The conference is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the most famous Lithuanian artist and composer, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1910).
The all-time most phenomenal Lithuanian artist, a composer, painter and photographer, whose work comes across as an embodiment of interdisciplinarity and profundity, as a synthesis of avant-garde and heritage and as an inspiration for everyone from the fields of art and humanities to the realms of society, technology and sciences. Čiurlionis’s legacy consists of some 300 paintings and graphic works, among which his Sonatas are the most celebrated. By applying the musical form of a sonata—built on the contrast of different keys and themes—he developed a distinctive synthesis of music and painting.
At the conference Sonata of Science and Culture, we will unite seemingly disparate disciplines—science, art, sport, and culture—seeking a common thread: a synthesis of our collective ideas.
The conference is presented by the first work of synergy of future science and art in the world, created in 2022 by VMU alumni, geneticists Lukas Žemaitis and Ignas Galminas, and painter Tadas Sokolovas – “DNA Painting No. 1”.
The painting has two sides – the visible one and the invisible one. The invisible side features the first-ever use of DNA writing technology in paint, encoding 196 of Čiurlionis’ most famous works or art, as well as containing digital form of NFT of this actual painting by Tadas Sokolovas. The artwork’s canvas is covered with over 30 different layers of acrylic and lacquer paint, overlapping to create a colorful graffiti style full of inscriptions and symbols.
In 2021, the same scientists wrote Lithuania’s national anthem into a DNA molecule. The anthem is also integrated into the new painting, encoded in the paint of the record-player featuring in the painting.
University students of all study fields and cycles, as well as pupils from senior years of VMU network schools, are invited to give presentations, showcase their creative work, and/or moderate conference sessions. Presentations or performances can be prepared individually or in groups.
Registration is open until April 7.
The authors of the selected submissions will be informed by April 15.
Conference keywords: Artes Liberales, Interdisciplinarity, Creativity, Sustainable Development, Visionariness, Multilingualism, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Conference Languages: Lithuanian, English and other languages taught at the university.
A presentation summary (200 to 250 words) in Lithuanian or English is required on the registration form.
“Šiaurė” is a transmedia project that combines Titas Petrikis’s audiovisual music concert with painter and media artist Rimantas Plungė’s paintings.
The project invites listeners on a journey of thoughts and emotions to the Arctic North, where humans reflect on their existence. Music and visualizations created specifically for this concert, along with a series of paintings, reveal the grandeur of nature and human connection to it, as well as a personal Lithuanian attachment to this distant region. Traveling through the Arctic, where every form of life fights more for survival than against each other, people must be resilient and learn to accept things as they are, amidst the constant gusts of wind.
The creative foundation of the project is linked to M.K. Čiurlionis’s interdisciplinarity and media synthesis, where music and visual art become equally valid forms of expression. In Čiurlionis’s works, natural elements acquire a metaphysical dimension, connecting humans to the cosmic order; similarly, “Šiaurė” through the synthesis of sound and image also aims to convey the grandeur of nature and human existential reflection. Čiurlionis experimented in his work by transferring musical structures into painting, creating visual symphonies and sonatas—likewise, “Šiaurė” uses audiovisuals and visual projections to expand the boundaries of artistic experience.
The concert is a performance lasting over an hour, featuring live and electronic music, and visualizations. Before and after the concert, in the hall adjacent to the auditorium, as part of the transmedia art, Rimantas Plungė’s paintings will be displayed, creating an expansive narrative context and deeply engaging the viewer in the holistic experience of the “Šiaurė” project.
Artistic Team:
Music: Titas Petrikis
Painting: Rimantas Plungė
Visualizations: Matas Gineika
Set Design and Art: Artūras Šimonis
Sound Director: Matas Jančauskas
Lighting Technology: Viktoras Vaicekauskas
Prof. Dr. Rimantas Plungė (VDU Faculty of Arts) and Prof. Dr. Titas Petrikis (VDU Faculty of Arts)
“Echoes of the North: M. K. Čiurlionis’ Legacy in Transmedia Art”
Greta Katkevičienė (Student at VDU Faculty of Humanities, Curator at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art)
“Multifaceted Reflections of M. K. Čiurlionis”
The conference is part of a series of events, projects, and initiatives that will take place throughout 2025, dedicated to Vytautas Magnus University’s presidency of the “Transform4Europe” (T4EU) alliance. The alliance, uniting eleven European universities, aims to create joint structures, programs, and platforms for research and innovation, with the main goal of strengthening the T4EU’s future vision, identity, and cooperation.
“Freedom to Create 2024” was dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the restoration of Vytautas Magnus University and the liberal arts study model.
“What is fascinating about creativity, which is present even in science and inevitably in art, is that there are no boundaries, that you have to be provocative, that you have to look for new forms, and sometimes you have to break the rules, to shake things up. All this pushes us in the direction of further discoveries,” said Lukas Žemaitis, geneticist, VMU alumni and guest of the conference.
“Freedom to Create 2023” addressed the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
“Community safety and empowerment, sustainable consumption and sustainability, reducing inequality and promoting well-being, combating climate change – these are global challenges that will encourage our students to recognize the value of studies based on the principles of the liberal arts in addressing complex problems. These challenges can only be overcome through creativity, multifaceted approaches, and a broader perspective and assessment of the situation. This is what we aim to achieve by offering students individualized study paths,” said Vilma Bijeikienė, Vice-Rector for Communication at Vytautas Magnus University.
The first conference, “Freedom to Create 2022”, was organized to commemorate the centenary of the University of Lithuania.
“We admire our students for their creativity, their openness to innovation, their sociability and social responsibility. We wanted to bring them all together, to create a forum for them to share their thoughts and insights, to present their achievements in science and the arts, and to discuss topics that are important to them. We wanted to bring together students from different fields of study who are interested in the same topics and problems, but who approach them from the perspective of their own field of study,” said Žieda Tamašauskaitė, one of the organisers of the conference and a lecturer at the Institute of Foreign Languages at VMU.
