“Activities include: Organising local, national and eventually international photography excursions, Social evenings around the West Midlands, Meeting people with similar interests, Exchanging tips, ideas and information, Collaboration on artistic project
“A series of three screenings will be screened at Light House with the chance to vote for your favorite animations in the British Animation Awards 2008. The animated shorts will include a mix of short films, music videos and animated commercials.”
“I finally bought 2 tiny CCTV cameras and spent a day taping them to my head, hands and guitar and then projecting the result on the wall.” And that’s just the start of the week.
1. Gary Nock 2. Vijay Kishore 3. Ben Drummond 4. Gemma Quarterman 5. Matt Geary 6. John Napier 7. Mickey Greaney 8. Chris Tye 9. Andy Wickett 10. Jayne Powell
You probably know Paul Murphy as the poet in the hat who joins The Destroyers on stage to rant about a fascist regime and have an awareness that he’s also a singer / songwriter of some repute and well respected within the city. Or at least that’s where I was regarding him. So it was nice to discover this movie of him talking about the c21Vox project:
I don’t know how old this is or the exact status of the project (though I’m sure someone will elucidate in the comment, hint hint…) but it’s great to hear Paul talk about this work. If proof were needed that he’s a key figure on the scene with a sharp mind and a good heart, this should suffice.
Continuing our trip down memory lane, and potentially starting a new series (“Nostalgia Thursday”?) here’s a video from 1985 just posted on the Surely? blog by Mark Murphy who’s not afraid to show his age.
I used to spend my Sunday afternoons in the dance studios at Birmingham’s (soon to be refurbished) mac. Hip Hop had landed and breakdancing with it. [...] Originally shot for use in sequences in a film about International Youth Year (1985), I have treasured this now fairly gnarly gem, a glimpse into the urban history of this city I call home.
There’s another clip of early beatboxing in that post and Mark promises more to come.
Meanwhile, here’s an amusing graphic found on the Wikipedia page for beatboxing (where I was checking it was actually called that. I make no pretentions here, though I am surprisingly good at it…) so you can have a go at home.
Any other historical gems, feel free to send them my way!
No, it’s not the after gig drinks of a Culture Club Tribute Band.
It’s the post premiere toasting of the film Handsworth Songs, now universally acclaimed as a documentary classic, after its world premiering in the Birmingham Film Festival in 1986 at The Triangle Media Centre (R.I.P.).
Yes, that’s the director, John Akomfrah, grinning madly, centre shot, goaded by Pogus Ceasar, of OOM Gallery fame with a skinny me, Festival Director, to the right of Pogus.
An exhibition of photography by Rita Fletcher with selected images from local residents showing aspects of the Hawksey, Pool Farm and Primrose Estates at the Custard Factory gallery.
Grabbed from the VIVID site because they don’t have a linkable archive for this stuff yet.
Singlescreen: Performance
On 27 February 2008 VIVID opens Singlescreen: Performance, the pilot programme towards a new strand which focuses on presenting contemporary moving image work for screen.
Performance is a changing programme of single screen installations which features seminal works from the 1970′s rarely seen in the UK alongside the best recent work from artists based in the West Midlands.
The marriage of performance and film creates a very particular dynamic and the programme will investigate the ways in which performance engages with the mechanics of filmmaking to create a new form. Performance ranges from classic performance documentation to subtle and multiple explorations of movement and choreography.
Programme:
Wed 27 Feb – Sat 01 Mar 2008, 12pm – 5:30pm
Pure Cinema (Deepres & Clifford, 2007)
Moment (Stephen Dwoskin, 1968)
Admission free
Fri 29 Feb 2008, screening 7pm
Moving Images/Moving Bodies, introduced by Portland Green, Interim Director of Capture and Director of Portland Green Cultural Projects.
Cost: £3/ £2 concessions
Booking recommended, email info@vivid.org.uk
Wed 05 Mar – Sat 08 Mar 2008, 12pm – 5:30pm
No Memory (Teresa Severova, 2005)
Admission free
If you pop into the Mac today and look on the counter you’ll see a stack of tabloid supplements put together by the Birmingham Post to mark the inemant closure and rebuilding of the centre. And since the two main articles were written by the mighty Terry Grimley, who’s knowledge of the history of Birmingham’s cultural scene is, frankly, as large as the moon, they’re actually well worth reading and not the shallow puff pieces you might imagine.
Sadly these articles have not been put online for the education of the nation which is a real shame as they do go some way to explain the background to some of the controversies that have dogged the Mac this last year. But hark! I have a scanner!
There are also some neat photos of the how the new building will look which I’m posting here, again scanned from the supplement (hence the low resolution). Above is the view from across the lake while below is the new entrance across the river from the cark park.
Following on from the Bristol Street Subway, Harry Palmer’s next Site of Social Special Interest is Spencer House by the now demolished Digbeth Coach Station.
The launch of this year long show (subject to demolition) is at 12 noon on Thursday 21st Feb. I highly recommend you try to attend.
The second Birmingham Bloggers Meetup is on Monday, February 18 at the Dragon Inn on Hurst St (used to be an O’Neills). That link is the Facebook event page so for those not using the evil beastie here’s the skinny.
The meet starts at 7.00 and should last for a couple of hours at least. There’s no agenda and you just need to have a blog or be interested in blogging to attend.
The pub has wifi the with the username “sponsored” and the password “service”. Look for mildly nerdy types with laptops.
So far 17 people are confirmed as attending. Which is rather a lot really when you think about it. We’re gonna need a bigger table…
