Paulius Šliaupa

Spécialement réalisée dans le cadre de la résidence aux RAVI, Patterns of perfection se conçoit comme une exploration visuelle du tissu urbain. Il y est question du faire, du voir, et de la manière dont l’urbanité affecte les pratiques artistiques contemporaines. Comment, en effet, la ville influence-t-elle la façon d'être et la psychologie des artistes ? « Cette question m'est venue à l'esprit après mon déménagement d'un village lituanien isolé à Gand, en Belgique, il y a trois ans, où j'ai commencé à développer des films explorant les atmosphères urbaines et les périphéries des villes ». Au départ des récits et des expériences des artistes résidents, Paulius Sliaupa a tenté d’éprouver la manière dont l’historicité des lieux – et de l’architecture industrielle en particulier – influence les processus créatifs. S’imprégnant de la mémoire de lieux désaffectés, l’artiste se mue en une sorte de cadreur-arpenteur. Dans un premier temps, le mécanisme de l’expédition l’emporte. « L’objectif était d’explorer la partie industrielle de Liège et sa périphérie en documentant les éléments et les combinaisons de détails qui structurent le paysage », confie l’artiste. Au gré de ses pérégrinations urbaines, il s’est agi de capter les fragments du réel, les rencontres fortuites, et de les transmuer en des « paysages filmés ».

Nous ne construisons pas de ruines, disait Aloïs Riegl, sauf pour les imiter[1]. En se faisant en quelque sorte « archéologue aérien » de la ruine moderne, Paulius Sliaupa prélève les moindres détails architecturaux où affleurent les traces des mémoires individuelles et collectives. Le lent déplacement de la focale optique de la caméra apparaît alors comme le moyen d’abstraire chacun des éléments d’architecture, d’en révéler les strates où s’imprime et se condense l'action tellurique de l’industrialisation. Les lignes abstraites qui composent l’architecture s’apparentent alors, selon l’artiste, à des « modèles de perfection » (Patterns of perfection), qui a donné son titre à cette création. « J'ai le sentiment que ces fragments, une fois capturés, peuvent être utilisés pour construire des atmosphères qui éveillent les sens du regardeur », poursuit-il. Le paysage, c’est l’urbanité éprouvée. De ce simple geste, la ville se trouve refigurée, figée. Mais au-delà de l’apparente beauté formelle qui émane de ces images, il est aussi question de mémoire, des mémoires, d’héritage. Les séquences filmées, mises bout-à-bout, agissent comme une cartographie du bâti et cristallisent en elles des années d’activités humaines. De la sorte, Paulius Sliaupa propose une sorte d’introspection de la ruine moderne tout en la soustrayant de ses composantes premières : il n’est plus tant question de signifier le réel, de le documenter, mais plutôt de l’esthétiser, de l’abstraire, de le sublimer. D’images en images se dessine un paysage composé de formes, de courbes et d’angles ; autant de séquences qui portent en elles les marques du temps. Et nous invitent à le prendre. Naissent alors des paysages « anthropofuges »[2], où aucune présence humaine n’est visible. Seule la trace de l’activité de l’Homme subsiste.

Aussi est-il question d’élargir la notion d’espace urbain à un ailleurs non identifiable, excédant tout critère de représentation géographique. S’opère alors une translation entre ce qui est vu, et pour d’aucun identifiable – on reconnait les sites industriels de Liège et Charleroi – et ce qui est vécu ; ces vues agissant comme un puissant outil de fiction aux allures futuristes qui désorientent le regardeur. Faisant la part belle aux « hors-lieux », aux « hors-temps », le tissu urbain y est malléable à l’envi. Patterns of perfection apparaît dès lors comme la résultante d’un relevé filmique méthodiquement agencé de l’espace arpenté. La forme de la ville moderne est envisagée comme un étant donné à investir, éphémère ; un lieu transitoire qui, comme le disait Charles Baudelaire, « change plus vite, hélas !, que le cœur d'un mortel ».

Camille Hoffsummer

[1] RIEGL Aloïs, Le culte moderne des monuments, Paris, Seuil, 1903.

[2] Terme emprunté à Thomas Schlesser. SCHLESSER Thomas, L’Univers sans l’Homme, Paris, Éditions Hazan, 2016, p. 7.

In residence at the RAVI from April to June 2023

Patterns of perfection was specially produced for the RAVI residence and is conceived as a visual exploration of our urban fabric. It is all about doing, seeing and the way urbanity affects contemporary artistic practices. How does the city actually influence the way of life and the psychology of artists? “This question came to mind three years ago after I moved from a remote Lithuanian village to Ghent in Belgium where I started producing films on urban atmospheres and city outskirts”. Starting from stories and experiences of resident artists, Paulius Sliaupa tried to understand the way the historicity of places (and of industrial architecture in particular) influences creative processes. The artist immersed himself in the memory of disused places to turn into a kind of cameraman-land surveyor. Initially, the exploring approach prevails. “The objective was to explore the industrial part of Liège and its outskirts while documenting the elements and combinations of details which structure the landscape,” the artist says. Throughout his urban wanderings, he managed to capture fragments of reality and chance encounters, and to transform them into “filmed landscapes”.

