‘The Garage Presents…‘ is the first of VIVID‘s 2011 programme, running throughout February with a series of events in music, film, art and installation.
The fun kicks off this weekend, with Video Valentines on Sat 12 Feb, at 2pm, featuring a free screening of Woody Allen’s 1977 romcom, Annie Hall, alongside a bunch of independent shorts and heart-shaped treats.
The series continues with ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties: The Film + A Short Film by Vincent Moon‘ on Fri 18 Feb. Admission is £2.
This post-punk DIY bricolage uses material generated by the fans and musicians themselves, on a multitude of formats including Super8, camcorder and mobile phone material, over the history of the festival, to capture the uncompromising spirit of a parallel music universe.
The following weekend hosts a screening of Lis Rhodes’ avant-garde installation Light Music(1975) 25 Feb, from 6.30pm – 8.30pm, in association with George Saxon and Daniel Simcox
Visitors are immersed in the beams of two dueling projectors; as the film flickers and flashes, Rhodes varies sonic frequency, alters amplitude, and plays with tone to create a groundbreaking and visceral cinematic experience.
And finally on 26 Feb, Woof! Woof! William Wegman Weekend takes place at 2pm.
Coming of age in the 1960s, Wegman was an early exponent of conceptual art, well known for his use of irony, humour and satire. VIVID presents a selection of Wegman’s video works taken from his 1970s series of cryptic videos which star his obliging canine partner Man Ray.
Welcoming ‘allsorts’ of artwork, from textiles to jewellery, garden art to ceramics and photography to watercolours, they’re offering both professional and emerging artists the opportunity to exhibit and sell their work, with stalls available for £25 or £40 depending on requirements.
The deadline for submissions in 25 March, to find out more and download the application form, visit the website.
The latest artist to grace the walls of the We Are Birmingham Gallery is Tom Tebby, with this exhibition, Chop, opening 19 February.
Featuring new pieces and a selection of more familiar, reworked pieces, the exhibition will consist of detailed montages rendered across wooden panels and canvases.
Inspired by inner-city sprawl, discarded objects, architectural foliage and influenced by Avant Garde posters and decollage, the familiar and mundane are transformed into unexpected environments. Many of the works spread out like chaotic viruses and others dwell in a post-apocalyptic world where dereliction and organic mass have fused.
For more information, take a look at the Facebook event page, plus more of his work can be found on Flickr. The exhibition continues until 5 March.
If you’re a film maker, photographer, artist, sound engineer, web designer, writer, radio presenter, arts organisation or whatever then get yourself listed on Jobplot.
On 22 February, the #KittenCamp tour is heading to Birmingham. Since launching in London last year, it’s developed quite a cult following amongst creative and ‘web-loving, media types’, as a chance to meet up, hear from a few show and tell-ers, have a drink and chat about memes.
The event will be taking place at The Victoria, and will welcome Myles McLeod, Animation Writer and Director of The Brothers McLeod and David Edmundson-Bird, Director of Digital Marketing Communications at Manchester Met University, who’ll be introducing some fun and interesting things.
Director of Rubber Republic, Chris Quigley, will also be parading the event dressed as a giant cat, and talking about the latest internet memes and viral trends.
Tickets are free, and can be booked via Eventbrite, where you can also find more info on the event.
The project is being documented over on the Post-Industrial Revolution blog, introducing the artists involved and the research they’ve been doing. They also have a few events coming up in association with the final exhibition;
Artists’ Talk
Thursday 17 February 2011, 6.30 – 8pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AR
For further information visit http://www.extraspecialpeople.org
Preview
Friday 18 February 2011, 6-9pm
The Lombard Method, 68a Lombard Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B12 0QR
Admission free
Exhibition
Saturday 19 – Sunday 27 February 2011
Open Thursday – Sunday from 11am -6pm
The Lombard Method, 68a Lombard Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B12 0QR
Admission free
Parent & Children Workshop
Sunday 27 February 2011, 11am-12.30pm*
The Lombard Method, 68a Lombard Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B12 0QR
For more information, also check out their website.
