"Eye Gymnastics" is the stage pseudonym of Viktorija Damerell and Gailė Griciūtė. From 2018 Artists living in Vilnius collaborate in creating performances of experimental music, vocal instructions and incantations. In their explorations, sensual timbres merge with mental journeys, hypnosis and echoes of pop music. Eye Gymnastics appeared at the exhibitions "Bio - Phantomas'ic sessions" in Žeimių Mainor and "2090" in Lentvaris artists' space "Lokomotif", at the festivals "Jauna Muzika", "Ars Electronica" and "Videogramos" in Vilnius, at the Rupert residence online event "In Dissolve" and at the birthday event "Fortune Wheel" in Vilnius, at the event organized by the Kaunas House of Artists "Art Birthday", at the Haus Der Kunst performance series "Atmosferics" in Munich.
Eye Gymnastics invites the festival audience to participate in a special sonic experience. During four creative workshops, the duo will prepare a core of performers that will become the basis of the final performance. In it, Eye Gymnastics and Co. will invite any visitor to engage in an exploration of commonality and resonance through the use of their voice.
The performance is an opportunity for the workshop participants and the audience to create a mutual sound experience together with the artists. By offering a certain use of vocals, deep listening and spatial resonance, the creators invite to shift attention from individual artistic solutions to the experience of the whole, where everyone's contribution forms a generally interdependent organism.
Wonder and a certain form of vulnerability are inseparable. Openness to the world and what surrounds us, i.e. vulnerability gives us the capacity to wonder. To be able to wonder, we need to cultivate attention. But cultivating this focus means letting go of habits that shut us off from the world. Often we don't want to open up, or we don't want others to open up to us. We feel too much responsibility, too much risk: if someone or something opens up to us, it obliges, because what has been opened up to us is a gift to be accepted and cared for. When we are preoccupied with our own worlds, living insecurely, and living in a culture where individualism is the supposed source of our wholeness, such commitment, care, and focus seem too risky. But we are impoverished because of it. Eye Gymnastics is a lesson in moving together in mutual vulnerability.
