Critical Diary Entry - Baltic Arts, Newcastle

Link - www.balticmill.com

We recently visited the Baltic in Newcastle where the British Art Show is being held. I enjoyed the trip on the whole yet I had mixed feelings about the Baltic. I thought that the building was very impressive, a great location also on the river side. I was very impressed with some of the pieces being exhibited, but I was also disappointed with some which I felt where a little too 'Fine Arty' and pretentious, art for arts sake. As a visual communications student I lean more towards creative processes that have a purpose and an audience to decode what is being communicated. At the Baltic there were definately some great pieces that fit this criteria, I just couldn't be arsed with something as meaningless and talentless as a match sitting on a shelf for example! Despite this, I was entertained by the likes of Marcus Coates's 'Journey to the lower world', which was extremely strange but as a result extremely funny. I was also amazed by Tonico Lemos Auad's sculptures made out of carpet fluff, they were unbelieveable! They looked so delicate and perfectly formed, one sneeze or gust of wind would have been the end of them though!

Reportage Rationale

For the final stage of the Reportage brief we intend to produce a DVD video. We intend to investigate primarily Waterloo Lake, in Roundhay Park.
We originally saw the dam of the lake as being like a stage; actors (visitors to the park) walking across the stage (dam), between the naturally provided wings (trees), everything set against a changing backdrop (the sky). We intend to interview visitors to the lake and include footage / sound recordings / information of them and the area in the work. Combined with this will also be footage and sound recordings taken from various places around the lake. We will design a simple title sentence to precede the main work, so as to put our findings into context but not to distract audience focus.
The intentions behind the video are to report on the experiences and knowledge of users of the lake and its surrounding area. We have both included work about the journey to and around the lake in our projects so far and feel there is potential here to develop our findings.
Filming, editing and production of the disc will take place over two and a half days, therefore we will have to ensure we organise resources and time effectively to achieve our objectives.