Our brief for the week was to make a video on Baltic Signs, however I totally missed that there was a title to the project however some members of the group misheard the title as being Baltic Science. This seemed a more apt and intriguing title.
We were divided into groups (a relatively simple task that took a while) however once placed in a group with three other Lithuanian students we were then shown the film and digital media equipment we could use to make the video. It was like being shown a gangsters hoard of weaponry with camera equipment to shoot anything I’d turning up with just the drawing equipment I could fit in my luggage. Not intimidated by the equipment I borrowed a camera with a lens long enough to see into the future and set off into some nearby woodlands to start playing.
The Lithuanian students were either Graphics or Digital Media students, so technology was their friend, they knew the language of their complicated toys. I on the other hand had bought some plastic to create some drypoint matrices and decided to try and capture some snippets of surface data from some of the many exquisitely intriguing trees. Our skills began to fuse as the sound of the drypoint tool on the plate drew the Lithuanian students to record the sound of what I was doing.


With a few finished matrices in hand I explained the intaglio print process to the Lithuanian students and we experimented with holding the plastic matrices in front of the camera lens to shoot stills and video before heading over to the beach to undertake a similar process.

Filming at the beach – Photo credit: David Baldry


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I found Ai Wei Wei a rather over-hyped affair, whilst my Fine Art colleagues seemed to be buzzing after seeing an art celebrity’s work I felt rather flat. To summarise my thinking; seeing Ai Wei Wei at the Royal Academy was a bit like seeing a hipster in Buckingham Palace, two worlds colliding creating a confused conversation. Enough said.


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After arriving at Nida Art Colony after a long winded mini bus trip across Lithuania from Kaunas to Nida Art Colony I managed to get a somewhat sleepy snippet of the landscape. The 2am start to get to Stanstead Airport in time for the flight to Kaunas didn’t stop me from admiring the beautiful green patches of woodland, however the infinite grey stretches of road did become monotonous. None the less I was kept alert in the minibus by a rather intriguing Lithuanian radio station broadcasting Lithuanian renditions of Maria Carey and Madonna and was thrilled to arrive at the Colony in the early evening.

Once the six students from the Vilnius Academy and Vytutas Magnus University were settled we all met as a group in the communal area to be briefed on the weeks events. It was our first opportunity to meet each other before heading off out to Amber Bay for the flaming sculptures event as part of the Autumn Equinox. Listening to the colours crackling in the fire and watching the destruction of the sculptures in the reed beds slowly disintegrate into the water created a somewhat peaceful if not slightly curious start to the residency.

Click here to listen to some sound recordings of the flaming sculptures.

22/09/2015


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