As Aloïs Riegl used to say: we do not build ruins (except to fake them)[1]. Paulius Sliaupa becomes a sort of “aerial archaeologist” of modern ruins and samples the smallest architectural details where traces of individual and collective memories emerge. The slow movement of the optical focal length of the camera then unveils as a means of abstracting each of the architectural elements and revealing the strata where the telluric action of industrialization is imprinted and condensed. “I have the feeling that these fragments, once captured, can be used to create atmospheres that awaken the senses of the viewer,” he adds. The landscape merges with urbanity. With this simple movement, the city finds itself refigured, almost frozen. But beyond the apparent formal beauty that emanates from these images, it is also a matter of memory, memoirs and heritage. The filmed sequences, put end-to-end, act as a cartography of what’s built and crystallize years of human activities inside of them. In this way, Paulius Sliaupa offers a kind of introspection of modern ruin while subtracting it from its primary components: it is no longer so much a matter of representing reality and documenting it, but rather aestheticizing, abstracting and sublimating it. A landscape made of shapes, curves and angles emerges from image to image ; so many sequences which bear the marks of time and invite us to take our time. “Anthropofuge”[2] landscapes where no human presence is visible then thrive. Only the trace of human activity remains.

It is therefore also a matter of expanding the notion of urban space to an unidentifiable elsewhere which exceeds any criterion of geographical representation. A translation then takes place between what is seen, and for no one identifiable (we recognize the industrial sites of Liège and Charleroi) and what is experienced; these views act as a powerful fictional tool with a futuristic look that disorients the viewer. The urban fabric gives pride of place to “off-site” and “off-time”, and is malleable at will. Patterns of perfection therefore appears as the result of a methodically arranged filmic summary of the explored space. The form of the modern city is seen as a sphere to be penetrated, ephemeral; a transitory place which, as Charles Baudelaire used to say, “changes unfortunately more quickly than the heart of a mortal”.

Camille Hoffsummer Translator : Gérôme Henrion

2023

[1] RIEGL Aloïs, Le Culte moderne des monuments, Paris, Seuil, 1903.

[2] Term borrowed from Thomas Schlesser. SCHLESSER Thomas, L’Univers sans l’Homme, Paris, Éditions Hazan, 2016, p. 7.

The images, sometimes slowly changing up to becoming almost still, show us scenes of desolation, whiteness of the winter and other extreme natural phenomena. Other times, the mundane takes over: a dead fly, water droplets, streets emptied by the dead of the night. To Paulius Šliaupa, they all express something similar and important in his work. The temporality captured in these scenes is what compels him to document them. The moments disappear as they are lived with only their documentation as an artifice. But sometimes in there, a glimpse of the emotion experienced persists.

I was able to experience Paulius’ creative process, from the first impressions of a location to realization of a film, first hand as we were traveling the Icelandic landscape together in December 2023. I quickly understood his direction as he gathered drone footage and 3D scans of unexpected regions. His goals were very different from shooting the pretty landscape surrounding us. He instead focused on weathered locations with textures and shapes that can express the harshness of winter.

The Monk, one of Šliaupa’s previous works, also extends the same feeling of isolation using the snow to guide through the story line. However in this film, the juxtaposition between loss, desire and personal exploration predominates. The drones footage morphing into one each other makes the audience travel through this journey of being lost as approached by Rebecca Solnit in Field Guide to Getting Lost

Toshka is another good example of how the imagery is used to propel the sentiments, using scenes at the complete opposite of the Icelandic winter. The mirages filmed are of the Sahara desert, in the Toshka Lakes area, next to the Egypt-Sudan border. While the political complexity of the region is not expressed directly in the film, the images portray both feelings of uneasiness and beauty. To add to the images, the chants move us closer to sorrow as the film goes on, implying the complex situation of the location.

While the films are mostly what drive Šliaupa’s inspiration now, he started as a painter and now both paintings and films complement each other. The scenes represented in the films get translated into paintings, both directly and indirectly, and the paintings inform the feelings of the films. In 2022, Šliaupa worked on a series of paintings touching on the organic structures of the landscapes. While they don’t illustrate a figurative display of the landscape, they manifest the same fragile temporality of the films. Added to that, the heavily textured materiality of the paintings provides the missing sensorial experience of touch to the films.

