Created in Birmingham

A Flatpack Film Festival spotlight.

Mark Locke’s Saturday Night Takeaway, occurring at the MAC on Feb 3rd, is a retrospective of the film maker’s work from 90s comedy shorts to his current crop of music videos for the likes of Jeffrey Lewis, Ten Benson and local stars Misty’s Big Adventure.

The performance will be in a chat show format with Mark talking about his films with BBC presenter Adrian Goldberg while Misty’s perform live as the house band.

There will also be clips of Mark’s comedy feature film Crust descried by All Movie Guide thus:

“The phrase “jumbo shrimp” gains a whole new meaning in this broad comedy from the United Kingdom. Bill (Kevin McNally) is a former boxer who, now in middle age, owns and operates a run-down bar and spends a bit too much time sampling his wares. One day, Bill’s friend Hamid (Madhav Sharma), a self-styled entrepreneur with no shortage of get-rich-quick schemes, offers to cut him in on something remarkable — while the Mantis Shrimp of the Philippines, an unusual breed with club-like stumps instead of claws, rarely grows over six inches in length, he’s discovered a living specimen which is a whopping seven feet long. Hamid is certain there must be big money in exhibiting the massive crustacean, and Bill comes up with a remarkable plan — teach the critter to box, and then have it take on all comers on a TV show!”

and here’s a somewhat glowing review.

Mark’s site, Fort Mark Films, showcases his music videos. I’d particularly recommend Jeff Lewis’ Wiliamsburg Will Oldham Horror and Misty’s Fashion Parade though they’re all worth a look. The latter was something of an MTV / YouTube hit.

Tickets for the event are £4.50 and available from the MAC website. The show starts at 8.30 on Feb 3rd and runs for an hour and a half. Which should leave time to jet up to the Jug of Ale for the Known Unknowns live music and films and stuff event. That’s my plan anyway.

Lower Eastside Dialogues is a series of events aiming to set the agenda for the emerging learning and cultural quarter over the next three months.

The Design of Regeneration
January 25th, 7pm @ The Bond, Fazeley Street, Digbeth (map)

Speakers include:
* Amanda Levete from Future Systems, architects of the award winning Selfridges building
* Philip Singleton, City Design Advisor, Birmingham City Council Planning Policies and Development.
* Speaker from Urban Splash (developing both the Rotunda and Fort Dunlop)
* Chair – Julia Ellis, Director, MADE

Further dates include:
Digital Cities – 22nd February
Journeys and Arrivals – Heritage and Regeneration – 22nd March

Contact Roger Shannon for further information and to book places.

Info via Producers Forum

Interesting interview in the Birmingham Post with Jonathan Watkins, director of the Ikon gallery and architect Glenn Howells (Wikipedia) who has previously worked on the Custard Factory and is involved with a number of regeneration projects in Birmingham. While nothing has been confirmed the pair are very keen to see the Ikon expand into a new building housing a major contemporary art museum on a par with those in London, Liverpool and Manchester.

Here’s the meat:

Glenn Howells sees the project not as the luxury people might suppose but as a declaration of the city’s ambition.

“We used to need a cathedral to be a city. Today without certain cultural institutions it raises questions about a city’s status.

“One of the perceptions to tackle is that this is something that would be ‘nice to have’. The future can’t be about bashing metal and trying to sell it abroad. It’s being creative, not doing things other cities with lower rates of pay can do.

“If we’re moving into a knowledge-based economy we have to retain the people who are stimulated by this kind of facility. Nobody wonders if a university is good for the city. If you don’t have the right tools to develop stimulation, those people will go elsewhere.”

Jonathan Watkins adds: “This is the second largest city in the fifth largest economy in the world, and yet when you think about visual art it’s a really small proportion of what’s on offer here.

“The more institutions you have, the more artistic activity you can attract, the more artists decide to stay. Then an art market might start to happen. Commercial galleries might decide Birmingham is a good place to be.”

More…

I’ve heard from a number of people that the Ikon, as Birmingham’s premier contemporary art venue, doesn’t really do much for local artists, but that isn’t really its job. The problem is more that, outside the BM&AG, the Ikon is the only gallery with a high enough profile at the moment and it’s not really that big. This idea of a “halo effect” on the local arts community makes sense to me.

