Created in Birmingham

D’log continues his coverage of Arts Council cuts. The Guardian article he links to gives a bit of context:

Nearly 200 arts organisations in England have been told that their funding will end from next April in the biggest and most bloody cull since the Arts Council was set up more than 50 years ago.

Many organisations will, however, have had good news. Of the 990 bodies which get funding, three-quarters have been told to expect inflation or above rises.

and informs us that Birmingham Jazz are getting a grant increase from £23,000 to £71,500 so we should hopefully see some interesting work from them next year building on the success of Rush Hour Blues. Who knows, they might even get that blog going again.

Dave Hilliard interviews the writer and blogger Thomas Moronic. Here’s the obligatory Birmingham quote:

The Midlands has other influences as well. As you know, it can be difficult being an artist round here sometimes because it can be quite an isolated place, if you are of a certain creative mindset. The place can be very depressing, and at times stifling. But then again, in some ways I’d say that that can help a person’s art – you can use those things in work.

And, being me, I’m particularly interested in his thoughts about why he blogs.

The blog is the thing that helped kickstart me back into writing. I love my blog. I see it as an ongoing, constantly expanding body of work. I feel really pleased with the work ethic that I’ve managed to get together with it. I wouldn’t say that it’s hard, because I enjoy it so much. I love sitting down and putting stuff together for it. Keeping it going is a challenge that I relish.

Like anything in life, there are always distractions – socialising, work etc. But when I stopped writing a couple of years back, the idea of starting again was a really intimidating thing. It felt daunting, because I hadn’t written anything in so long – I didn’t know where to start. By being firm with myself and keeping a set writing routine, it means I’ll never have to worry about starting again, because I don’t give myself chance to stop.

Obviously, with a daily thing, I can’t guarantee that every single day will be amazing entry, and when I look back there are definitely some days that I think are better than others, but I think in order to get good work you do have to work through some not so good stuff. In that respect, the blog acts as a big notebook for me. It’s a good place to experiment with ideas.

But there’s much more interesting stuff in there too.

That’ll be Brumcast #80 then:
[audio:http://ipodnetworks.com/podcast/363/2028_hifi.mp3]

An amusing spoof at theSpoof.com with a Birmingham angle:

Shoppers in Birmingham’s City Centre were confronted by the spectacular vision of the city’s Arts Czar this morning. As they feebly attempted to keep their minds on their Christmas shopping their imaginations were captured by the charismatic figure of Theodore Parker Bowles, Birmingham’s Arts Czar since 2000.

Wearing nothing but his specially commissioned pink latex body suit, accessorised with juxtaposing vivid blue codpiece and shimmering nipple tassels, Parker Bowles strutted his stuff along Corporation Street between 10 and 11 am, hoisting a placard demanding “Attention for THE ARTS”.

via D’log who takes it as a cue to look at “the coming Arts Council bloodbath.” He writes:

As I wrote on the 23rd November it seems like the recent official spin about a “rise” in arts funding was actually a smokescreen for cuts. But I didn’t realise how massive those cuts would be.

Sobering stuff.

Ben Neal rounds up some art and music stuff he’s done / been to.

Issue two of The Eccentric City, “the worlds first eccentric newspaper”, is out. D’log investigates…

The Great Grock. I’ll let you figure out what this is all about for yourselves. But here’s some photos.

The Outcrowd Collective’s Intervalometer:

“This is a freestyle animation we made for fun, using a digital camera, some time lapse animation software, paint, pens, paper cut outs and our imagination”

They’ve been posting a lot of stuff from their archives on the Outcrowd blog these last few days. Go check it out.

Birmingham studios face uncertain future. Grimley of The Post gives a great overview of the Artists Studios issue spotlighting some success stories and comparing the Birmingham situation with other cities. Well worth a read and if I wasn’t on holiday (did I mention that?) I’d go through and find links for all the people. If you fancy a bit of Google-time feel free to do so on your own blog or send them to me.

Actually, Nikki Pugh has run with some of the themes raised by Grimley and quotes somebody who apparently commented here. First I’d heard of it but I like the sentiment: “Birmingham will get a reputation as a vibrant, creative, international city when it becomes a vibrant, creative, international city.”

TAK! Papercrafts for the festive season for you to download and make!

Newtasty – an illustration / design company to investigate in the new year…

Photos from the 4Talent awards party

The big drama school thing in Eastside has been officially announced. Here’s some coverage:

Government News Network
BBC News
Education Guardian
The Stirrer
The Post will presumably have something later next week, as is their way.

Well, no sooner had I said goodbye to all that than I get a phone call from Marketing Birmingham at the airport. Suffice to say the phone is now off but this one’s worth posting immediately.

(That and I’m stuck in Osaka airport with free wifi for the next five hours…)

The Visit Birmingham website, which should be the first port of call for anyone planning to come here, is having a massive overhaul in the new year and local web companies are invited to bid for the tender. Or something.

Agencies are asked to register their interest and complete a pre-qualification questionnaire by 5pm Monday 17 December by post to Lisa Smith, On-line Campaign Manager. Invitation information is obtainable from lisa.smith@marketingbirmingham.com or telephone 0121 202 5115.

I’ve had a look through the material and there’s a reasonable emphasis on Web 2.0 stuff which boils down the following:

In the proposal please consider how Marketing Birmingham should apply Web 2.0 technologies, platforms and applications to their brand visitbirmingham.com on-line?
• Blogs
• Vlogs
• Social networks / communities
• User Generated Content (UGC)
• Wikis
• Podcasts
• Online video
• RSS
• Tagging
• Mash-ups and Open API’s
• AJAX (Asynchronous Java and XML)

While this is very welcome to see, how it’s implemented is going to be crucial. Do you “apply” blogs by having them or by providing adequate information for bloggers to use? Or both? By Social Networks do you mean developing on in house (NO!) or integrating effectively with Facebook, etc? With UGC (a horrible term but pretty defacto now) why should people submit their own work to your site? What kind of ownership are you giving them? Is RSS just going to be a token offering or will it be taylored? Open APIs are a fantastic thing to see but what exactly does Mashup mean?

Whatever, I’m just the messenger here but this could be something really excellent if only the right company gets the job. So if you’re the right company get in touch with them right away.

But please, let it be someone who understands the social aspects of such a site and not just the techincal bits. And, above all, not some Web 2.Oaf.

Right, we’re about to enter a month of down-time on Created in Birmingham as I’m off on my holidays for a month. I’ll still be checking in every few days and monitoring the RSS feeds, posting stuff that’s quick and easy to post, but services will be reduced quite substantially. Suffice to say this policy will be adhered to very strongly.

If you think there’s a gap that needs to be filled over the next month then why not start your own blog? It’s dead easy!

I return on January 11th, all being well. Thank you all for your support and for providing the activity that powers this blog over the last year. Have a good Winterval and rest well for a fantastic 2008!