Still, one thing that surprises about Šliaupa’s work is the presence of culture and social interactions. While his films and paintings are devoid of people most of the time, we are presented with a human bonding experience to which we are part of. The feelings of longing, the search for understanding, the forced reclusion, the freedom of youth and the human connections through different relationships are all common experiences we can relate to. When put to images in Šliaupa’s films, they are presented to us so we can reappropriate and relive them.

Félix Bernier

2024

At the beginning of Paulius Šliaupa's video montage The Monk, one sees changing views and sounds of the storm that covers the surface of our land with snow. It evokes the nostalgic feeling of a cold wind colouring your cheeks red while you innocently catch snowflakes as the snow crunches with your every step. The sense of calmness starts to disappear when, little by little, the increasingly visible human being disturbs the feeling of peace and tranquility in nature. This disruption is further emphasized by the fact that some of the scenes are actually not frosty scenery but eternal chemical snow created by phosphogypsum mountains. The film holds up a mirror to society, stating that that's what we humans tend to do - because of our desire to live easier and faster, we sometimes recklessly disrupt the natural balance. With every step, with every footprint in the snow, we leave a mark, exposing not just our existence but also destruction and the need to change the natural environment. The film by P. Šliaupa creates an invitation to slow down and reflect on the delicate connection between humanity and nature. Artists call on humanity to think before we bring such harm upon our future.

Šeila Žilinskaitė

2025

Que celui qui désire un sens arrêté ne regarde pas cet hypnotique film porté par une voix d’ailleurs, féminine alto, un peu voilée et monocorde quelles que soient les sentences énoncées, quel que soit l’élément dont elle parle.

Que celui qui désire se perdre dans les blancs divers de cette neige et ses diverses épaisseurs – qui a su un jour que dans les pays du froid et de l’hiver long, blanc et neige compte cinquante-trois vocables en inutikut pour se dire dont il nous manque les correspondants pour décrire ses variations. Pourtant nous en aurions besoin pour la neige qui enfin tombe, la neige durcie en forme d’arbrisseaux, la neige arrêtée gelée en tombant, la congère durcie, la neige fraîche malléable qui crisse sous les pas s’enfonçant, la plus dure où les pas forment un sentier, la neige ajoutée sur les objets abandonnés, la neige humide et scintillante, la poudreuse en amas sur le toit, les ombres si légères bordant les objets... La blanche couleur transformant en tableau le hameau abandonné. Et les couleurs du blanc pointu au bleuté. Et les variations des éclats, en reflets et scintillements ou surface monochrome. Et les diverses couches plus ou moins épaisses. Alors on se souvient que l’artiste peint des abstractions aux titres de paysages de neige, puisque certains pastels se disent « fragments de maisons, de cuisines ou de voies ferrées », elles aussi en multi-couches et variations chromatiques subtiles.

Cependant, ces changements s’imposent à chaque changement d’axe comme toujours déjà produits, la neige change restant elle. Elle, désertée puisque-hormis des glapissements indiciels d’animaux en off, sans eux, seule une loutre se faufile lors du dernier plan dans le lointain d’une plongée et la neige tombe alors que la seule forme humanoïde renvoie à la statuaire sur socle neigeux tournant en incipit ; cependant la voix commente voire philosophe au-dessus de ces terres mi-réelles, mi-scannées ; mi- familières, mi-fractales. De ces terres qui se souviennent du pays.

Des traces disent le passage de l’humain : bouches d’aération en mouvements sur une paroi, pylônes aux fils électriques ployés, maisons avec bennes et objets, ces fauteuils tout aussi enneigés quoiqu’en intérieur, et cette ville réduite à quelques misérables immeubles bas et identiques, et un drone étonnant gros insecte arrêté lui aussi sous/par la neige mais disant la modernité et le désir d’image ainsi gelé. Et ces étonnantes lettres trop éloignées pour leur lecture comme un SOS non atteignable.

Et la nature impose sa maîtrise, longue route bordée de la forêt mais le plus souvent même elle, subit la fractale, le bombé des formes en est atteint, la chute des intempéries devient de très grosses gouttes arrêtées en l’air, en pointillés gelés comme les paroles l’avaient été sur le lac des insultes chez Rabelais. Formes en l’air des sons atmosphériques. Musique visuelle variant selon le moment du jour. Un autre monde fait de la rencontre entre les espaces physiques et les espaces numériques de la Lituanie et de l'Islande. Voyage au bout de la neige ; et si le titre se traduisait par le Raconteur de l’hiver.

Simone Dompeyre

2025

If you're looking for a definite meaning, don't watch this hypnotic film, carried by a voice from elsewhere, a female alto, slightly veiled and monotonous, whatever the sentences, whatever the element it's talking about.

