More listings joy, this time from 7inch Cinema for all your moving image and tangentially related needs in the Birmingham conurbation.
Archive for December, 2007
Nikki Pugh has a shop, “the invisible hand”, but because it’s her there’s more to it that simply selling stuff.
The incentive for the invisible hand came about after increasing frustration that I’d already put all my own spare money into a few major projects – thus leaving me reliant on external funding for upcoming ideas I wanted to develop further. This is ok for some things, but I’d rather not be completely dependent on Arts Council and the like anyway, and sometimes you just need to be able to access some cash on a timescale of less than two months.
This has increasingly been the case as my practice simultaneously moves further into areas that are difficult to describe in a funder-friendly manner (what exactly are the outcomes going to be?) and that need me to be responsive to things happening around me.
The invisible hand was therefore developed as a way for my practice to become more self-supporting. Rather than selling actual artworks (I don’t usually produce objects), I’ve gathered together some of the core ideas that run through my work and I’m now selling products that relate to those. It will also come into play during 2008 in relation to a few publishing projects I’m working on. Watch this space…
Photographer Craig Holme’s Crowded Gallery website has had an overhaul.
It has more of a black and white print focus. I also prefer the more modern home page, which has almost everything in one location – including an RSS feed for new images.
Grimley of The Post talks to Dr Ann Sumner, the new director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, in this long and detailed interview.
The First Big Weekend of the Winter. Autumn Store Dunc does the diary thing, notable in this case for the abundance of links, many leading to local stuff. Go clickety click.
Normal service has been rather disrupted by the thickness of my head these last couple of days. I’m hoping it’s just a short term thing that will be remedied by orange juice, duvets and dumb movies. Rest assured everything of interest I’ve come across is flagged ready to be turned into blog posts as soon as my brain is working again.
One unfortunate effect of this is I was unable to attend the Pub(lic) Conversation on Studio Space at Vivid tonight which looked to be a lively affair. I expect there’ll be a recording made public soon but if anyone feels the need to write up a report let me know and I’ll link to it here.
Right, back to bed for me…
Some follow-up to the Creative Director notion blogged about on Sunday:
- Stef Lewandowski asks What Is Birmingham’s Creative Direction? putting the development of the city into the framework of a project.
- Paul Groves says Birmingham’s creativity can’t be stifled by politics.
- There are also some interesting comments after Joanna Geary’s post on the subject.
D’log has started filling up his 2008 calendar with a load of arts-based events. Well worth a gander.
The Post follows up the story about Curzon Street Station being boarded up which I blogged about last Monday adding a bunch of research and quotes from persons involved.
John Tighe of the Spotted Dog pub is Brummie of the Year 2007. Well done John!
The mighty D’log went to the Creativity and Creative Sectors, Clusters and Networks event at the Birmingham University Business School on Friday and wrote up his notes and impressions in three posts (one, two, three). A lot of it went over my poor head but a few things jumped out and raised an eyebrow.
When a senior consultant and researcher was looking for statistics at a regional level, he found it’s “unbelievably confusing when working at a regional level” … “it’s a mess”. On national statistics about the creative industries, the research is still very poorly done but “the DCMS is still spraying this information all over the place” while being fully aware that the data is misleading or plain wrong. The data is “incoherent … we are building a policy that is completely unreliable”. *
There will be a second follow-on event, “Creativity and the City: sector, cluster or network?” in Birmingham on 4th April 08.
The big one, however, is this.
The city is considering appointing a “Creative Director” for Birmingham. A “Creative Village” area might be designated and signed by 2010; that may be either Moseley or the Jewellery Quarter, or possibly Digbeth. *
Geary of The Post has some questions and speculation about the Director thing and how this ties in with Michael Woolf’s calls for something similar.
Meanwhile this Villiage notion is intriguing. While the Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth have the Big Peg and Custard Factory complexes anchoring a creative industry Moseley does seem more “village-y”. Ironically, however, most of the Moseley creative scene seems to live in Kings Heath these days because it’s cheaper…
Congrats to Birminghamusic.com on winning the BDI Industry and Genius award in the category for Products and Genius: Digital Design. They write about wining it here:
The panel received over 100 entries for the awards and in most cases 3 entries were shortlisted, as in the Digital Design category that Birminghamusic.com was in. It was quite fascinating seeing some of the amazing designs and projects that were emerging from local businesses and in one case the award was given to two winners, as the panel simply could not name one to be better than another.
