Created in Birmingham

• Gigbeth – What’s On
  The schedule for Gigbeth is coming together. Young Knives, Guillemots, The Destroyers, Sugarhill Gang and Einstellung are down so far with more to come
• Light House October Highlights
  Featuring independent film releases and new photography exhibition ‘Imagined Lines’cib by Matthew Hammond
• Curates Egg Autumn Programme
  Here’s the Curates Eggs’ latest mailout. All sorts of things going on including some stuff for the Birmingham Comedy Festival. There’s also some recommendations for other peoples events, which is always good to see
• The Bad One review
  Whatsonstage Midlands reviews Women & Theatre’s latest play… and they like it
• Clusta Brand Cool Brands
  “CoolBrands, the annual survey of the UK’s coolest brands, appointed Clusta to overhaul the brand identity for its 2008/09 programme”
• Another Byte Of Banality: Turn It up Sonny…
  Looking for used Soundsystems, PAs, Speakers, Amps, Microphones and other audio miscellany? Mark 19 October in your diary as the date of ‘Urban Village’ Dave’s Used Pro Audio Fair at the Custard Factory
• Homer Creative
  “a creative communications agency” who seem to do any number of related things including graphic design, web design, writing, editing, art direction, photography, etc and so on. They designed the cover for Gaynor Arnold’s Booker longlisted ‘Girl In A Blue Dress’ too

Birmingham-based theatre group Little Earthquake will be presenting Gogol’s Madman at the Old Joint Stock Theatre on 24 October.  Here’s the synopsis:

Hounded by talking dogs and harassed by his plate-smashing mother, life in St. Petersburg is hard for Poprishchin until he falls truly, deeply…and madly in love. Little Earthquake presents an imaginative new stage version of Gogol’s gripping story, recently voted by Penguin as one of the best books ever written

Gareth Nicholls from the company has been good enough to upload to Scribd plenty of pictures and the press release for further info.  The show’s flyer is up too but to save you time here’s the back of that:

Little Earthquake have a Facebook group too.

Back in May I flagged up the website for the Birmingham Photographic Grid, a collaborative project documenting Birmingham with photos taken at points of the city determined by (yep, you guessed it) a grid.

You may recall I said that a public exhibition wasn’t too far away.  Well, it’s just been announced and will be held at the Mailbox from 1 November.

There’s more info on the website.

The Birmingham International Film Society (who continue to infuriate with no web presence save for a Facebook Group) have issued their October programme.  Click on the pics to make them legible.

Page 1:

Page 2:

PS – seriously, a free little website can be set up in no time at all.  I set up the blog for the Birmingham Social Media Cafe in 5 minutes (well, an hour once I’d fiddled with the formatting) and can do something similar for you if you bribe me with a coffee or two.  Or visit Pete Ashton in Rootys between 4-6pm on a Thursday.

The Brothers McLeod were commissioned to make some short animations for 4mations, two of which are now up with the third to follow on 7 October.

The show follows the escapades of a Dogg whose enthusiasm outweighs his intelligence. In the three short episodes Dogg must find new ways to chase cars, clear up his mess and retrieve some stolen sausages.

I was going to embed them for you to watch but that feature on the 4mations site doesn’t seem to be working.  No matter, here are some links:

• Episode 1
• Episode 2

Beyond Bricks is:

a programme of temporary creative activities that provides opportunities for artists and residents to work together to respond to the social, economic and environmental changes taking place in Lozells and East Handsworth. The programme celebrates the culture and pride of local community, its heritage and its future

and:

is currently looking for artists and arts organisations to deliver a series of temporary art works, in any discipline, to be delivered between November 2008 and May 2009

This is a collaboration between Urban Living and Arts Council WM but is being delivered by the Sandwell-based Multistory.

There’s info about how to get involved (as an artist or otherwise) on the Beyond Bricks website.

This one nearly knocked me off my chair:

Birmingham City Council’s Arts Team has two mobile arts units; multimedia high-tech vehicles which convert into spaces for arts activity with drop-down walls and extending floor sections

We are looking for artists to work at outdoor events across the city between October 08 and March 09, to utilise these facilities. We welcome innovative ideas and activities that will engage with the general public at events, incorporating different ages and families working together

Cool!

The units come with a laptop, plasma screen, PA system, DVD player, cushioned seating and have disabled access and suggested artforms include “video or podcasting, music, design, visual arts and animation, telling stories through music and animation, creating e-books, photography/editing and manipulating images”.