Let those who wish to lose themselves in the various whites and thicknesses of this snow - who once knew that in the lands of cold and long winter, white and snow have fifty-three inutikut words to describe themselves, but lack the corresponding words to describe its variations. Yet we would need them for snow that finally falls, hardened snow in the shape of shrubs, snow that has stopped and frozen as it falls, hardened snowdrift, malleable fresh snow that crunches under sinking footsteps, harder snow where footsteps form a path, snow added to abandoned objects, wet, glistening snow, powder in piles on the roof, shadows so light that they border objects... The white color transforms the abandoned hamlet into a painting. And the colors from sharp white to bluish. And the variations in shimmering reflections or monochrome surfaces. And the various layers of varying thickness. Then we remember that the artist paints abstractions with the titles of snow landscapes, since some pastels call themselves “fragments of houses, kitchens or railroads”, also in multi-layers and subtle chromatic variations.

However, these changes are imposed at every change of axis, as if they had already been produced, and the snow remains unchanged. It's deserted, since - apart from the indefinite yelps of animals in the background, without them, only an otter creeps in during the last shot in the distance of a dive, and the snow falls, while the only humanoid form refers to the statuary on a snowy pedestal revolving in the incipit; nevertheless, the voice comments, even philosophizes, above these lands that are half-real, half-scanned; half-familiar, half-fractal. A land that remembers its homeland.

Traces tell of the passage of humans: moving air vents on a wall, pylons with bent electric wires, houses with skips and objects, these armchairs just as snow-covered although indoors, and this city reduced to a few miserable, low, identical buildings, and an astonishing drone, a large insect also stopped under the snow but telling of modernity and the desire for image thus frozen. And those astonishing letters too far away to read, like an unreachable SOS.

And nature imposes its mastery, a long road bordered by the forest, but more often than not, even it undergoes the fractal, the curvature of forms is affected, the fall of bad weather becomes very large drops stopped in mid-air, in frozen dotted lines as words had been on the lake of insults in Rabelais. Atmospheric sounds in the air. Visual music that varies according to the time of day. Another world where the physical and digital spaces of Lithuania and Iceland meet. Voyage au bout de la neige (Journey to the end of the snow); what if the title could be translated as Le Raconteur de l'hiver (The Winter Storyteller).

Translation of Simone Dompeyre's text

Dust is carried by the wind and pushed over the dirty floor. A hovering sound at a rhythm of breathing. It looks like it snows but you know it’s not. Snow doesn’t get blown away like this. Then the camera turns to a space where white flakes flow upwards inside an old factory. Where does this wind come from?

Paulius Sliaupa’s films are all about the experience. Through his camera, he gazes through the world and looks for abstract images. Sometimes his shots seem otherworldly yet recognizable. He creates atmospheres where the viewer gets lost into. With ambient sounds (human sounds of people), Sliaupa creates a sensual narrative where the viewer can experience our surroundings again but differently, slowly, and more attentively. The shots have no human feeling, it is clear they have been taken by a machine. They move fluently, almost too perfectly. This gliding over the surface of the earth generates this subtle but eerie, almost creepy feeling. The feeling of hovering, this typical feeling of the drone, is something that Sliaupa uses to create a distance between the viewer and the world. In this distance I can feel the disconnection between technology and nature, the separation of mankind from its origin. The machine is filming from a high perspective, from a point of view no human can experience.

Funny enough, with this machine you can also reconnect to the world again. Technology portrays the world and makes it afresh. With sounds, captivating images, and touching subjects like snow, deserts, or human presence, Sliaupa wants us to reconnect with the world. He uses his drone to get new perspectives and the screen to act as a window. The film provides the opportunity to see elsewhere and to bring another place close to you: a chimney from above, an icy landscape, or the desert while you sit on your couch. It generates an illusion, a digital illusion in which the world is portrayed.

For me, the core of Paulius’ practice is his machines: the camera, the drone, and a laptop. As an artist, he uses these instruments to look at the world. Through his lens, his drone, a screen technology stands in between the eye and the surroundings how technology intercepts the human experience and provides another type of encounter, a digital one. This relation is also played out on a social level where he investigates the position of the camera in our social constructs. As in ‘Toshka’, a newly constructed city for workers in Egypt. It is forbidden for foreigners to enter, let alone cameras. So Sliaupa shoots the surroundings and how the heat interacts with the image, leaving a liquid image. The conditions of the situation define the context and Paulius let it design the image. It’s the heat and the absence of the desert that is shown, that lays like a curtain over the subject. Only the title makes clear what cannot be shown.

When Paulius films with his drone, he stands elsewhere. His drone explores the surroundings and flies over forests, factories, and rivers. He stands on the sideline, watching his machine disappear into the sky. Already in the creation process, the distance between the person and his surroundings is present. Not only does Sliaupa look through his lens, but his lens is also out of his own sight. When he stands in a forest, the drone hovers over a chimney, looking at a black tube that almost resembles an eye. The drone generates its own context like the dust that flows over the floor. It’s pushed by the wind that the drone produces. The footage is marked by the footprints of the machine. In his sensual narratives, human senses are stimulated by devices. Suppose it’s the screen, the projector, the audio speaker, the camera, or the drone. They sedate and revive the experience. They make films.

