Archive for March, 2008
This year’s New Generation Arts festival, run by BCU across the city, is being blogged right on the main website, which is nice to see. Along with general news it’s split into four categories with a dedicated blogger for each one:
Creative Writing (Mike Morrison)
Music (Steve Shaw)
Interactive (Chris Unitt)
Visual Arts (Danny Smith)
[Update: It seems like this is coming out of the Visual for Business people]
Fused have transcribed a flyer detailing some interesting events at the Hippodrome next week, which I will proceed to copy verbatim:
Culture & Identity The Role of Place in Shaping the Arts
Tuesday 8th April, 6.30pmâ€8pmChair: Robert Yates
Speakers: Richard Billingham †Artist, Turner Prize nominee, Catherine O’Flynn †Writer, Costa First Novel Award winner 2007, James Yarker †Director, Stan’s Cafe
Why Should We Care About Creativity In the West Midlands?
Wednesday 9th April, 6.30pmâ€8pmChair: Robert Yates
Speakers: Soweto Kinch †Musician, MOBO Award winner & Mercury Award nominee, Stuart Murphy †Creative Director, TwoFour / Former Controller BBC3, Matt Price †Writer / Curator, Gavin Wade †Artist, Founder Eastside Projects
‘Future of Sound’ Birmingham Showcase
Thursday 10th April, 6.30pmâ€9pmIncluding: Sykes, Director Cybersonica Martyn Ware, Modified Toy Orchestra, Soweto Kinch, The Sancho Plan, And local Birmingham artists.
Tickets are free and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. To book please contact Arts Co on 020 7723 0285 / info@artsâ€co.com
These look to be rather essential.
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“One Black Bear is a web design and development agency based in Birmingham UK.”
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The new Birmingham Music Network website is coming together nicely. Not quite ready for launch but worth a look. This could be rather special…
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Thomas Moronic takes photos of his creative chums at a party.
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He works at the TIC (I think – Millennium Point anyway) and is exploring the whole blogging lark by blogging.
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Nicky Getgood is blogging again. Always a pleasure to read her writings.
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Now fairly recovered the Fused gang are telling their story from Austin. Two parts up, more to follow.
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D’log introduces us to the photography of Lara Jade, currently studying at BIAD and set for big things (not just giant birdcages!)
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A local artist has set up her own craft courses after being made ‘homeless’ by the closure of the Midlands Arts Centre.
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RussL’s monthly guide. “This month is clearly all about fighting, and orchestral & choral music. Maybe all at the same time.”
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I’ve been hearing only fantastic things about Stan’s Café’s The Cleansing Of Constance Brown. Here’s RussL’s review.
Missed this at the Ikon Eastside party last year but it’s in the running for Fierce. Here’s a sample video:
via aboutmyarea B13
Caption: “Aliya Vaughan, Muslim Writer of the Year 2008, look in awe at the guest of honour Jermaine Jackson as he presents her with her Award. In the background stand the judges who reviewed the 10,000 entries that were received. Aliya is aged 37 and hails from Brixton in South London.”
The Muslim Writer of the Year 2008 awards ceremony took place on Saturday at the ICC, presented by none other than Jermaine Jackson. West Midlands winners were former Guantanamo detainee Moazzem Beg (Published Writer) and Kashif Choudry (Short Story)
Annoyingly the press release I was sent isn’t on the awards site or the council’s page so I’ve popped it online here.
Paul Conneally and Nikki Pugh’s Invigilator: Digbeth took place on Saturday.
This is the fifth in the Invigilator series where a single set of directions has been transposed onto different locations to determine the exact place for watching over; we can choose our significant starting points, but then a pre-determined sequence of lefts, rights and straight-ons takes us on a not-quite-random walk to an unplanned invigilation site.
Nikki recorded hers using Twitter from her phone, which was nice to see. I wonder how mobile microblogging could be used for other art-related events…
And photos are slowly going up here.
Nice piece of psychogeography people!
Stuart Whipps is a local independent photographer, who, amongst other things, documented the closing of the Longbridge Rover plant and its subsequent move to China. The exhibition of this work will be at The New Art Gallery Walsall and runs from April 4th to June 1st with the private view on Thursday 3rd April which open to all.
