Capsule are after folks to volunteer their time to put together a ‘people’s archive’ celebrating Birmingham and the West Mids as the home of heavy metal:
I spoke to Jenny from Capsule about this last week and she made the point that discussions about the Birmingham music scene (or lack of) tend not to mention Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Godflesh, Napalm Death and Led Zep’s Robert Plant – all of whom had a huge impact on a massive, international musical genre.
Incidentally, Capsule have got a few more events lined up, the next one being Pelican & Torche at the Factory Club on 17 September. See the Capsule event page for details.
Digbeth Is Good – ACE dance and music’s classes
“ACE dance and music’s classes for all ages resume in September. All are based at their studio on Floodgate Street.” Nicky points to the details
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands
After declaring August to be a bit pants (my words, not his) Russ L rounds up a lot more fun activities for September. He likes Travis though, so take it with a pinch of salt (joke!)
thejazzbreakfast
Peter Bacon has just overhauled his blog and would like to say hi – he writes about jazz for the Birmingham Post and is also an arts administrator and saxomophone player
Commercially Inviable Records – Moseley Folk Festival, Special Offer
“To celebrate the festival we are offering both the Friends of the Stars and James Summerfield albums for a special, one-off festival price of £12 (including postage).” Or a tenner at the Polar Bear stall at the festival itself. James plays on Friday, FOTS play on Sunday
Welcome to 4mations
The city’s animation talent might be interested in this – it’s in beta (ie a pre-release version) at the moment but you can upload your films (and games) already
Should you be looking for an affordable art market to visit, it just so happens the second LTD Edition of the year will be back at the Custard Factory on Sunday 31 August along with the Sunday Flea.
This here is by Trav Art who will be there with some prints and t-shirts:
the very vague theme is ‘French Fancies & Freaky Kids Flicks’. Expect weird film from psychedelic animator Vince Collins and even weirder music. Entry is £2.50 with invite or £3.50 without; for more information, text OUTERSIGHT to 07887 956297, or e-mail outersight@live.com to join the mailing list
So if you’re not listening politely to another quite pleasant acoustic act at Moseley Folk Festival then perhaps pop down to this. Speaking of the Mofo Festival (as no-one is calling it, thankfully) it kicks off today and I hear that kids’ tickets have gone. When I bought a ticket the other day (pay in cash at Polar Bear and avoid a hefty booking fee from some other outlets) they were going quick – apparently it looks like Saturday might sell out but there should be tickets on the door if you get down in time.
John Garghan is a photographer who, to be mundane about it, takes beautiful photos of the details of burnt out cars. He puts it much better:
My aim is to capture the disturbance to surfaces created by acts of joy riding and arson by zooming into disfigured vehicle parts that are occupied in the lifecycle of metals, fabrics, and glass. Their corrosion is a natural process that tries to reclaim human made objects to an elemental state more in line with the energy of the molecules these objects are made of, torching accelerates this journey of returning to the earth and I look to capture, investigate and at times distort results of the advancement of its lifecycle
John has a Flickr account too. Happily, Flickr has just made it easier to embed photos and slideshows on other sites (like blogs) so here’s a slideshow of John’s work (not all are of burnt cars):
Thanks to Jon Bounds for spotting John Garghan’s blog and Joanna Geary for the Flickr embed info.
A neat little item this – Tales of Creativity is a collection of video and written profiles of graduates from the various courses run from Screen Media Lab that hopes to give readers an insight into the everday reality of working in the creative industries.
There are 18 profiles from a whole host of disciplines to browse through, with examples of everyone’s work. There’s the odd advert for BCU’s MA in Media Enterprise but the profiles of people getting on and doing their creative thing in Birmingham are really quite interesting. They’ve certainly never been mentioned on CiB before so I might pull a few out on a slow news day.
This is always good to see – following a discussion on the Film Birmingham forum, Rill Marchant and Rebecca Sloan are organising a pub meet-up on Saturday:
If you’re interested/involved in any aspect of filmmaking or media come along and join us on Saturday 30th August 2008 from 5:30 pm at Lloyds Bar on Broad Street.
We’ll bring a home made sign or something to put on the table so you can find us when you arrive and I expect we’ll be there for at least a few hours before (maybe) moving on to another venue.
Nothing heavy – just a chance for people who are into the same thing to meet up and have a chat.
There’s a Facebook group for interested peeps to join too.
Also on Friday there’s the free Reggae Rockz Festival 2008 from 8pm to 11pm in Centenary Square. Unfortunately on the Facebook event page the organisers spend all their time bleating about a lack of promotion from Artsfest and don’t get round to telling us much about what they’l be doing. The Beat are playing, that much is sure. The Reggae Rockz website manages to be even less informative. Ah well.