Thomas Willemen

2023

Paulius Sliaupa mesmerizes the viewer with his atmospheric and poetic aesthetics. The viewer becomes the observer: an observer of the surrounding world and, simultaneously, an observer of the world within. The senses are awakened and so are we. Through observation, and our stimulated senses, we become travelers on a journey of awakening.

Paulius captures and interchanges images, elements, sounds, and rhythms with the utmost respect and admiration for nature and his unique lyrical gaze on everything surrounding us.

A dialogue is created among air, earth, water, and fire; between light and darkness; human presence and isolation; intimacy and alienation. A song of life's challenges, an ecstatic dance. They are all part of the journey.

With its cathartic energy, the snow cleanses us of everything we need to shed and leads us to our inner flame.

Do you take a pause in your everyday life? Do you listen to the sound of nature? To the sound of the city? To the sound within?

" Ο Paulius Sliaupa, με την ατμοσφαιρική και ποιητική του αισθητική, μαγνητίζει τον θεατή. Ο θεατής γίνεται παρατηρητής του περιβάλλοντα κόσμου και συνάμα του κόσμου έσω. Οι αισθήσεις ζωντανεύουν, μαζί τους και εμείς. Μέσα από την παρατήρηση και τις αισθήσεις μας οδηγούμαστε σε ένα ταξίδι αφύπνισης.

Με σεβασμό και αγάπη για την φύση αλλά και την ποιητική του ματιά για όλα όσα μας περιβάλλουν, ο Paulius εναλάσσει εικόνες, στοιχεία, ήχους, ρυθμούς.

Ο αέρας, το χώμα, το νερό, η φωτιά, βρίσκονται σε διάλογο• το φώς με το σκοτάδι• η ανθρώπινη παρουσία και η αποξένωση• η τρυφερότητα και η ψυχρότητα. Ένα τραγούδι λύπης, ένας χορός έκστασης. Όλα είναι μέρος του ταξιδιού. Μέσα από την καθαρτική δύναμη του χιονιού, μας ξεπλένει από οτιδήποτε περιττό και μας οδηγεί στην εσωτερική μας φλόγα.

Εσύ παίρνεις παύσεις στην καθημερινή σου ζωή ; για να ακούσεις τον ήχο της φύσης ; τον ήχο της πόλης ; τον ήχο μέσα σου ;"

Mary Stefanou

2024

Ce qui est abandonné l'est-il vraiment ? Ce qui passe, ceux et celles qui passent, ce qui se passe, tout cela disparaît-il dans le néant ? Paulius Sliaupa nous convie dans cette question, par un murmure d'images et de sons qui se mêlent, se fondent les unes dans les autres. Les deux se cherchent, se trouvent, se perdent, se retrouvent, mais la texture précise de Paulius nous guide et nous permet d'accepter de nous perdre, de nous enfoncer dans ce monde, qui nous semble si lointain et pourtant si familier, et de nous dissoudre dedans.

Sons et images embrassent tout à la fois leur état de superposition et d'union, créant parfois un sentiment étrange mais aussi une impression d'harmonie infinie. Le mouvement et la composition des deux font du film une plongée dans un seul et même tableau prenant vie et dont nous inspecterions les moindres recoins.

Nous transportant dans divers lieux délaissés par la civilisation, le film invite la mémoire et le passé, comme des fantômes qui nous hanteraient non pour nous engloutir avec eux, mais plutôt pour nous subjuguer l'espace d'un instant et nous ôter à notre civilisation tout en l'évoquant au travers de ses restes, de ses traces, de ses passages, et nous inspirant par la même occasion une sorte de respect profond dépassant notre propre humanité.

Il n'est pas rare que parmi les voix surgissant du passé, ce compris les sons n'exprimant pas forcément des mots, ce soient les murs qui nous parlent, ou encore les oiseaux solitaires, les fantômes et finalement, n'importe quelle matière présente.

C'est pour ainsi dire une prière, un appel à chercher de l'âme en toutes choses, aussi bien dans l'animé que dans l'apparemment inanimé. Nous glissons doucement au fil des scènes, et là où se dressent d'anciens bâtiments industriels, là où reposent divers objets, éléments ou déchets, tandis que nous les côtoyons, tandis que nous les frôlons délicatement, il est soudain possible de croire que nous sommes en train d'entrer dans un corps vivant, il est possible de percevoir de la chair là où tout n'est a priori que briques ou matériaux de construction. Mais encore, il est possible lors de notre visite dans ces lieux désaffectés de nous sentir soudain flotter dans une galaxie, pour peut-être voyager vers une autre. Ce que Paulius convoque dans son travail semble alors faire se rejoindre le microcosme et le macrocosme.

