Irina Gheorghe

On June 18, the solo exhibition by Irina Gheorghe, "Scores for the End of the Present" / "Dabarties pabaigos partitūros", opens at the VDA exhibition halls "Titanikas", 2nd floor.

In "Scores for the End of the Present", the event we are supposed to experience here and now is disrupted by something that is not there. It may be that certain aspects of the situation are inaccessible because they are invisible, hidden, or have suddenly disappeared. It may also be that what is happening is fully accessible, but the space and time in which it occurs are not revealed, creating the impression that we do not know where we are. In any case, the aim is to create a gap between a person's perception of a real event and that which is not part of it. The space seems familiar, but gradually it becomes unfamiliar. Things seem to be happening in the present, but upon closer inspection, they are embedded in the flow of a distant future, a distant past, or a hypothetical time not yet realized. You are, up to a point, who you thought you were, until you realize that you are actually being addressed as someone else. Objects are perfectly recognizable until one moment they become unrecognizable. A wooden stick is perfectly clear in terms of its meaning (or lack thereof), but in a post-apocalyptic scenario, it could become the only weapon at hand.

"Scores for the End of the Present" is a series of works that aim to connect such different dimensions of time, space, and modes of being. Their purpose is to bridge incompatible axes of time and capture what theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli calls the "end of the present" in his book "The Order of Time": an earthly "now" that has no meaning in a broader cosmic context. Initially conceived as an aid for performances—an artistic form of expression most closely associated with the concepts of presence and the present—these scores are, in fact, visual and conceptual notes that can become a starting point for other artistic practices, expanding from the usual small page format into other media and dimensions: three-dimensional installation, still or moving image, sound.

The works exhibited in the exhibition can be seen as part of this multifaceted concept of the score. The installation, consisting of a series of new 16mm short films and floor interventions created specifically for this space in direct response to the architecture of the "Titanikas" exhibition halls, presents an enlarged notation in space. Visitors are guided by the visual language of the tape on the floor, which turns movement in the space into a walking performance. Short text instructions scattered throughout the space suggest alternative scenarios, turning a visit to the gallery into a moment from an unnamed science fiction story. The film series brings a new element to the project, complementing the focus on drawing, installation, and photography that prevailed in its previous versions, and explores how the moving image can become a score. Rather than being a reflection of a phenomenon that occurred at a certain moment, the actions in the films can be understood as guidelines for further actions. It is not specified in what context they take place: whether it is real or fictional, contemporary or historical, earthly or extraterrestrial, belonging to the distant past or the distant future. In one of the films, the gradual expansion of a large green paper structure, followed by its collapse, is not only documentation of a performance fragment but also a diagram that can reflect the chronology of other phenomena or become guidelines for future performative actions of a different nature. In other films, some graphic elements of the floor installation or the materials that make it up emerge as three-dimensional objects and seem to react to invisible scores: they fill the space, move in a certain direction, create choreography, destroy choreography, disappear. Having accompanied human performers through real spaces, the mind-objects become physical and submit to being accompanied.