I mentioned this in passing as part of the round-up of Hello Digital-related events but here’s a little more info:
Baskerville the Animated Movie celebrates John Baskerville, the man, the typeface and his future legacy. The film will be complemented by the development of a site-specific installation
It’s being headed up at BIAD but from what I hear there are all sorts of collaborations going on.
A new version of the website will officially launch on 22 September but for the time being there’s a good amount of information on the script, scenes and so on but no shots from the film itself yet.
There’s been a discussion bubbling away in the past few weeks about establishing a dedicated space for photography in Birmingham. Much of this has been taking place among members of the Birmingham Flickr group.
Now there’s to be a get-together to try and take things further:
A small group of us are getting together on Wednesday 17th September 2008 at 6.30pm in Rooty’s (the Custard Factory) to discuss some of the ideas that have arisen from our Flickr discussion on setting up a group to push for the establishment of a Photospace for Birmingham.
Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis is set in “the extraordinary Gothic skyscrapers of a corporate city-state, the Metropolis of the title. Society has been divided into two rigid groups: one of planners or thinkers, who live high above the earth in luxury, and another of workers who live underground toiling to sustain the lives of the privileged.â€
Birmingham 2008 has parallels according to this clip on the ol’ YouTubes:
With just (only just) over a week to go before Artsfest the programme of events has just been released on the website.
With 500 or so events scheduled, picking through the programme isn’t easy but there is at least a ‘recommended’ section on the homepage. When I get a chance I’ll have a flick through and pick out the bits that I think look most interesting.
Pop on over to Rhubarb Radio to check out the live stream for Birmingham’s newest radio station.
For the time being you can’t listen through your web browser, but will need to use your media player of choice (iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, whatevs).
There are plenty more bits and pieces to come on the site; this is a very early version with the music being provided automagically – at the moment I’m listening to a dubby-breaksy kinda mix.
There’s still plenty of time to get involved with Rhubarb Radio and you can check the development on the Rhubarb Radio blog which is providing a really interesting insight into how a collaborative project can come together.
Congrats to Mark Steadman who’s put the site and live stream together.
I’ve been feeling a bit off-colour the past couple of days, so apols for the lack of decent posting. If anything’s going to raise my spirits it’s the prospect of a sodding great whale and a huge robot both turning up in the city. It’s like Power Rangers or something.
The former comes courtesy of Claudia Losi’s Balena Project as presented by Ikon Gallery (and previously alluded to). A 25ft cashmere whale will be deposited by the escalators in The Mailbox from 24 Sept to 26 Oct. This is what it looks like:
Hmm, so it doesn’t look like a fearsome, city-levelling villain, more like me flopped on my sofa feeling sorry for myself.
The Birmingham Book Festival starts 1 October with a programme of events that will cover fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as a series of workshops and seminars. The festival ends on 24 October.
There’s a few big names listed in the festival diary – the ones that stand out for me are Mark Thomas, Will Self and Kate Adie.
For local interest, there’s the first public performance by Birmingham’s 13th Poet Laureate and 4th Young Poet Laureate and a talk from Catherine O’Flynn. There’s quite possibly a lot more local involvement but, semi-literate philistine that I am, I’m not sure who to give a shout to.
Something I like very much about the festival’s website is the way they’ve split up the listings in the left-hand sidebar into different categories, throwing in a wild-card ‘Something Different‘ category too – that’s useful for someone like myself who might want to try something out but might not know what to go for.
Speaking of bookishness, the Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the Lichfield Festival, will be held mainly at The George Hotel, Lichfield starting with a literary dinner on 26 September with two guest authors – Gaynor Arnold (whose ‘Girl in a Bue Dress’ from Tindal Street Press is Booker Prize longlisted) and Stephen Robinson.
Call and Return : ludogeography
Nikki Pugh’s new project looks like being the Emergent Game writ large, although I’m wary about second-guessing this – one of the strategies is ‘take nothing for granted’, after all. Missions will be announced on 19 September but the time to sign up is now. Workshops will be taking place in Japan soon (told you it was writ large)
Craftspace shortlisted for a national award – Audiences Central
“Craftspace have been shortlisted for this award in recognition of their work with ‘The Project Group’ (an arts social enterprise) and the Quilters’ Guild of Great Britain”. I can’t find a mention on the Craftspace website but congrats to them all the same
New First Light Movies Studio Award Deadlines Announced
“With the First Light Movies Studio Award organisations with experience in collaborative filmmaking with young people can apply for up to £30,000 to fund the production of between two and four short films”. Deadline for applics is 14 October
New book from Tindal Street Press
Spaghetti Gazetti report that “Tindal Street Press is delighted to launch their latest book ‘Never Never’ by David Gaffney”
I’ve had a nice email from Sam about Bloco Louco, which I’ll let him tell you about:
Bloco Louco is a samba band/community making some awesome music – arguably some of the best unamplified beats in the city. We were started with Lottery funding, and since that happened a year and a half ago we have gone from strength to strength. Now we are in a position to more than double our numbers, from about 10 currently to a veritable army of 30 drummers.
We rehearse every week at the Ladywood Arts Centre, B16 8TR
7:15pm – 9:45pm every Tuesday
Check out http://www.blocolouco.com/ for more info.
Also to launch this new growth phase, we will be playing 4 SETS at the Birmingham ArtsFest. This will be an amazing extravaganza of talent – among other things there will be a world record attempt during DholFest, so be there!
Key films by Warhol and his collaborators are presented, from the earliest period of the Factory when Warhol announced he was no longer making painting
Some of Warhol’s series of Screen Tests will also feature, these were short video portraits of visitors to the Factory:
Ikon presents several reels showing individuals such as Lou Reed, Marcel Duchamp, John Cale, Edie Sedgwick, Billy Name, Lucinda and Ondine
Paying an affectionate homage to ‘The Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ and The Velvet Underground and Nico, “the most infuential and unpopular band in historyâ€, there will be performance, film, light, oil wheels, music, dancing and marshmallows. Dress code is strictly black and white.
These are a series of short films (each around the 30 second mark) produced by the Eccentric City folks to celebrate their third year. There will be 24 in total, the first four are up on the Eccentric City YouTube account and also here:
Comedy escapes CiB’s notice most of the time so here goes a mention of the Birmingham Comedy Festival 2008, featuring an impressive list of talent, including the Edinburgh Festival’s newly crowned Perrier (or whatever) Award Winner, David O’Doherty.
Holding up Birmingham’s end are drag duo Patrick and Bernadine (Solihull Arts Complex, 4 Oct) and a whole host of local folk at ‘Wrote Under and Friends Comedy’ at the Kitchen Garden Cafe on . There’s possibly a few more localers too, but none I recognised on the festival’s listings page.
The Old Joint Stock Theatre is also hosting a day dedicated to Tony Hancock at the Old Joint Stock Theatre on 11 October.
It’s the big names that will stick out, of course, and there are plenty of those this year. As long as Dylan Moran, Mark Steel and Ted Chippington get the attention they deserve all will be well.
Thanks to Peter Bacon for emailing me about this – the Cobweb Collective is “a voluntary organisation promoting innovative live improvised music in Birmingham” and they have a website that I rather like:
They put on regular live events and also put out a monthly podcast called the Cobcast (downloads coming soon). They’ve also made a short documentary with bits of interviews, live footage and so on that’s worth a gander:
