Birmingham Live! is a live music reviews blog set up by Steve Gerrard. Which explains why the photography is so good!
It’s not there to promote him though – he’s hoping other gig photographers in the city will join and contribute turning it into a showcase which can help them if not break into the business then at least get photo passes. There’s also a Facebook group.
via himself
Photographer Emily Quinton has a new weblog which warms my heart. She also has a couple of Flickr accounts, one for business and one for pleasure. Here’s a couple of shots.
Skimming through Cassie Leedham’s Graphic Design website I see she did the posters used on the sets of the Control movie, which, I think you’ll agree, is worth noting.
The fifth and final edition of Antonio Gould’s New Media 4Casts is online covering how engaging with the blogging community can help creative types reach new customers across the world. The core example, which I’d encourage you to check out, is Emily Malcom’s Black Apple blog. Subscribe on the site or listen here:
[audio:http://www.channel4.com/4talent/media/midlands/new_media/audio/socialmedia4cast.mp3]
The website for Public Gallery, to be housed within West Brom’s The Public building, has gone online signaling the first sign of life for this long troubled project. The building will finally open this summer and, thanks as ever to D’log’s pointers, I’ve been looking into what’s going to happen there.
The best resource currently seems to be this article on BD, an architects website, which details the history of the construction but, more interestingly, shows some diagrams of what’s inside that big box. Here’s a good one (click for bigger).
The large black bit at the front is “The Sock” and at the back the white area is the events space.
In that BD interview the architect explains what visitors will see:
The main attraction is the gallery. The majority of it will be a permanent exhibition with a series of international artists commissioned to produce completely bespoke works. There are then two temporary exhibition spaces which are within The Sock.
The idea behind a lot of the permanent artworks is that people will take an identity around with them using radio frequency identification tags which they will hang around their necks, so the exhibits will recognise people and they will react to people and what they do at each exhibit.
At the end of the gallery experience, there will be an area called “Make†where people can create things to take away based on their visit. That might be a DVD, CD-rom, a t-shirt or mug.
The other main public function is the events space which is on the ground floor at the opposite end of the building to The Sock. It’s a multi-function space for meetings, conferences, seminars, rock gigs and concerts, but it doesn’t work as a theatre because the fly tower cannot take significant structural loads. The brief for it wasn’t very clear when we inherited it, so we’ve concentrated on the uses that will work.
The green bit in the middle is “The Cave”, details of which are sketchy but it will contain “an interactive projection artwork” which implies it’ll be a permanent feature, along the lines of the “bespoke” works by international artists.
Obviously the whole project has been embroiled in controversy from its conception to its going drastically over budget – most of the articles from 2006 I found seem to gleefully dwell on it’s failure before it was even completed (What looks like a magenta fish, cost £52m and closed before it opened? – Guardian, Cash crisis halts arts project – Post/Mail) and while I wouldn’t want to gloss over these issues the building is going to open and will have a significant presence on the West Midlands’ art scene regardless of how it lives up to it’s initial intentions. Above all it looks to be pretty insane, and I like that.
Step is the art show currently running at Crowd6 in Bearwood.
Charlie Levine will be curating the first three shows in her Step series, an ongoing exploration of the ideal way to present art. The show takes a strong standpoint on the perfect way to see a piece of art, and there are a few rules which must be obeyed. The most prominent of which is that artworks should not be distorted by the sensual happenings of other artworks. Therefore they must necessarily be displayed on their own, as a single unit within the gallery. As such, each of Levine’s three steps will feature a single piece of work by a different artist, exhibited one at a time in the gallery space.
There are three steps:
STEP ONE – Will Clifford (1st – 7th Feb)
STEP TWO – Beverley Holden (8th – 14th Feb)
STEP THREE – Caitlin Griffisths (15th – 21st Feb)
Ben Neal reports from the the opening night, from where I nabbed the above photo. Go read his account, particuarly for the last bit.
One of the criteria for an event to make it onto this blog (as opposed to my personal hopelessly prejudiced gig guide) is that it looks to be rather strange and unique. This, sent in by Nic Bullen of Monium, just about fits that bill.
Experimental image meets live sound in an exploration of representation and abstraction as the Black Galaxy ensemble perform live improvised sound responses to poet Ira Cohen‘s maximalist ritual hallucination ‘The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda’ (USA 1968, clip here) and the alchemical animations of artist Harry Smith‘s ‘Early Abstractions: 1 – 5, 7, 10′ (USA 1939/1956).
The musicians (joined by sound artist Helena Gough) combine composed and improvised approaches, and analogue and electronic sounds from a range of instrumentation (including laptops, electronics, guitar, sound generators, percussion and amplified objects) in order to create dialogues with the images onscreen.
The live performances are complemented by screenings of Carolee Schneemann‘s multi-layered diary ‘Plumb Line’ (USA 1968/1972), Stan Brakhage‘s sexualized psychodrama ‘Reflections on Black’ (USA 1955), and the Brothers Quay‘s dark exploration of a collection of medical artifacts in ‘The Phantom Museum’ (UK 2003).
This Sunday at The MAC, 8pm, £5.25
From the Midlands with Love is a postcard book put together by BCU’s Media Content Lab brought to our attention by TAK! (who have a card in it).
Media Content Lab felt that too much of the design world’s attention is focused on a handful of London companies, so decided to do something about it. We put together a postcard book featuring the artwork of graphic designers, illustrators, web designers and character designers based in the West Midlands. The best computer artists from across the region were invited to submit their work before a final selection of the top designs were chosen to go into the book.
It’s currently winging its way to 100 PR, marketing and advertising agencies along with publishing companies and agents. If you’re not one of those lucky people and you’d like a copy ask Dom nicely and he’ll see what he can do.
Nu Century Arts is an organisation established in 2000 and based in Handsworth who are “dedicated to the development and promotion of performing arts in the African-Caribbean community”
The company’s work encompasses a professional theatre group, organising a regular live music event ‘The Live Box’, literature in the shape of ‘Wired Up’ magazine and a broad range of education work, from jazz workshops, to youth theatre and group trips as far a field as South Africa and the United States.
Given Birmingham’s location within the United Kingdom and the breadth of talent within the city, Nu Century Arts has maintained that its artists should not be marginal, but play a central role in the cultural direction of the country; have access to the fullest possible range of skills; and produce the highest quality work. Moreover, it seeks to provide a consistent base and a framework promoting new African Caribbean work, irrespective of political/ cultural trends and fashions.
The do work in a variety of venues including The Drum and The Rep and the artists listed on their site include Soweto Kinch, Julie Dexter, Eska Mtungwazi and Shabaka Hutchins.
Awareness came to me from Osahon Orchard who is running a free 10 week acting course for over 19 year olds as a “way to regain confidence as well as get back into performing” at 16 Grosevenor Road B20 3NP. Contact him on osahon.orchard [at] ntlworld.com for details.