The Digital Design category was one of the last to be announced and left us nervously sitting on the edge of our seats awaiting the panel’s decision, when they announced that the winning project received some flattering comments from the panel, including -
“Locally empowering. A fantastic model.”
“Looking inwards and outwards, it promotes the city and is encouraging entrepreneurship”
“A good example of collaboration”Then it was announced, the winners are….Birminghamusic.com.
The others shortlised in the category were Aston Computer in the Home: Aston Pride IT and Real Time Information: WMPTA/Centro.
So what’s the BDI?
The BDI (Birmingham Design Initiative) is made up of 22 professionals from the business, education and design related sectors. Their goal is to raise awareness of the importance and value of outstanding environmental / product design in the West Midlands. This is the 10th time the BDI Awards have been held since 1989, and commemorative plaques dating back more than a decade still take pride of place in design practices across the region.
Ooh, I wish Vivid had some way to link to specific things on their site. Something like, I dunno, a blog. Hint hint.
Here’s a couple of interesting things currently on their front page. The first is a European Media Artists in Residence Exchange.
The newly established European Media Art Network will give 16 production awards to emerging media art talent to explore the creative possibilities of innovative content for new media platforms.
The international residency programme has been running since 1995 and has worked with artists including Dane Watkins, Paul Harrison & John Wood, Martin Howse, Kypros Kyprianou, and Mike Stubbs.
Media artists in the fields of digital media (including internet and computer based art, video and sound) are invited to apply for a two month residency with one of the following partner organisations: Impakt (Netherlands), Werkleitz Gesellschaft (Germany), Interspace (Bulgaria) and Vivid.
Residents will receive: A grant of 2.000 Euro, Free accommodation, Up to 250 Euro in travel expenses, Access to technical facilities and media labs, Individual exhibition following residency, Major group exhibition in 2009 in Halle (Saale), Germany
Applications have to be in by January 7th. Here’s the application form (Word.doc)
Ben Callaway – ‘Carousel’
The second is a screening of Fresh Moves: New Moving Images from the UK, “a collection of film and video works by 24 of the best emerging and established UK-based artists” introduced by Laure Prouvost, curator at tank.tv
Compiled by a panel including Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of Serpentine Gallery, and Stuart Comer, curator of film and video at Tate Modern, Fresh Moves encompasses fictional narrative, digital film, animation, montage and installation-based film work. Exploring a variety of subjects including politics, identity and aesthetic practices, the collection celebrates not only the artists featured, but the art of moving images as a whole.
The screening takes place on Thursday December 6th at 6pm for a 6.30 start. Tickets are £3/£2 and you’re advised to dress warmly, Vivid being effectively a warehouse space, albeit a very nice one!
A couple of videos have been released from the Reality Estate project that took place at Five Ways earlier in the month. The first is a musical walk though the show (if you can call it a “show”):
The second is a slideshow of the feedback tickets left in the Five Ways roundabout:
My for-what-it’s-worth review is here.
The next, and by all accounts final, show at the Periscope artists project space is Emma Bowen’s Units Squared.
From the forthcoming events page:
Units squared is a site specific installation by artist Emma Bowen, a response to the home of the periscope project space that is the Lee Bank Business Centre, and the culmination of her residency here.
The architecture and nature of the space and the activity within the building provides the context for this object based installation that reflects and comments on both the working of the environment and those that use it. Multiplicity and production being a common thread.
By using materials common to those found within the units of the Business Centre, Emma will continue her investigation into material as object, repetition, and the idea of the familiar as an access point into discussion and exchange.
There’s also a nice long article in the Post about Bowen and the Periscope project which is part of the Birmingham Artists setup. Birmingham Artists are losing their council funding this month and will be closing as the area they’re in undergoes major redevelopment (with the associated higher rents) so this is a quite poignant show.
The private view is Thursday 13th December 6-8.30pm and it then runs for the next two days, 14th and 15th December 12-5pm. Location details here.
