Manila Is Calling Your Name
Danas Aleksa, Remigijus Treigys | 2020 | Baroti Gallery, Klaipėda
“I was bored and scrolling through the narrow streets of Manila’s slums on a touch screen in a country far away. I was looking at frozen images of the city and its people. Remigijus Treigys’ photographic renderings immediately came to mind. When I checked my emails the next day, I found several offers for accommodations in the capital of the Philippines custom tailored for me by the algorithms of booking.com with the tagline: "Manila is calling you!” - Danas Aleksa
This exhibition brings together two artists and two technologies that deal with the restoration and reconstruction of memory in the media and elsewhere. Place and time are dimensionally important in the work of both artists. Day 21 in Berlin, Last Day in Venice and 7th Street is a photography series by Remigijus Treigys that focuses on the connection between captured images and reality that can be determined only by the very fact that these are photographs. In them, any type of documentation has been replaced by the images that have been captured. Danas Aleksa creates files of memory in the virtual present.
One of the essential goals of this dialogue is to encourage discourse on the subjectiveness of memory in a future generated by algorithms.
An important highlight of the exhibition is a hotel room. Some trip impressions are not related to the authenticity of the places visited, but there are many universal experiences that make all trips comparable. Applying the same filters to different hotel rooms eventually makes them seem almost completely identical to each other. Their interiors, layouts, and small details can be predicted before you even arrive at each of them. From the perspective of memory, it becomes difficult to pin down each space to a specific location.
Danas Aleksa (b. 1971) is a sculptor, creator of objects, installations and performances. In 1997, he graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts with a Major in Sculpture. He has been exhibiting his works at major group shows as well as at solo exhibitions since 1997. In 2012, he became a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Arts Association. He currently lives and works in Vilnius. Remigijus Treigys (b. 1961) is a Lithuanian photographer. He is a member of the Lithuanian Photographers Association, member of the Klaipėda Artists Union, member of the Artists Union, and a lecturer at the Klaipėda Faculty of the Vilnius Arts Academy. He began exhibiting his works in 1986. He currently works and lives in Klaipėda, Lithuania.
Photos by: Remigijus Treigys