If Birmingham City Council meetings were televised…
Not strictly arts/culture related, but if you only click one of these links, click this one. Includes chicken dancing, physical abuse of the Respect Party and what gold dealers in the city can be like
A Sneak Peek Inside New Library of Birmingham
References to ‘sneak peeks’ in my RSS reader went into overdrive the other day with lots of people posting a CG fly-through of the new library. Nice big escalators.
Nigel Singh to step down as CEO – Audiences Central
“Audiences Central today announces that Nigel Singh is leaving the organisation after three years as Chief Executive Officer”. Due to a serious family illness – best wishes to Ni
Behind Gamer Camp: Nano on Vimeo
“This short promotional documentary about the Gamer Camp: Nano course ran at NTI Birmingham in November to December 2010, to help prepare graduates for working in the games industry.”
Team Gozooheck Presents ‘Kung-Fu Night’
An (early) evening of workshops, networking, screenings of 3D animations and shorts from around Birmingham as well as classic kung fu films and free Marvel comics. There’s also something about a Film Society and Festival but I can’t quite tell how that fits in
Rhubarb Seminars
Rhubarb Rhubarb are doing a one-day artist development event in March. It’s a similar format to one they ran in London last year that seemed to go down very well (click the link and scroll down the page to ‘The Crossing’)
Bursary opportunity for West Midlands museum staff
“OpenCulture is the annual international event for Collections Managers, Curators, Registrars, Archivists, Librarians. Renaissance West Midlands are offering 10 free bursary places to museum staff or volunteers who work at a West Midlands Museum”
Soldier On
“I’ve seen some of the best bands in Birmingham play to a handful of people. It’s actually quite sickening. A terrible waste of talent”.
Ronan is in a band called Nerve Centre and blogs about that and unsigned music in general
Call For Submissions – Crowd6 Online Gallery
“Crowd6 will soon be launching an online gallery, showing artwork made specifically for the web. This might be time based, code based, illustrative or performative”
February at VIVID – We Are Eastside | Birmingham
“VIVID kicks off its 2011 programme with the launch of ‘The Garage presents…’ a brand new strand of one off events embracing music, live arts, installation, performance, and films”
I’ve been invited to meet Jeremy Hunt MP (or The Secretary of State for Culture, the Olympics, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP to give him his full name) later today. The email said:
The meeting will give the Secretary of State the opportunity to discuss his plans for local TV with you, as well as Government’s wider media priorities including the roll out of high speed Broadband, the Creative Industries and the forthcoming Communications Bill.
The Minister will be interested in your views on how Government’s programme will impact on Birmingham and the West Midlands specifically, as well as on the county as a whole.
From a quick search on Twitter it looks like Will Perrin, Julia Higginbottom and Jon Bounds have been invited too. I’ve no idea who else will be going.
The Eastern Electronic Festival is a new six day festival, taking place from 28 February – 5 March, featuring music, film screenings, art exhibitions, panel debates and world premieres of visual-artworks.
The festival will celebrate progressive Asian music and multimedia art, spreading itself across the city, with events taking place at venues including The Custard Factory, The Rainbow and The Hockley.
They’ll also be showcasing the work of four emerging South Asian artists in online exhibition “M-V Future”. From 28 Feb, the exhibition with feature work from film director Mandeep Singh Jutla, live-music photographer Gobinder Jhitta, VJ-visual artist Coco Edwards and contemporary conceptual artist Kulwinder Bajar, .
For a full line-up of performers, exhibitions and events, take a look at the online programme.
Events from 28 Feb – 3 Mar are free entry, but should be pre-booked, and tickets are £10 a day for Fri 4/ Sat 5, or £18 for both. Visit the website for information on how and where to book.
This morning I attended a meeting about the BBC Big Screen ‘Live Sites’. The idea was that we’d have an opportunity to discuss with Arts Council and the gathered digital, media and cultural organisations how to use Birmingham’s Big Screen – currently situated in Victoria Square – in the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games.