That said, it would be nice if the Ikon made some effort to connect with the rest of the community. They appear to have a policy of not publicizing other fine art venues and events in the city, at least judging by the paucity of flyers in their lobby and cafe. As the one gallery most Brummies can name this is a lost opportunity that really should be part of their remit.

In other news, the Ikon Bookshop is having a sale during january and February with 20% off full priced books and 50% off selected catalogues. If you didn’t already know it’s located at 1 Oozells Square in Brindley Place (map.

Link via D’log who has additional commentary. Photo by myself.

The Flatpack Festival programme is online and by the gods there’s a lot going on. I had no idea!

Over four days there’s an absurd amount of films being shown in the city from features to shorts to video installations at a wide range of venues. You could, if you wished, spend three whole days in The Electric, spend Saturday afternoon in the Modulate Sound Space having your brain twisted or experience the entire Jug of Ale being crammed full of bands, films, artists, DJs and stalls for seven hours of Known Unknowns.

The festival starts on February 1st. Over the next week I’ll be profiling some of the events in a bit more depth and then reporting on things as they happen.

Each year music promoters Capsule attend the Sonar Festival in Barcelona.

From their site:

“For the 4th time Capsule will be holding a stall at this years Sonar Festival in Barcelona, on previous visits we have been accompanied by labels/ arts organisations / Festivals organisers to take advantage of the opportunity to promote their wares/ meet like minded people and create new contacts and to get a first hand experience of Europe’s largest electronic/experimental sonic/arts festival.

“Capsule would like to invite applications from labels / artists / organisations / film makers from the West Midlands interested in attending Sonar Festival 2007. A total of 8 companies will be attending from the West Midlands, 3 of these places are open to selection.”

More details here. The deadline for applications is 28th Feb. Photo above presumably from last year.

(I’d go in a half second.)

While we’re on the subject, Capsule events in February are as follows:

3rd – Jug of Ale: Known/Unknowns Flatpack Film Festival related gig.

17th – Jug of Ale: Flower-Corsano Duo, Voice of the Seven Woods, Mills & Boon

18th – Jug of Ale: Young James Long, Copter, D. Louis Baker

A regular weekly selection from the Birmingham Flickr community.

tanyalupton

nobody knows anything

Matt Murtagh

Garry Corbett

To suggest photos for this feature post them to this thread on Flickr or leave a link in the comments here.

New Art Birmingham, running from the 15th to 18th of March in Eastside, “will create exposure for the best of contemporary visual arts through a highly visible event showcasing national artists, encouraging entrepreneurial activity amongst new and emerging artists, galleries and dealers and creating opportunities for potential buyers and collectors.” The event comes under the Urban Fusion umbrella and the site for NAB 2005 is here.

The main hub will be an Art Market featuring painters, sculptures, printmakers, photographers and digital artists based in the UK and selected by a panel. Unfortunately the deadline for submissions was last Thursday. I’ll try to be a bit more on the ball next year.

However, running on the fringe of NAB is LTD Edition run by Fused magazine. “No commission will be charged at the art market with all sale profits going direct to the artist. Space available will include exhibition stands and tables to display work. There will be a small fee of £10 per table/stand for hire.” The deadline for this one is February 2nd and folk should email kerry@fusedmagazine.com for an application form.

Tip of the hat to D’log.

My attention is drawn to Notion Studio, a multimedia production house based at UCE, thanks to a article on the Adobe site spotlighting their music video for Shimm1 in which the buildings of Birmingham transform into giant speakers.

Specialising in high definition video, DVD production and 2D/3D animation, Notion is one of a cluster of organisations based around UCE’s Media and Communications department Notion Studio is run as a commercial business with ties to the education and research environment along with channeling funding opportunities for small to medium sized businesses.

The Destroyers are one of Birmingham’s more intriguing musical outfits. A 15 piece (give or take) group made up of alumni from the Birmingham Conservatoire plus other like minded souls they formed three years ago having met at various jam sessions in the city.

The core of their sound is Klezmer, “a musical tradition which parallels Hasidic and Ashkenazic Judaism”, and East European folk music which they play with great precision occasionally layering their own twists and influences onto the music. They also have experimented with mixing this style with other genres, bringing in regular singer Paul Murphy and, quite recently, a rapper.

