Created in Birmingham

Off The Cuff is a new festival happening at The Flapper from 23 to 25 July.

(Spotted via Blue Whale Blog)

NB – There’s no conclusions drawn at the end of this post – I’m just linking a bunch of vaguely related stuff together.

Daden, the serious games people, have put a list of potential student projects online. Daden’s David Burden explains:

In meetings with Universities the topic would often turn to ideas for student projects. We’d always have our ideas when the students were already committed, and the Universities would always be searching for ideas just when we couldn’t think of any

Which made me think of this from D’Log:

Just an idea. How about a website called WorkGang, which links together unemployed graduates and the growing number of public-sector unemployed, who want to find people near them with the same interests and skills — with a view to forming an autonomous self-managed group to do a short-term “socially useful project”, on their own terms and in their own time?

It also put me in mind of things like Hackitude and Launch48, where people with various sets of skills get together to do stuff together in quite a short period of time.

If you Google ‘ideas bank’ you’ll come up with any number of databases of half-baked ideas – that’s fairly well-trodden ground. Is there room for something a bit more nuanced/locally focussed?

Hi, I’m Tahgasa Bertram aka the Sweaty Eskimo. I’m not a graphic designer, but an illustrator based in the almost sunny city that is Birmingham, UK. I spend my days eating chicken and my nights milking cows. I like udders. I love anything created with a pencil as long as it stays in the CMYK form. Not a fan of all that moving RGB stuff. Occasionally you can catch me paragliding with penguins or wrapping wombats in bubble wrap. I like animals. At present I’m looking for an agent to represent me. I love to draw

Crazy name, crazy guy. Nice work.

Nod to CMYKern.

• The News Where You Are: Catherine O’Flynn
  I’ve just ordered a copy of this but still haven’t got round to reading her (highly acclaimed) last one
• We Are Fierce – Call for Participants: DIY7 ‘An Artists’ Guide to the Black Country’
  “DIY7 ‘An Artists’ Guide to the Black Country’, led by Abigail Davey from Breathe. Call for artist-participants, deadline Friday 16th July”. Apparently it’s surprising how few people in the West Mids put themselves forward for things like this. Get on it, people
• Banded About – C’est Fini
  “Today was the final concert date at Town Hall for the Banded About project, we made it! It was emotional, it was sad, it was tiring, fun and creative” Bobbie’s been blogging a musical project she’s been working on
• Twitter / Craig Hamilton: At Bham Art Gallery earlie …
  Birmingham art tweet of the week (NSFW, but then it was found in the kids’ section)
• Brace Media
  Eight Eyed Sea Bass have had a jig around and are now Brace Media

Pete Ashton, who occasionally still pops up around these parts and is looking into bringing the CiB Shop back, has announced a couple of notable things.

First up, he’s resurrecting the social media surgeries that he used to run out of Rootys a couple of years ago. £20 will buy you half an hour to pick his brains, which should give you plenty of time to learn a shedload about how the Internet works and how it can work for you (especially, but not only, if you’re on the artsy/creative side of things). There’s some more info about these surgeries here.

To book a session with him, click this link and follow the instructions. Dates are:

• 13 July – MAC cafe
• 14 July – Fazeley Studios
• 15 July – Urban Coffee Co

He’s also doing one of the ‘These are a few of my favourite things’ talks at the Ikon on 11 August.

… the video for Wise Blood’s ‘TV Dinner Lady‘ by Stickleback Productions.

This was actually announced a couple of weeks back but I seem to have missed it. Well done to all involved – participants and organisers alike. (UPDATE – organiser Carl Timms has asked me to give a big thumbs up to Screen WM and Brumcast’s Little Chris for helping to find the bands).

The runner-up by the tiniest of tiny margins was the video for Fatboi 5′s ‘Bullet’, filmed by Andrew Goodman and Steven Spencer of team Hairwolf.