D'écho en écho, les notions d'absence et de présence, elles aussi, semblent se mêler et ce, au travers des divers éléments que nous rencontrons, mais aussi au travers du procédé filmique lui-même, notamment par la présence devinée du drone qui devient par moment lui-même une sorte d'âme flottante, dont nous suivons le trajet.

Aliénor H.

2023

TOUCHING THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE

Through photography and moving images, Paulius Šliaupa’s practice delicately foregrounds the reproduction of landscapes in relation to human presence and interference. His video works layer visual and sonic elements to mediate tactile encounters with natural and urban sites, exploring the role of perception and processes of abstraction by charting the liminal spaces between closed-off ecological systems and man-made environments. Illustrating some of these themes, The Monk depicts a series of aerial shots of snowy landscapes alongside various winter scenes, quietly evincing human presence, ﬁlmed predominantly in Lithuania, with a soundscape that evokes this wintry climate via sound effects and a male voice recalling the frosted landscapes of his childhood. This thematically concise yet formally complex piece superﬁcially alludes to contemporary surveying practices that utilise digital (drone) technology to examine how human existence inexorably informs, transforms, and reproduces nature. Although Šliaupa’s snowy vistas point to environmental awareness—with (melting) snow as our epoch’s key symbol of climate-related doom— his work does not merely highlight the Anthropocene’s dramatic ecological im-plications but indeed a state of planetary emergency. Unlike Edward Burtynsky’s massive, drone-powered The Anthropocene Project, or Andreas Gursky’s expansive landscape photographs, Šliaupa fundamentally resists demonstrative clarity and uncomplicated visual augmentation. Instead, he infuses the digitally enhanced drone landscapes in The Monk. With an aura of elusiveness and spirituality and radically linking visibility to states of invisibility and abstraction, the artist questions technological speciﬁcity and experiences of intimacy and subjectivity, the activation of bodily senses to subjective memory and embodied experiences, and a sense of disorientation to land-scapes of vastness and aural proximity.

Šliaupa’s fascination for the image of the wanderer— a key trope of Romanticism— puts the sublime and spiritual contemplation of mediated landscapes at the very core of his practice. The title of the work pays homage to Caspar David Friedrich’s iconic painting The Monk by the Sea (1808–1810), and, through its immersive audiovisual universe, unmistakably references the history of artists depicting awe-inspiring natural vistas guided by the human subject’s gaze. The artist’s background as a painter provides a ﬁttingly cross-disciplinary foundation for both these reﬂections and the exploration of the material potentialities of digital surfaces. The manipulation of drone imagery in The Monk boasts a distinct painterly quality since the footage of landscapes is reworked in post-production to mask and conceal layers of the image with blotted-out sections that, at times, resemble thick brushstrokes. These intertextual gestures evoke a strong sense of touch, simulating the textured, layered physicality of a painted canvas on the screen. The haptic potential of our vision absorbing abstract moving images, gliding ‘across a richly textured surface, occasional-ly pausing but not really focusing, making us wonder what we are actually seeing,’ is central to this experience of eyes ‘functioning like organs of touch’[1] This ‘sense of touching a ﬁlm with one’s eyes,’ activates a contemplative gaze that opens up the act of watching to multi-sensorial possibilities.[2] While drone imagery typically provides an awe-inspiring view of the natural landscape by lucidly mapping its elevated perspective onto the two-dimensional plane of the screen, Šliaupa’s application of painterly aftereffects— for instance, vast areas of the recorded landscape blotted out in blackness— abstracts and distorts the digital images. This gesture, then, guides us across its textured surface, inviting a highly introspective viewing experience. The tension between the striking yet ﬂattened perspectives of drones detached from human vision and the digitally applied, painterly “touch” of the artist in post-production gives the work a particular depth: the artist’s disturbance of the transparency of clean-cut aerial images allows us to “enter” their surface via a contemplative, haptic gaze.