They’re also becoming well know for their live accompaniment of vintage films. The BFI commissioned them to play alongside the Mitchell & Kenyon collection of circa 1900 films which they performed at last years Artsfest. There was also a Halloween gig at the Glee Club where they accompanied clips from The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Nosferatu, Faust and Night of the Living Dead. A couple of these have surfaced on YouTube…

Night of the Living Dead

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari

The future looks good for The Destroyers. They continue to pack out venues and a full album is planned for this year.

* Website
* Photos of The Destroyers on Flickr
* MySpace

On the back of the BBC moving more of it’s traditional broadcasting to the North West leaving Birmingham as a “broadcasting backwater” The Stirrer has some interesting speculation about what might come next.

“Our sources suggest that later this month (probably at a media conference in Oxford on January 18) the chief executive of Ofcom, Ed Richards is likely to formally announce the creation of a new kind of “public service publisher” which will generate online content, internet TV, and podcasting.

“The budget from the new venture will be in the region of £350 million – and we have to make sure that it’s based here.

“Birmingham has the location – the new learning quarter at Eastside – and if the speed with which next year’s digital film festival was put together is any guide, it also has the political will.”

More…

Interesting stuff. In the long term you could say Manchester is welcome to the sorts of media production that are going to become more and more niche. While I wouldn’t like to speculate on what form it’ll ultimately take the distributed and fractured models exemplified by YouTube, Flickr, MySpace and blogs is only going to get more prevalent over the next 5-10 years and the traditional institutions are going to play a part in that no matter what. If that sort of infrastructure is based in Birmingham it can only be a good thing.

On his blog The Wireless new media bod Andrew Dubber is posting up an mp3 every day and writing a bit about it. Since he’s fairly in touch with the local music scene a number of the acts promise to be from the region. On Monday he posted a track by Friends of the Stars from their forthcoming album, which I duly downloaded and liked. So I started investigating.

Unlike many bands Friends of the Stars have a blog. Okay, a number of acts are starting to use the rather clunky blog that comes with their MySpace account but up until recently it was a rare thing to see. The FotS blog is ostensibly there to chronicle the story of making their album Lighting and Electrical but thanks to it, shall we say, being a bit delayed the blog veers off into other areas with YouTube videos and musings about all manner of stuff.

It might seem superficial and amateurish but I came away from it with a better idea about what the band were and where they were coming from than I would do from a pretty Flash-based site. There’s a personality and narrative here that I, as a prospective listener, can connect with. Next time I see their name on a gig listing I’ll make an effort to attend.

(The fact that their folk-esque music is really good doesn’t hurt though.)

* Blog
* MySpace
* Photos from the Moseley Folk Festival

MC² is a new comics anthology from The Midlands Comics Collective that was published in November. The MCC is “a group of aspiring artists, writers and other such deviants based in and around Birmingham UK, all of whom are aiming to break into the comics industry – by force if necessary.”

Also of note is the anthology was edited by Hunt Emerson (interview at that link), a veteran underground cartoonist who’s been living and working in Birmingham since the 1970s when he was part of the Birmingham Arts Lab.

The book can be ordered from Amazon and is presumably available in good comic and bookshops in the city.

(via D’log)

The Flatpack Festival from experimental film collective 7 Inch Cinema takes place over four days over the weekend of February 1st – 4th. Full details are still forthcoming but the Saturday event run with Capsule has been announced. Known / Unknowns has six bands in two rooms of the Jug of Ale (presumably one of them is the downstairs lounge?) playing live music to films from 8pm to 2am. Plus, it says, DJs and cake!

The line-up appears to be split into metal and experimental with Threads, Army of Flying Robots and Bee Stung Lips making up the former with The Dirty Cakes, Hot Roddy and Bela Emerson doing the latter. As so often with Capsule gigs I’ve never heard of any of them which is just how I like it.

More info as it’s announced.

Voting has started for this years BAFTA 60 seconds of Fame short film competition with regional heats. There are 12 films in the West Midlands category, which seems a bit low but there you go. Since I heard about this from Kate Thomson it’s only right that I plug the film she did the music for, Come Together by Joel Blackledge and Sam Page, but the others are just as worthy of your attention.

Regional winners will be announced on Feb 7th with the overall winner being invited to the BAFTA awards on Feb 11th.