This exhibition brings together photographs of both the Longbridge and Nanjing plants. Though relating to a very specific context, these images speak volumes about the transformation of heavy industry in the 21st century and its wider implications.Taken from flyer
Local Shorts Film club is a free semi-regular showcase of locally made short films, which include a Q and A session with the film makers. The closest thing to a web-site I have found is here, but contains all the relevant information, with details how to submit a short film here.
The lack of web-site, ropey flyers and naff names aside, The next night is on April 9th with the title “Super Eclectic Mix Night” and is at the Library Theatre near Central Library.
After many years of a lovely but slightly out of date website, Hunt Emerson has relaunched Large Cow where he’s selling artwork and archiving cool stuff from the past. Of particular note are pieces from the Birmingham Arts Lab which he was heavily involved with in the 1970′s such as this print:
There’s shockingly little online about the Birmingham Arts Lab other than a few mentions here and there. It’s be good if someone could write a decent history of it, or if one’s already written, stick it online and send me a pointer.
All sorted now!
I wouldn’t normally put this sort of thing on the blog but with the Fierce Festival imminent it seems important. Fierce’s email is down for a whole week so if you want to get hold of anyone with a @fierceearth.com address please use fierceearth [at] googlemail [dot] com. That is all.
Jazz Saxophonist legend Andy Hamilton turned 90 recently. There was a concert at Town Hall, reported on by Peter Bacon and a feature on Tuesday’s Front Row plus loads more I’m sure.
Update: He’s playing at The Drum on Sunday, starting at 12.30pm. (Thanks Patrick.)
Some bits from Jenny and Lisa Capsule came through the email. In brief…
The Supersonic lineup has expanded including Julian Cope!
They’re releasing Einstellung‘s album Wings of Desire in June along with a limited vinyl release of Oxbow Duo‘s live set from Supersonic last year.
And, of course, a whole gamut of keen looking gigs bringing oddness from around the world to Birmingham.
I’ve spent today ploughing through a month of items in Google Reader from blogs and news sources in Birmingham which I’d not managed to keep on top of this last month and I must confess I gave up when I got back to March 12th with 600 still to go and marked them all as read. This is not ideal for a “blog of record” but I figured best to look to the future.
And, to be honest, there are enough Birmingham blogs out there now that you don’t need to rely on Created in Birmingham to keep on top of everything and I hope there’ll be more emerging as the Summer Of Art kicks off this year.
That said it can take a while to build up a decent list of feeds to monitor and since I’ve got a bloody huge one I figured it would make sense to share it.
This is an OPML file of all my Birmingham feeds. Don’t worry about what OPML means – it’s just a big list. Save that file to your computer and then import it into your favourite feed reader. If you’re using Google Reader click on “Settings” in the top right corner, then “Import/Export”. Follow the instructions and you’ll suddenly have 239 feeds of varying value letting you know what’s going on.
A few of them will be dead and a few of them will seem irrelevant so you might need to do a bit of pruning according to your needs. And of course there’s always more out there to find – I’m adding and removing stuff all the time. But if you want a rocket up your blogging arse this is as good a one as any.
You might also like to try Jon Bounds’ list which he uses for Birmingham It’s Not Shit so it’s got a wider remit. (I’ll confess to not trying it as I have enough to be going on with myself.)
Have fun!
(And if anyone else wants to share their OPMLs leave a link in the comments.)
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Simon Howes on the Eastside blog is hearing rumours and is looking for clarification.
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Now there’s a media partner I wasn’t expecting. (ta Jez)
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covering the whole spectrum of his work. Compliments his blog well.
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The Fierce Festival blog kicks off with a short interview with the festival’s creative director.
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Monday March 31, 7pm, Rootys at the Custard Factory. All are welcome.
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Red Route have five mp3s in a handy zip file for your listening pleasure.
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Paul Bradshaw rounds up the journalism “unconference” he ran last week.
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The deadline for the next round is April 1st. Quote: “this is not a joke – we are serious about this!”
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Seems to me the BullRing are getting wise to these events and the public there have no souls. Try somewhere else next time, pipple.
