Jan Bowman writes:
I’m writing a children’s picture book about Birmingham and the Enlightenment, which will be ready to send to publishers by December. Inspired by the work of Czech illustrator Sasek it will also show undiscovered treasures lurking in the city, such as the attached. I’m looking for other good visual suggestions and suspect you/your readership can help. There are some more images of Birmingham on my website.
And I would of course like people to commission me!
Just came across Klunk.org, a collective blog that, while not explicitly Birmingham-centric appears to be based here.
This website is the place to find information about the Klunk Kollective. Which basically is a bunch of like minded folks interested in creating digital media. My name is Gary Judge (aka Arcade) and I am the founding member of the community and the administrator of the website.
This website is the virtual hub of the community is a place where interested parties can stay connected, swap ideas, promote themselves and sell some of their wares. Collectively Klunk aims to become an authority in the digital arts medium enabling its members access to information and facilities they would have difficulty getting on their own.
We are currently particularly interested in graphic designers, video artists and musicians who like to play live joining the ranks…So if you would like to join in please get in touch explaining what you do and what you think you can bring to the table.
A recent post is entitled Not much going on in Brum which I found kinda amusing. My calendar is rammed right now with more events that I can physically go to, but then I’ve spent the last year throwing myself right into the middle of everything. A couple of years back I might have thought the same.
On the one hand I’d love for people to know all the stuff without having to work too hard at it, but on the other hand if you want to find the really interesting things you really should expect to work for it. Is there a middle ground?
(Unfortunately Klunk require registration to comment, which is fair enough but not something I would recommend if you want to get the wider debate going.)
Reality Estate is coming up on the 28th October. Taking place in and around the Five Ways Estate, Shopping Centre and roundabout “internationally renowned artists and the people of Ladywood, together they will ‘sing Birmingham’s truths’, accompanied by some of Birmingham’s best known choirs, to a backdrop of spectacular projections and lighting.”
One part of this is the Virtual Choir, a video construction where vocalists who live in the immediate vicinity are projected into 20 shop windows in Auchinleck Square. Here’s the flyer.
Performances, lasting 20 minutes, run from 5-9pm and while tickets are free you’re asked to book on 0121 202 5000.
Ooh, this looks rather smart. The closing party for the Ikon Gallery‘s Eastside residency sees, amongst much else, Broadcast playing. Broadcast in a warehouse! That pleases me for some reason.
via Prime Objective who I’d link to all the time if he had permalinks.
The Stirrer reports on the announced BBC cuts and how they’ll affect the West Midlands. Apparently we’re not doing too badly and might pick up some of the factual programming from London. On the flip side (and not strictly West Mids related) the merging of online, radio and TV news is probably not a great thing.
Wanting to quickly get the Plus Festival experience quickly surmised I wandered around with my camcorder for 10 minutes. Hopefully you can get an idea of what it’s like, allowing for my amateurish skills in this medium. Gotta start somewhere though.
I understand more video content should be coming online soon.
I’ve been sent a load of photos from the Binary Oppositions Launch and, since I’ve always wanted to run some kind of Hello-style Society page, I figured they might as well go on the blog. Post People watch out! I’m not going to try and do witty captions though.
There’s a lot of them so they’re below the fold, as it were.
The Custard Factory is offering five university students free stalls at their Sunday Flea market for six months, worth around £500.
University students with creative and unique talents with a desire to earn extra money and improve their business savvy should submit a proposal of one thousand words or less. The chosen candidate with the best proposal will get their own stall at The Custard Factory Flea Market.
There’s also help available in writing the business plan. Details at the link.
Holding the Edge is an Artists Placement scheme run by MADE in association with the council.
Four emerging Birmingham based artists have been working with MADE in Eastside during 2007 as part of an Artists Placement funded by Birmingham City Council’s Equal II: The Last Mile programme and Arts & Business. The outcomes of their placement will be presented as an alternative prospectus for Eastside titled ‘Holding the Edge’ curated by Anna Douglas shown at MADE, 122 Fazeley St, Birmingham from 19-27 October 2007.
The four artists Rob Colbourne, Stuart Mugridge, Nicole Slater Hunt and Stuart Whipps are fervent about the future of Eastside and their propositions draw attention to the area’s diverse past, present dormancy and future potential.
Rob Colbourne worked with Birmingham City Council on their bid for the new city park in Eastside.
Stuart Mugridge worked with Knight Frank Land Valuers looking at the Curzon Street Park site.
Nicole Slater Hunt worked with the Festival of Xtreme Building on their radical proposals for the re-invention of public space.
Stuart Whipps worked with Kinetic AIU Architects on ISIS Waterside Regeneration’s Warwick Bar development.
The project is being launched on Friday at the Spotted Dog pub in Digbeth in the form of a pub quiz with artists and council bods making up two of the teams.
It seems there were a fair number of bloggers at the Pram / Modified Toy Orchestra / Shady Bard gig at the Town Hall on Monday if the Going Deaf For A Fortnight project is anything to go by. If you reviewed the gig leave a comment on that post and it’ll be included.
Dunc of promoters The Autumn Store has started a lovely little blog that makes me very happy. Already he’s covering all the bases I like to see. Travelling to Bristol to a mini-fest in the wonderful Here shop there, Reviewing a local gig and, best of all, talking about the trials of putting up posters. I have high hopes for this.
Here’s the main Autumn Store site and their next gig is on November 3rd at the Island Bar.
I occasionally get emails from people looking for work experience and today had one from a parent looking for somewhere for their 15 year old to go for a week. She’s specifically looking for graphics / design / art / illustration businesses but it occured to me that there should be some sort of system for getting work experience kids into the creative industries. Does anything exist? And if not, are any companies interested in taking this lad? Comments in the comments box please!
Update: Here’s the Pacman Plus site.
In Stef’s Plus prelude post he mentions games of real life Pac-Man will be taking place throughout the festival in a specially built maze. Here’s the skinny:
The game will see one person taking the role of the iconic, ball-shaped hero as he is guided around by Player One. Player One has a birds eye view of the maze and can communicate via radio with Pac-Man, who can only respond by saying “wacacacaca” over and over.
Two other players will take the roles of Ghosts and are controlled by Player Two, who also has a birds-eye view and a radio. The idea is then for Player Two to corner and grab (not devour) Pac-Man using the two Ghosts under his control. Player One meanwhile has to survive for as long as possible and can find Power Pills to turn the tables on the Ghosts.
I suspect it will look ever so slightly like this, only not.
