention another important exhibition in this context that took place in Vilnius a few years ago – Blood and Soil: Dark Arts for Dark Times, curated by Anders Kreuger and Julija Fomina. It was a dense and simultaneously spacious show that expose the extremely relevant dilemma between being grounded, living in direct relationship with nature and its resources, inherited traditions and the odd determination to follow them, and at the same time retaining the cultural values and skills such as literacy, the power of ironic observation or enjoying form.
In my view, an exhibition or another art form might not induce a trancelike state or substitute an immediate ritual today, but it can contextualise them and weave a peculiar mesh of meanings from different elements.
Still from Gustoniai in Gustoniai by Darius Žiūra, 2020
Malgorzata Zurada Absolutely so. Do you think that such art currents we're talking about here have transformative potential on other than individual levels? If so, in what ways?
Jurij Dobriakov At least some of these currents help to build collaborative communities, even if those communities are quite individualistic and loosely connected. I guess they have this ‘tribal’ aspect in that they initiate or strengthen the bonds between people who see and feel the world in a particular ‘transcendental’ way, who are looking for microscopic escapes from the purely rational realm. Whether such fluid and informal quasi-communities can activate broader transformations is debatable, but maybe all of these micro-connections added together do make the world a more hospitable place.
Malgorzata Zurada We already agreed that in recent years we've seen a general rise in interest, creating, curating, and showing works that reference various heterodox spiritualities, mystical currents, witchcraft, indigenous beliefs, etc. It's visible also at the level of the major shows like documenta or the Venice Biennale. In your view, what are the actual reasons for that other than just changing trends?
Jurij Dobriakov The rise is simply massive. I would even say that it is becoming a rare thing to see a contemporary art show without any reference to those phenomena. It’s like a prerequisite now. My guess is that, on the one hand, contemporary art is always in search of something beyond itself that it could appropriate in one way or another, and spiritualism, mysticism and ritualism just happened to be the next Other it wanted to explore. On the other hand, contemporary art probably grew tired of its own earlier fixation on the urban and the ‘progressive’, turning to something attractively ‘backward’ – a similar process took place in popular consumer culture with the whole ‘craft’ and ‘artisanal’ craze. Thirdly, for some reason, traditional culture has come to be associated with psychological wellness, care, empathy and so on, perhaps in parallel to the so-called ‘unlearning’ and ‘uncivilization’ currents that seek to undermine the rationalist legacy of Enlightenment, and so contemporary art incorporates it in its broader agenda of ‘resetting modernity’ to a supposedly softer, more inclusive and sustainable version of (nature)culture.
Jogintė Bučinskaitė I think it would make sense to mention the special issue of the Lithuanian online art magazine Artnews.lt entitled Folklore Karaoke, which we edited a couple of years ago. We included there a Lithuanian translation of the American art critic Tess Thackara’s article on the comeback of shamanistic practices in contemporary art. Thackara claims that in the context of the all-encompassing political, ecological, and economical crisis there is an increasing longing for ‘primal’ communion, spiritual practices that reconcile one with the environment, and a general sense of meaning, miracle, and unity.
Malgorzata Zurada This definitely makes sense. I know some may think such longing to be simply escapist, but what it could be instead is something akin to an awakening of a spiritual survival instinct in a world devoid of meaning.
To wrap up, would you like to share any of your upcoming projects, or draw attention to any external sources (e.g. books, music, thought currents, etc.) relevant for our conversation?
Jurij Dobriakov At the moment I am curating a retrospective of Lithuanian new media art from the 1990s and 2000s. Looking back on it I am surprised to see how much the perception of technology has changed over this decade, having become so intertwined with animism and nature today, whereas back then it seems to have been much more technofetishistic and almost naively futuristic. Although I must acknowledge that even in the mid 2000s in Lithuania there was already this sensibility that drew parallels between the natural forest as a Lithuanian favourite archetype of nature and the new ‘forest’ of technology. Still, it was a very different approach compared to the current technoshamanistic trend. Perhaps this shift deserves further in-depth reflection.
Malgorzata Zurada Thank you for the conversation.