Reading Room
Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts
E. A. Jonušo g. 3
Nida LT-93127
On 26 February 2025 at 8pm, Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter invite you to a presentation and discussion of their ongoing work, Metrica (Vol. I–XI). First exhibited at Rupert (LT) in 2023, the work is a documented performance—a score that places a fictional building management system, driven by a large language model, in conversation with foundational bureaucratic texts that establish and maintain territory. Connected to an institution’s lighting system and fed administrative texts from its immediate environment—including land charters, archival property documents, and records from prior performances of the work—Metrica’s building system struggles as it attempts to interpret these fragmented memories while fulfilling its directive: to turn the lights on or off.
While at NAC, Benedict and Rueter laid the groundwork for translating this work (previously an installation) into a publication and a video. Through this process, they continue to engage with scholars, academics, and artists as they deepen their research into the digitization of the codices of the Duchy of Lithuania’s Metrika and the digitized archives of post-Soviet Lithuanian land registers, created during the land restitution and privatization process of the 1990s following Lithuanian independence.
Benedict and Rueter look forward to sharing their plans for the coming chapters of this work and engaging in an open discussion.
Organised by Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter as part of their NAC artist residency.