While hapticity invites us to consider ‘the image as a material presence rather than an easily identiﬁable representational cog in a narrative wheel,’ one can discern a similar process in the soundscape of The Monk, both in the superimposed sound effects that come in and out of focus as well as the spoken monologue it contains.[3] Sounds mimicking the howling wind or falling snow distinctively convey the embodied experiences of snowstorms and exposure to the piercing climate that the images evoke. This richly textured aural sphere heightens the immersive aspect of the work, and the central role of memory in processing deeply sensuous sonic spaces. Signiﬁcantly, Šliaupa transcends the mere reproduction of natural environments via the audio track. Deceptively, we might assume that what we hear is a ﬁeld recording collected in icy temperatures concurrently with the drone footage. Instead, the artist produced these sounds as he physically reconstructed— via soft whistles, taps, and other gentle ways of manipulating the microphone’s delicate membrane with his mouth and hands— his own memories of wintry landscapes from his native Lithuania, an intimate process that ingeniously mediates his embodied experiences while inviting us to connect with our own. The monologue describing the private recollections of an unidentifed-ﬁed male voice adds yet another level to this sonic space. Thematically, the evocative descriptions of childhood, of ‘fantastic days when snow covered the landscape’ and memories of sledding down a hill, certainly match the visual elements of the piece. Yet, Šliaupa wants us to resist the temptation of applying these spoken fragments as tools to “unlock” the meaning of the images. By foregrounding the rich texture of this ﬁgure’s voice— its unique timbre, as well as its unsteady, hesitant ﬂow heightened by the lilting, accented English— the artist magniﬁes the soundscape’s tactile qualities, the physicality of its delivery and the way the softness of sonic vibrations reaches us.

In this way, the work’s visual and aural elements do not align seamlessly but become subtly entwined to produce an intimate, multi-sensorial experience seeped in subjectivity. Accordingly, how might we situate within the work the interrelatedness of these contradictory elements, which deploy both cutting-edge digital technology and small, intimate gestures that invite the bodily senses? The complex shifts in nearness and distance activated by the work result in a disorienting tapestry of interrelated yet seemingly incongruous subject positions that liberate both image and sound from narrative speciﬁcity or indexical ﬁxedness. Scale, unlike size, is fundamentally relational, i.e., it exists on a comparative plane between a subject and its environment. While foregrounding relations between layers of sound and image, The Monk systematically conceals, confuses, and disturbs the readability of their scale and perspective. Some of the unaltered aerial drone footage appears as an alien surface, evoking microscopic close-ups of organisms and matter, while the magnitude of howl-ing winds can in fact be traced back to the gentle exhale of a single human being. Yet, the additional insertion of mundane scenes in the work—notably heaps of dirty snow which the artist, amusingly enough, spotted as discarded trash next to a supermarket—disrupts the possibility of a ﬁxed relational system between these scales of vastness and closeness. Instead, via a range of technologically mediated processes, the work taps into the haptic potentialities of different sounds and images, where visibility and abstraction coexist to engage sensorial, embodied experiences. Shifting in scale between these fragments, the work ultimately links visibility and aurality to that which is concealed and unknown, poetically activating a sense of spiritual wonder and affective intimacy in the viewer.

[1] Melinda Barlow cited by Catherine Grant, “Touching the Film Object? Notes on the ‘Haptic’ in Videographical Film Studies,” Filmanalytical (2011), https://ﬁlmanalytical. blogspot.com/2011/08/touching-ﬁlm-object-notes-on-haptic-in.html.

[2] Laura U Marks, The Skin of the Film, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), xi.

[3] Donato Totaro cited by Grant, “Touching the Film Object?“

Sonya Simonyi, from the exhibition catalog "Various Positions" (p. 151-154), Brussels, Belgium, 2021

Stebėtojas stebi

All things flourish, and each returns to its source.

[Tao Te Ching chapter 16]

Pirmą kartą apie Paulių Šliaupą išgirdau iš vieno akademijos dėstytojo, entuziastingai pasakojusio, jog Paulius tapo medžio šakelėmis. Kiek vėliau pamačiau šviesos persmelktus jo peizažus.

Pauliaus tapyba įtraukia savo medžiagiškumu. Nepaisant abstrakčios raiškos, jo tapybinės kompozicijos kalba apie gamtos juslingumą, kurį galima patirti žvelgiant į raustantį vakaro dangų, liečiant šlapias samanas, ar minant duobėtą kelią po kojomis. Paulius, atrodo, sąmoningai fiksuoja akimirkas savais pojūčiais, kurie vėliau, sluoksnis po sluoksnio, yra pažadinami jo tapyboje. Tarsi atsiminimai, įspūdžiai virtę makro pasauliu.

Kelionė valtimi, Saulėgrąža, Pirmas sniegas – tai Pauliaus kūrinių pavadinimai, nusakantys autoriaus glaudų ryšį su jį supančia gamta. Paulius nesibaimina kūriniuose naudoti gamtoje rastus elementus – kriaukles, kaulus, smėlį. Šie radiniai, savyje talpinantys praėjusį laiką, kartais tampa jo tapybinių kompozicijų inkliuzais, stebėtinai organiškai įsiliejančiais į kūrinio visumą. Žvelgiant į autoriaus tapybą, aplanko pojūtis, jog ji nėra sukurta rankomis, o greičiau pastebėta - aptikta dirvožemyje, miško paklotėje, ar upės dugne. Autorius tapyboje vengia naudoti griežtas linijas bei aštrius kampus – priešingai - jo kompozicijos daugiasluoksnės, neapibrėžtų formų ir gilių faktūrų. Trapūs kūrinių kraštai ir pulsuojančios, švytinčios, kupinos laiko sluoksnių spalvos sukelia laikinumo pojūtį.