Links:

• 2Weeks 2Make It (with info about others who took part)
• Stickleback Production
• Really good interview with Stickleback Productions’ Brendan O’Neill

Excuse the sheer number of links in this one, my RSS reader needs a clear out.

• Thinking & Thumping
  The blog of Scholars & Warriors. “Scholars and Warriors is a platform for cultural collaboration, set up by curator, writer and creative consultant Simon Redgrave”
• Digbeth is Good » Floodgate Street Music Studios
  In case you wondered what happens behind those doors
• Promoter Focus: ADAM REGAN & LEFTFOOT
  Interview with Mr Hare & Hounds. Includes a familiar gripe about mid-size venues – “Ideally, somewhere in the future, I’d like to buy a building in the city centre / Eastside and custom-build a 500-700 capacity venue. There’s definitely a lack of venues this size.”
• Promoter Focus: THIS IS TOMORROW
  Interview with the collective
• Projects « Beyond Bricks
  List of projects as part of Beyond Bricks happening in areas of Birmingham that, for one shameful reason or another, don’t often get a mention on this blog
• BBC – Big Screens – Birmingham
  Something about the pic used here made me laugh. Can’t think what. Says the screen was due to come back to life in June – I’ve not been past recently so can neither confirm nor deny. Anyone? I hear they’re pretty open to suggestions for interesting uses/screenings too
• Musicism in Birmingham « The Blue Whale Blog
  Any PhD project that starts off quoting UrbanDictionary.com is ok with me
• Birmingham Post – Manchester merger spells end for Smooth Radio West Midlands
  “West Midland-based radio presenters and journalists at Smooth Radio could face the axe when the local station becomes part of a single national service broadcast from Manchester” Damn. Cheers for that, Digital Economy Act
• VIVID preview: Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry « We Are Eastside | Birmingham
  “Join VIVID on Wednesday 28 July, 6-8pm for the launch of Inbindable Volume, an ambitious new multi-screen video installation by Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry”. Not heard much from Vivid in a while – here’s a thing though
• Signsational at The REP
  “On Saturday 10 July, The REP will be hosting a performance by InteGreat, a new local theatre company for both Deaf and hearing adults”. Tickets £7, but I was more interested in the ‘new local theatre company’ bit – theatre seems to be making a bit of a noise for itself around these parts at the moment
• 7 Inch Cinema » Hospital 100
  Pip and Ian got into the Hospital Club 100 and find themselves among good company (and Simon Cowell). If you voted, they say thanks
• Birmingham’s influence on the writings of J.R.R Tolkien
  Hobbit news. Fangorn’s had a cash injection, apparently
• Moseley Art Trail « Area Culture Guide
  “The 2010 exhibitions are being held in, and around, local shops, pubs and artistic establishments of Moseley”. Part of the Moseley Festival
• Fused Magazine – Stephen J Morgan
  “Birmingham born and bred photographer Stephen J Morgan will be exhibiting a series of images inspired by his upbringing in the city and his Irish heritage” The show’s down in London, if you happen to be passing by
• Mostly Jazz Festival – Saturday – Birmingham Post
  Fiona Handscomb makes a welcome return to blogging with a review of last weekend’s Mostly Jazz festival. Here’s Saturday
• Mostly Jazz Festival – Sunday – Birmingham Post
  And, for the sake of completeness, here’s Sunday
• Out of Our Grieving – ragearts’s posterous
  “You might not enjoy the subject matter of this film. But you should watch this film”
• Screen WM – From the Director’s Chair
  “Deborah Aston’s blog on directing the music documentary, MADE IN BIRMINGHAM – Reggae Punk Bhangra” It’s a post, not a blog, but that’s not important here
• Job listing for Assistant General Manager
  I imagine this would be a good one – Asst Gen Manager at Birmingham Opera Company
• Birmingham Post – BCU School of Art to host visual arts strategy group
  Turning Point West Midlands is the name, promoting visual arts throughout the region is the game
• submissions, PILOT light
  “We are looking for excerpts of up to 15 minutes in length to be part of the first ever PILOT Light at The Victoria Pub, Birmingham on 15th July from 7:30pm”

Right, that feels better. Next up – the email account.