Saturday
It looks like Dholfest 2008 is the biggie here – an attempt to break the world record for the most dhol players in one place (currently 314 players in Sandwell in 1999). They’re aiming for 500 this time. This one will be held in Victoria and Centenary Squares.
Meanwhile, the Custard Factory will be hosting a day of hip hop with Mylz from Heducation and Madman the Greatest down to perform.
Sunday
Sunday is Kerrangfest day with This Beautiful Thief and The Levellers the only bands I’ve spotted so far.
This year the ShortCuts film programme will be extended slightly, with “a more relaxed, experimental programme of films made by local and international film makers” on the Sunday and a set of fims programmed in conjunction with Deaffest across the weekend. There’s more about those in this post from the Artsfest blog.
There’s much more to come and I’ll let you know when I see a full programme lying around the internet somewhere.
Light Night is a series of events taking place in six cities around the UK, the first of which will be in Birmingham on 12 September to coincide with the launch of Artsfest 2008. To quote lazily from the website:
Light Night in Birmingham will feature architectural lighting of iconic city centre buildings and iconic landmarks such as:
The newly refurbished £35M Town Hall
The Council House
Museum and Art Gallery
Selfridges building at the Bullring
The Rotunda
Birmingham Cathedral
plus a few surprises!
These landmarks will be beautifully lit to create a visually stunning trail of features around Birmingham City Centre.
The idea of all-night festivals is fairly established on the continent – from the original ‘Nuit Blanche‘ in Paris in 2002. As well as the illuminated buildings there will be street performances, music and the shops will stay open later. It’s meant to be a family affair so the fit with Artsfest makes sense.
D’Log has spotted that the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery have been given some money by the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Improvement Fund to develop new audiences. From the BBC:
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will spend its £300,000 grant on a new gallery telling the story of the city from medieval times to the present.
Another week, another MA show with a pleasingly cheap & cheerful approach to internet promotion. This time it’s the turn of BCU’s Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products MA Show 2008.
This year the emphasis has been on extending the conventional boundaries of jewellery and silversmithing. 48 WEEKS… LATER demonstrates a variety of approaches to the subject area, including installations, animations, laser technologies and explorations of colour and scale.
Join us on the evening Tuesday 9th September 6-8pm at the School of Jewellery, Vittoria Street, Birmingham for the opening of the exhibition where 14 students will showcase their exciting new collections. The exhibition will be on display until the 26th of September.
All talks last from 6.30 to 8pm with nibbles until 9pm. They’re all free too but places are limited to you’ll need to book – call 0121 753 7700 or email kate@hi8us.co.uk for that.
Digitoons Masterclasses
In addition to the talks:
The Brothers McLeod, will give six budding animators the opportunity to take part in five masterclasses to enable them to create their own one-minute animations. The finished product will be screened alongside renowned industry professionals at Millenium Point, as part of Hello Digital.
The classes will take place weekly between 16 Sept and 7 Oct 2008. To apply for that call 0121 753 7700 or email kate@hi8us.co.uk.
For more info on the talks and masterclasses see the DigiToons eflyer.
Russell Hall (who has a blog too) is a freelance graphic designer in Birmingham. He’s been working on Speak Out – a free magazine for an equal opportunities company called Brap.
Here’s the blurb:
Every three months Speak Out will deliver a magazine packed with articles, stories, poems, photographs and comment, and to do this we need your help. Whether you’re a poet, an artist, a writer, a photographer or someone who has something to say send us your work and ideas. It doesn’t matter if you’re aspiring or established, young or old. All that counts is that you want the opportunity to share your work with the whole of Birmingham.
To get in contact with the Speak Out team email speakout@brap.org.uk or for more information go to brap’s website at www.brap.org.uk. Submissions for the next magazine must be received on or before 24 October 2008
The first issue is due out at the start of September and will be partly distributed by Birmingham Library & Archive services. Here’s what issue 1 looks like:
I tend to concentrate on stuff happening in Birmingham on CiB but Matthew Price has emailed with news of Birmingham artists getting recognition outside our fair city:
Moseley’s Tessa Farmer has a work in the current show ‘Wrap your troubles in a dream’ at Lautom Contemporary in Oslo, curated by Power Ekroth. Looks like a great show.
West Midlands-based artist Sally Payen for has been selected for the Shingle 22 Biennale in Rome – a biennale devoted this edition to the theme of war.
Roger Hiorns has been awarded a major commission by Artangel in London this September which involves transforming “urban housing into large-scale immersive works of art”
I’m not so good at picking up on this stuff but it’s always good to hear about. If you spot something then feel free to send it my way.
