The creators of the performance drew inspiration from three main sources: 1) a fantasy novella “Lokis” by Prosper Mérimée; complex and controversial biographies of two artists 2) a visionary Lithuanian photographer Vitas Luckus, his controversial life story, wild character and relationship with photography; 3) Bertrand Cantat, the lead singer of the French rock group Noir Désir, as well as tragic events when he killed his beloved one, a famous French actress Marie Trintignant while on a short stay in Vilnius.

These three inspirational stories extend to three main aspects for this performance; It is obvious why in the 19th century P. Mérimée chose a bear(lokys) as a symbol for his novella – it represents the fear of danger that is lying inside the beast and the forest, which represents wild and unpredictable, and uncontrollable nature. That’s what aroused fear to people at that time. Nowadays, however, with the fast development and progress of science and technology our fears have switched from the „bear“ to neurobiology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence – these are new domains that make up the map of fears of a contemporary person; it’s different from what was in the past, and yet the element of unpredictability and uncontrollability remains. Or maybe we should not be afraid of it? The research of “fear” and “the uncontrollable” is one of the axis of the show.

There are a lot of myths and legends about V. Luckus’ last day of life – how in a burst of rage he killed his wife’s friend. After coming back to sanity and realising his actions, he instantly killed himself by jumping out of the window. The reason of his actions remains a mystery, as does the story that happened in hotel Domino Plaza in Vilnius where Bertrand Cantat killed Marie Trintignant. Similar black holes could be found in the novella “Lokis” when the main character Duke Šemeta experiences such deliriums and cannot control his behaviour. Exploration of these black holes, where you cannot neither find out nor restore the truth, is of great importance in the show. Understanding todays’ post-truth, fake news phenomena, mockumentary world – search and recreation of the truth or at least – its image, is the only way to explore it.   

This leads to the last main aspect of the performance – the recreation of an image. It is so unclear nowadays what is what – what is a truth and what is a lie. We see a lot of images, hear lot of “truths” and “facts” but you never know whether it’s fake or real. Is it the reality or just an image of it. It is the same as in photography – a picture is recreation, a duplicate of the real object: exposition, light, the point of view of the photographer – everything determines the way reality is represented in the image. Vitas Luckus’ original approach towards photography and its concept was chosen as a form of how the performance should be retransmitted. The performance, which lingers on the margin of theatre and cinema, explores truths, meanings and events through the image. Image is everything. Image is being reproduced so many times that it creates this fake-truth, which we begin to believe it.  But can it overcome the reality itself? 

source

premiere: 14.09.2017, last perfromance: 08.02.2025