On Saturday night I took a couple of (out of town) friends to AE Harris for the Birmingham European Theatre Festival. We turned up a bit late so only managed to catch the last piece – one which would’ve been a fantastic spoof on art student theatre if it wasn’t for the fact they were taking themselves seriously.

Serves us right for turning up late – I’m told some of the earlier suff was ace. The night wasn’t over though, with a reasonably-priced bar, music from the TG Collective (in the rather dark pic above), some last-night awards handed to the companies that had performed, the results of the singing workshop from earlier in the day (audio below) and, as reported on Stan’s Cafe’s blog, music and dancing till dawn.

Despite some worries about ticket sales in the weeks beforehand, the last couple of nights of the festival were pretty much sold out and the various theatre companies who had come to the city seemed to have enjoyed themselves, with much talk of returning next year.

There was a fantastic atmosphere and my friends went away impressed with the sort of thing that Birmingham gets up to, so well done all who were involved. As Graeme rightly comments:

It was worth being there for the sense of gathering alone

One last thing – it was a little odd to see AE Harris decked out as a ‘proper’ theatre but it scrubs up rather well. I’ve seen it used for all sorts of things since it opened – 24HR Scalextric, launch parties, a Christmas party, filled with rice by Stan’s Cafe and filled with detritus (including upturned cars) by Kindle Theatre. It fills a very important and individual gap in a city that’s not blessed with mid-size venues, so it’s encouraging to hear that discussions are ongoing to keep the place open past the initial lease.

In the last week’s CiBmail (sign up if you haven’t already) we featured a competition to win a free 12-month CiB Supporters slot. We’re extending the competition for a couple more days.

To enter – email the name of your organisation to createdinbirmingham@gmail.com using SUPPORT as the subject.

We’ll draw a winner on Wednesday 7 July at about 5pm.

CiB Supporters is our way of helping to keep Created in Birmingham going. For £75 for 12 months we plaster your name and logo in the blog’s sidebar, in a monthly ‘thank you’ post, on our Supporters page and on our Facebook Page. We also include you in a special Twitter list and give you regular  mentions at the end of CiBmail.

We’ll even send you a Christmas card.

Sounds good? As online advertising goes it’s cheap. It also helps to keep this website going, which hopefully you think of as a Good Thing.

The DIY Times is a new zine from the folks at Cut Out Shop.

A 16 page bargain with a screen printed cover designed by the lovely Alex Curtis, featuring interviews with the lady herself, Ammo Magazine, Southsea DIY and Sauna Youth

Only £2 from here.

Word’s been going round (although at the moment I can’t tell where from) that Thursday 15 July is decision day on the whole City of Culture 2013 thing.

While we work ourselves into barely-concealed bundles of anticipation, Arts Industry have done a quick round-up of each city’s bid. All much of a muchness, but recent events give the Derry bid a bit of topical oomph.

The Birmingham Post have revealed some of the plans that went into the Birmingham bid. The comments aren’t pretty but some people will never be happy and, until such time as we get the decision or see the whole bid, passing any sort of judgment’s a bit tricky really. I’m still intrigued by the autumn festival and would love to know who the big name guest curators might be (I think I heard preliminary approaches had been made).

Still, haven’t we had promises that, irrespective of the decision, all these events are going to go ahead regardless?

Hiya, still here. I’ve just been off, away and working for a bit. Here’s some stuff:

Rhymes from the Rocks is a showcase for poetry inspired by the geology of the Black Country and its storehouse of unusual and beautiful objects. The poems on this site have been produced by young people from the Dudley area.

Unsolved is a project all about sightings of ghostly, odd and paranormal things around the region. Check the case map.

In case you can’t see the flyer/poster, the Simmer Down Festival is in Handsworth Park on 17 July with the after party at The Drum.