Pauliaus Šliaupos kūryba kyla iš giliai įsisąmoninto gamtos ir reiškinių kismo. Iš čia skleidžiasi autoriaus dėmesingas ir jautrus santykis su dabartimi. Ilgesys tolstančiam gamtos pasauliui ir nostalgiškas bandymas jame pasilikti jo drobėse mainosi su gebėjimu išjausti esaties būsenas. Nejučia vėsus ryto lietus nugludina ir apjungia šias patirtis savo buvimu intuityviai užbaigdamas kūrinį. Nieko nėra tikriau už šią akimirką.

Marija Rinkevičiūtė

Pas de titre dans le champ, pas de générique, pas d’indices de lieu. Le temps suit le premier confinement, dès lors 2020, puisque la voix-off évoque le couvre-feu et une exposition démontée sans avoir vu de public. La progression visuelle fait passer du jour à la nuit. Très peu d’éléments ne se réfèrent à quelque chose de connu, de fiable. La voix ne s’adresse pas à nous mais à un autre qui ne répond pas, ou du moins dont la réponse reste tue. Les “échanges” sont de l’ordre de l’intimité banale d’une relation de couple, sans rien atteindre de dramatique. Un léger bruit de fond indique un environnement vivant, comme si la personne s’était extraite d’un monde pour s’adresser à cet autre, ailleurs. Le grand écart avec l’image est immense, incompréhensible. Le lien s'opère par la parole : une évocation d’un tournage suggère que le plan est ce que l’autre aurait filmé. Mais rien de sûr, encore une fois, une supposition. Nous sommes très seuls face à cet objet vidéo. La diction s'apparente aux vidéos d’asmr ‒ Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response “réponse autonome sensorielle culminante” ‒ dont on dispose sur Internet pour se détendre et éprouver des sensations de bien-être jusqu’au frisson. Le plaisir est simple à s’enfoncer dans cette contemplation-audition mais une latence se perçoit, au-delà du visible, de l'audible et c’est ce creux qui attire. Le titre de la vidéo donne une piste : son “entre nous” signifie un espace entre deux dont au moins un des deux est humain, et ce “nous” s'il désigne un couple possible peut aussi nous englober même si le doute subsiste sur une telle invitation. D'autant que le champ se rapproche petit à petit de son sujet, aggravant cette distance, ce grand écart, jusqu'à ce qu'un zoom perde l'image, qui se distord, devient abstraite. Mystérieuse mais agréable puisqu'en elle, rien de perdu ni de vain. Chaque composant a son importance et sa vie propre, ils ne réclament pas d'être re-connus, ils “sont” tout simplement.

Samuel Bester

2021

Although abstract, Paulius’ paintings come from natural phenomena. The artist observes natural fragments: water flow, reflections, shimmer, or snow shine. These images remain deeply branded in the painter’s mind and, gradually reducing the recognisable contours, he starts revelation of the sensations and colours on the canvas. The artist is particularly interested in light experiences which, according to him, “are the simplest thing to convey visually, whether in-plane or in space.” Therefore, he does not only paint them but also takes on the direct capturing of the light – photography.

Another striking feature of Paulius’ paintings is their multilayerness. According to the artist himself, his paintings are “wrapped in time”, day by day continuing with one layer after another. Like a magician, he chooses for this a special time of day when the light falls very smoothly – early morning hours and few hours before nightfall. The creation of a multi-layer painting during the particular hours of the day turns into a ritual, in which the view of the streaks of light is permanently captured on the canvas. In addition, the coatings of paint, when hardened, create relief paintings with a rich texture that casts shadows itself. This makes the paintings work not only on the representational level but on that of the real world as well.

The paintings created by the artist also look at the source of light. However, the technical qualities determine the subtlety of these works – the light is creeping as if through the mists where the pale contours of unknown objects can be seen. We know from occasional names given to the pastels that these are fragments of houses, kitchens or railways. Thus, the Šliaupa’s glance slides over the world of bluish northern light leaving his reflections on canvas or paper.

In his videos, Paulius Šliaupa is interested in various forms of water encountered by the characters of his works in one way or another. These may be children eating spring snowflakes, or a surfer girl paddling into waves. All their encounters with nature are like allegories depicted in classical paintings that do not refer to specific individuals. Paulius’ characters, too, embody different states: admiration, guilt, and buoyant surprise. The artist’s camera observing them from far is static, but the associative assembling of images creates a sense of a very personal story.

Text by Deima Žuklytė-Gasperaitienė

2019