Artists will be paid but have to get their tenders in by 22 September, which sounds like a tall order, given that it’s the 27th today.  Still, I thought it was worth mentioning and if you’re interested you should maybe give them a shout anyway.  Details are a short way down this newsletter from Creative Alliance.

PS – two vaguely related items:

• I found this bit of info on the Creative Alliance newsletter – a round-up of West Mids “commissions, jobs, training, opportunities and much more”.  Irritatingly you now have to sign up to the membership area of their website to receive it (although it’s free).
• FAO people putting out email newsletters.  They’re fine and all but I can’t link to them and people not on your list can’t see the info.  Please put the info online.  A blog would be perfect (and free, etc and so on).  Even easier, forward your newsletter to post@posterous.com and see what happens.  Honestly, it’s magic.

Birmingham Live, for most, is a website that posts up reviews and some excellent photographs of bands playing in Birmingham.  There are people out there covering gigs almost every night of the week.

However, for the up and coming music photographers and reviewers involved, it’s a platform where they can learn their craft and get some much-needed exposure, while gaining access to photo pits that would otherwise have been off-limits.  Here I should probably disclose that I’m one of those reviewers.

Anyway, Birmingham Live, as an entity has been progressing quite a bit recently and the website has just been overhauled to make it prettier and nicer to use.

Frankie went and interviewed Steve Gerrard, the site’s head honcho, who talked about the idea and ethos behind the site, how it’s helped contributors and how he sees the site developing:

Apparently this video will be used on the new Jewellery Quarter Regeneration Partnership website which will be launched soon.

Found via a tweet from Gecal.

Any thoughts?

Frankie’s taken up the baton as far as new student rag Sanctuary is concerned.  I posted about it yesterday but said I’d not seen the actual thing.

Here she is flicking through a copy and giving her thoughts:

Airy Fairy is a shop in the Oasis shopping centre in the city centre and they:

stock an eclectic mix of alternative fashion, fancy dress, crazy costumes, cosplay, corsets and tutus. Our shop is a riot of colour where festival inspired rainbow colour tutus sit with burlesque and gothic lolita accessories, gothic art posters cosy up with fairy art cards and no one can resist trying on our amazing masquerade masks

I’ve chucked a link to the Wikipedia entry for cosplay because I had no idea what that was.  It’s ok, it’s not rude.  Well, it can be, but then so can most things.

Timm Sonnenschein is:

a German-born photographer living and working in Birmingham since 2000. Building on a graphic design background in his native country, in 2004 he graduated with a 1st class degree in photography from the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (UCE). After graduating he started his career as a freelance photojournalist. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the photo agency Report Digital.

The pic is of Margaret Street, taken with a Lavazza 25x10cm pinhole camera.

Self Portrait Birmingham:

This site has been set up as part of the new Self Portrait Birmingham Project. The Project is inspired by the original Handsworth Self Portrait of 1979 but updated with the latest digital technology

Nod to Podnosh for passing this my way.

Ulfah Arts is based at the Highgate Craft Centre and, as the about page says, it’s:

a pioneering arts organisation, which acts as an umbrella to a number of initiatives specialising in faith and the arts. This includes projects around Muslim women in the arts and interfaith work using arts to name just a couple. Over the years we have developed a specific expertise in working with Islam and Muslim communities.

They put on events at The Dum and have worked with BM&AG, Thinktank, Birmingham Uni and Birmingham Eid Mela among many others.  There’s more info on the Ulfah Arts website.

No, nothing to do with the Digbeth music venue, Sanctuary Newspapers claim to be “the UK’s leading student newspaper network”.  Monthly editions are produced by students in 12 different cities with the content tailored to their areas.  A new Birmingham edition has just been launched with a website that looks thusly:

I’ve not found an actual, physical copy yet but I thought the content on the website was a bit hit and miss – head for music and film but give news (woefully sub-Onion) a miss.

What struck me is that, although it’s written by people in Birmingham there’s precious little about Birmingham.  Aside from a couple of questions put to The Electric‘s Thomas Lawes and an interview with the promoter of student night ‘Naked Lunch‘ there’s not much to differentiate the paper from something that could be produced nationally.

Still, it’s early days.  There’s a Facebook group here that says:

If you are interested in contributing to the next one let me know via facebook or email to Sanctuaryplaylist@live.co.uk

Presumably you need to be at Birmingham Uni but I’m not certain about that.