Julijonas Urbonas
In partnership with Rupert, Centre for Art and Education in Vilnius
Julijonas Urbonas is a Lithuanian artist, designer, researcher, engineer, Vice-Rector for Art and Associate Professor at Vilnius Academy of Arts, and PhD student in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, London. He's worked in amusement park development and in 2004, he became the head of an amusement park in Klaipeda, Lithuania, and ran it for three years. Having worked in this field — also as a designer and engineer — he became fascinated by what he calls 'gravitational aesthetics.' Since then the topic has been at the core of his artistic research, intermingling such fields as critical design, speculative engineering, social sci-fi, performative architecture, choreographic heuristics, medicine, theatre and dance. His work has been exhibited internationally and received many awards, including the Award of Distinction in Interactive Art, Prix Ars Electronica 2010.