Falsify is a Birmingham-based freelance illustrator who works under the house name SA3S. He says:
I specialise in illo’s for the music and entertainment industries and love everything dark and graphic with a hint of mayhem!
Which, from the look of the work showcased on his new site (shop opening soon) means designing some pretty tasty promos for drum n bass nights. Interestingly, the info page says:
SA3S began life as a collective and so he hopes one day to recruit more young creatives into the fold, who are dedicated and eager to mould their own existence with true individualism and flare.
You can also catch Falsify on the SA3S MySpace and on his Behance profile.
An interesting an impassioned polemic from James Yarker of Stan’s Cafe appeared on The Birmingham Post’s site the other day, and includes this paragraph:
Let’s get to those rooms above pubs, street corners, concert halls, village halls, school halls, libraries, fields and theatres, where real live people are performing for real live audiences and sharing a moment in time together, participating in a social exchange that celebrates an act of creativity engaged for its own sake, prompted by values outside basic commerce. Let’s go and be with other people, sharing a communal moment of beauty and provocation, which will dissolve as soon as it is done and remain precious for that very reason.
The rest of the piece richly deserves your attention.
And it begs the question, what was the last artistic performance you took a risk on? For me it was Society of Futopia which, although it bemused and bored me in equal measure, I was very glad to have seen.
Don’t promote your entire programme, promote small batches of events. By all means have a list of everything that’s going on (I’m sure it’s very big and impressive) but don’t go wave it in peoples’ faces too much.
Not my idea but that of Anthony Rose from the BBC. His point, made at The Big Debate yesterday, is that too much choice is stifling. Applying it to festivals (of which there are many happening/coming up in Birmingham) he said that he loves the idea of them but, faced with an unending list of things to do, he ends up doing nothing.
He suggests festivals break their listings down, perhaps :
- Just the highlights
- Just the free events
- Just the weekend events
And so on, you get the idea.
He said if you picked out four highlights for him he’d probably go along. Give him a list of 50 to pick from and he’ll just sit at home.
I think I’d probably agree. Anyone else? Anyone think it’s a daft idea? I’d be especially interested to hear from anyone involved in festival organisation.
This looks pretty cool. Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan run Firehouse, a San Fran printshop who have created rock art posters for Queens of the Stone Age, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Cash and Jane’s Addiction.
The pair also have a background in political comics and subversive propaganda.
They’re touring about with some of their work at the moment and will be pitching up in Birmingham on 19 & 20 June at Studio 4 Gallery in the Custard Factory.
You can check out more on the Myspace page.
Strange Ways is a Birmingham-based artists’ collective and from 1 to 12 July they’ll be putting on their first major event – an art project at The Edge in response to the Cheapside area in Digbeth:
Demolition of the industrial landscape and its replacement with modern residential apartment blocks has begun. An ever-decreasing number of small industrial businesses remain. This is a crucial moment, the final stage of change from industrial to residential. Strange Ways’ intention was to witness, respond to and document this moment, but also to act as a focus for the new residential community and the existing working community to interact.
There’s more info and profiles of the artists involved on the Strange Ways website and there’s a Facebook group too.
One of the least likely, up-and-coming gig venues in the city, St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter hosts the really rather wonderful Laura Marling on June 12 and, as part of Vivid‘s FLUX-FEST, Re:Flux on June 27.
I’ve no idea how good the place is as a venue but I’ll be at the Laura Marling gig (reviewing again) but it could be one for the city’s promoters to check out. Incidentally, neither of these events appear on the church website’s events page.
Something that’s been in my ‘to investigate’ pile for a while, from 25 June to 13 July Vivid present FLUX-FEST, a season of events celebrating the spirit of Fluxus which, if you’ve not come across it before (like me), emerged as a reaction to the high-art of the 60′s. The emphasis is therefore on fun and frolics and will feature rare film, food, music, performance and miscellany.
So what’s happening?
- On 25 June there’s a dumpling party from 6pm to 8pm at Vivid
- Ensemble Interakt and a.a.s. present Re:Flux at St Paul’s Church on 27 June from 5pm to 9pm
- 7 Inch Cinema present Flummoxed at The Rainbow on 3 July
And there are all sorts of other things too. Check the Vivid website for more. Most of the events are either free or dirt cheap so it’s a ‘no excuse not to’ kinda situation.
The Birmingham REP has a new website. I haven’t had a good dig yet but a cursory glance reveals it to be rather progressive with comments, feeds (RSS and iCal), blog-style news and a snappy design, as you’d expect from a Made Media production given their work on the THSH site last year. In fact comparing the two this appears to raise the bar a bit, which is always good to see. Two thumbs up from me.
To be honest the flyer contains most of the information I can find about this one.
From what I can find, Birmingham Visual Arts Coalition have described themselves as “innovators in contemporary art”. D’log reported about a call for submissions back in Feb and seems to have received a lot more info at the time
Initially working towards common deadlines for exhibitions B-VAC would hope to establish itself as an organisation that produced original and varied work through its member artists, but ultimately aiming to create their own sustainable artists’ hub and community within the region
For those that can’t see the pic, the first B-VAC exhibition takes place this weekend (4pm Friday 6 June to 4pm Sunday 8 June) at The Works Gallery, 3rd Floor, Jubilee Works, 130 Pershore Road, Digbeth B5 6ND.
Any more info about B-VAC – a website, Facebook group, anything – would be gratefully received in the comments.
Flyer is from hellocatfood’s Flickr – his work will be at the exhibition.
**Update** website, Twitter and Facebook event details are in the comments.
The email described this blog as
a collection of adverts i see and photograph around birmingham and rants thereon
Oh, but it’s so much better than that.
Jonny knows an absurdity when he sees one, has a pretty incredible memory and, best of all, he’s funny. One to bookmark.
Birmingham’s own Commercially Inviable Records (motto “you record it, we release it… and we shall head off to the poorhouse together”) has been in touch about the release of an album by Birmingham’s own James Summerfield.
The album’s not out until August but to whet your appetite for good things to come here’s a link to a free 4-track sampler, no registration or anything required. Please leave a comment on their site though, it’s only polite.
James Summerfield will be playing at the Moseley Folk Festival in August as will labelmates, Friends of the Stars.
I went over to the BASS Festival launch last night over at the Woom Gallery (an excellent little place, incidentally).
I had a quick chat with Ammo, the guy behind Punch Records, who was enthusiastic about the programme of events they’ve got coming up but most excited about the the competition they ran to design a logo for the festival. The winner was Pretesh Mistry and, as well as being used on the festival’s branding, his design can now be seen on a city centre billboard – just near the Arcadian Centre.
What excited Ammo was the idea that, thanks to the festival, an unknown, aspiring designer could showcase their work in such a big and unorthodox way (and with his contact details at the bottom – mistry_pretesh[at]hotmail.com). So there you go, not just another advertising hoarding.