The main thrust of conversation was around how the screen can be used to engage people passing by as well as using it as a focal point for streaming live events or supporting live performances.
The first point to note is that the screen won’t simply be used as a big telly. As well as being able to screen video content, the screens are able to be used interactively using custom software and mounted cameras. This interactive content has included games such as cricket and quirkier ideas such as mapping animated masks onto the faces of passers by. Here’s an example:
As well as for use locally, content for the screens can be relayed around the other Live Sites in other areas of the country and can even be used for competitive interactive games and events between cities. Several ideas came out of the discussion included:
highlighting local cultural events with interactive performances
creating interactive games to be played nationally and internationally
and making innovative film content to showcase
Of particular note is the focus on dance in this region through the Arts Council’s Cultural Olympiad programme, predominantly the People Dancing strand of activities. This was an area in which creative projects using the screens would be welcomed, and although no direct funding is available from the Live Sites programme, ideas that used them and linked with Cultural Olympiad aims would be of interest.
Other points made included the upcoming dates of note, such as the Olympic torch relays in the region and the possibilities of events occuring during the Cultural Olympiad’s Open Weekend on 22-24 July this year, and how local organisations can get involved and contribute to the events.
So, in general, the big screen will be used for more than just BBC News 24. Let’s hope that our Live Site produces some especially creative content and showcases some of the region’s cultural highlights.
Throughout February, Birmingham Central Library are hosting an exhibition on Gypsy Roma Travellers, featuring a series of poster artwork.
The exhibition will feature the work of Albanian Roma artist, Ferdinand Koci, along with posters exploring the Romany language and flag, Gypsy Remedies and the Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor poster, plus a series of posters on the different professions of individual Gypsies, Roma and Travellers.
The exhibition runs until 28 February. For more information, take a look at the Facebook event page.
Pitchfork: Have you ever had any kind of personal interaction with any of the Sabbath people?
Dylan Carlson, Earth: No. Sabbath is from Birmingham, England and Tony Iommi supposedly came to a festival we played there once, but I didn’t actually see him. The two women who put on that festival are always trying to get the Birmingham City Council to recognize that it’s the city of heavy metal and put up a plaque or a statue to acknowledge it.
Robots Creative do digital video production and post production. I first came across them when I saw they’d signed up to Jobplot – I remember thinking “huh, nice logo” or something equally profound.
Anyway, for reasons that completely escape me now, I followed a link to a video on co-founder Mat Cooper’s Vimeo account the other day. Recorded back in December when it was all snowy, they’d recorded a test where they’d strapped a 7D camera to a remote control helicopter and flown it around a marina. That’s apparently the sort of thing they do. Top marks on the music choice too.
Over the next month, Grand Union have a programme of Live Acts and Sound lined up, which kicks off this Friday, 4 Feb, with performance artist Tom Marshman.
He’ll be performing ‘The Passion of the Pole’, a controversial piece which confronts taboos of mental disorders and religion.
Clinging to a dancing pole, a sentimental character exposes itself to you, with layers of issues, a crude honesty, and a wincing humour. The pole becomes a crucifix: a site for Tom to expose and execute his anxieties.
Doors open at 7.30pm, starting at 8pm and its free admission.
Women and Theatre in association with mac, present The Palace of Wasted Dreams, which opens on 3 February at mac.
The show is a culmination of a two year project, Wasted, which explores womens relationship with alcohol through participatory musical theatre.
Get a skinful of intoxicating, interactive theatre as mac’s new theatre space transforms into The Palace of Wasted Dreams; a place where anything can happen, and something always does; a place that can take you out of yourself, where you can feel alive and get involved, with all the thrills of a great night out!
With a cast of 25 community performers, along with professional faces, including Janice Connolly (aka Barbara Nice), the show features original songs, accompanied by an eclectic House Band, laced together with stories told from the bottom of a glass.
The Palace of Wasted Dreams is on at mac from 3 – 5 Feb and 9 – 12 Feb. To book tickets call mac on 0121 446 3232 or book online.
