Created in Birmingham

On Saturday semi-serious (i think) art group Digital Is Dangerous will be hosting a debate on digital technology’s role in the creative process. Conformed speakers include Robin Giorno, Jonathan Green, Keir Williams and artist and researcher for Wolverhampton uni Robert Grose (cant find a website sorry).

Event starts at 3pm and goes on till 5pm with D.I.D providing “a wonderful selection of edible digital nipples” and this all goes down at Jibbering Records in Mosley. I’ll be the one in with the long hair and mouth full of nipples.

Last Wednesday I went to the imaginatively titled Local shorts Film Club, which I previously talked about here. I was pleasantly surprised to find a large turnout (a quick head count of around 80) maybe its because of by passion for social media and indoctrination into the cult of blogging that made me presume that a poor web presence, and equally poor advertising automatically means low attendance.

The night is ran by Nigel and Sabine of It’s About Time Productions and chatting to them before hand I was interested to find out that updates, the forthcoming programme, submission requests and basically all the functionality of a blog is actually carried out by a mailing list, of which over three hundred people are signed up too. They explained this lo-fi attitude is partly intentional as not to appear to exclusive. Unfortunately this attitude also means that the LSFC is one of the best kept secrets of the film community in Birmingham. Speaking to a local video artist we both remarked how frustrating it was that this event was happening 200 yards away from where we were doing our degree with other student film makers, yet we never heard about it.

The event itself was very informal and friendly with the quality of the films varying widely. Standing out from the pack was the short film written and directed by Lewis Arnold called <i>Long Standing</i>. An engaging, warm, and very funny but ultimately melancholy study of old age and a mans emotional redemption through human contact. Lewis seems to be very talented capable of producing slickly finished pieces on almost no budget that are both humorous and visually interesting. I can’t help but see big things for him.

As for the night, the relaxed setting, friendly atmosphere and question and answer session after each film are much to the organisers credit, although the community itself does seem kind of small. The event has recently secured funding from Screen West Midlands so will using the money to develop a wider film making audience and the next night is scheduled for late July.

to get on the mailing list e-mail your address, theirs can be found here.

Stuart Whipps is a local independent photographer, who, amongst other things, documented the closing of the Longbridge Rover plant and its subsequent move to China. The exhibition of this work will be at The New Art Gallery Walsall and runs from April 4th to June 1st with the private view on Thursday 3rd April which open to all.

This exhibition brings together photographs of both the Longbridge and Nanjing plants. Though relating to a very specific context, these images speak volumes about the transformation of heavy industry in the 21st century and its wider implications.Taken from flyer

Local Shorts Film club is a free semi-regular showcase of locally made short films, which include a Q and A session with the film makers. The closest thing to a web-site I have found is here, but contains all the relevant information, with details how to submit a short film here.

The lack of web-site, ropey flyers and naff names aside, The next night is on April 9th with the title “Super Eclectic Mix Night” and is at the Library Theatre near Central Library.

I saw the first one of these yesterday.

By the the rag markets, I’m not sure how successful this was because half the keyboard didn’t work and it was almost meloncholy to see a once intricte and loved object abandoned in the street.

A programme of events around the theme Endurance starts on the 24th of April and runs until the 26th at Vivid.

Endurance is a three-day programme of screenings, performances and exhibition exploring the physical and mental limits of human endurance

There really are a lot of events to investigate, even if you can find the performative and body-art aspect of this sort of work a bit challenging (which, if you ask me, is even more of a reason to go), there should still be something of interest. a timetable for the events can be downloaded here.

I think I will at least try and make it to the William Hunt (pictured) piece on the Thursday night.

Enigmatically I just got sent this in the post,

(click to embiggen)

no explanation or anything, just the invite. But after a quick dig I came up with this,

This new body of work is centered on notions of broken narratives. The work spans drawing, photography, video and sound, and is very much a departure as the show will not include any painting. The focus of my practice is on the process, and the documentation of the processes involved in making art, something that has developed out of my painting practice.
I am currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at the University of Wolverhampton.

Might be worth a look, although the 22nd is Saturday, the web site says the show starts on the 24th which is next Monday.

 Edit: been contacted and the private view is definatly monday 24th

Looking at the Electric cinema’s newsletter I see that the Notorious Choir will be playing a gig there (do choirs gig?) on Sunday the 20th of April at 1pm. Called “As Seen On Tv” it promises “Fun and fabulous music from some televisions best loved shows”.

Lighthearted postmodern fun or symptomatic of a doomed culture bankrupt of ideas, you can decide for £8 (£6 Concs)

Round one of the regional Surface Unsigned Festival ‘08 is nearly over, but have no fear sheer volume of acts they are dealing with in the midlands alone should mean there are plenty of gigs to come, if I’ve done the maths right the competition should be finished sometime in 2112.

Now each act are not going to be the-ghost-of-Jimi-Hendrix-playing-a-seven-hour-set-amazing admittedly, but this could be a great way of seeing local unsigned acts.

Tomorrow Digbeth favorite, The Rainbow (whose lack of decent website surprises me for some reason) will, play host too, Product Of This, Trial of Origin, The Singles Club, Planetman, Astro Reality, and Just Sweet Theft.

In the interest of transparency I found out about this because I will be there tomorrow (long hair, scruffy beard/stubble and waistcoat, say hello I’m nice) supporting Planetman, old friends and IMO one of the best unsigned bands in Birmingham.

As this has provoked quite the discussion, I give my report into Surface and the machinations thereof.

As I knew one of the bands at the gig last night any review that I do will have a bias. Anyway the structure of the event and competition as a whole is far more interesting, and by interesting I mean sketchy.

First of all I want to qualify my criticisms with the insistence that I did have a good time last night. Six pounds isn’t a massive price to pay if the money was going to the bands or covering costs. And I still think there is a case to be made for showcase style show with six or so bands playing twenty minutes each.

Walking in the gig wasn’t packed, Surface don’t really do any promotion, that they leave to the bands to do themselves, expecting each band to sell 25 tickets each;

“As you must bring with you at least 25 people to your event you must sell at least 25 tickets for each round you play. If you do not sell 25 tickets you will still be allowed to play however you will NOT progress to the next round no matter how many Surface Ratings you receive.” (From the bands information pack, clause 2 in the terms and conditions. Italics mine, bold theirs)

From how empty the venue was, it meant a lot of bands must of eat shit on ticket sales and bought them themselves, you also only get the money back from tickets sales if you sell all 25 which is even then only a pound a ticket. So for 25 £6 tickets, the bands get £25 and Surface gets £125 now there are a minimum of six band at each gig so that means each gig they get a minimum of £750 (not to much maths I hope, my head kinda pickled as it is but I will push on regardless), now the first round of the Birmingham heats there are 38 gigs, which adds up too £28,500! just for the first round, all this, according to the booklet, going towards

“Sound engineer, Venue, Booth Operative, Security, Bar staff, PA, Lighting etc”(bold theirs)

From what I saw last night, lighting and PA was the venues own, bar staff provided by the venue also, there was no security. All the other stuff amps etc were provided by the sponsors, and to be honest the lead guitars speaker actually catching fire during the set isn’t the hugest endorsement for their products.

One thing the money does pay for is a female MC with a speech impediment reading out the bios of the bands about to go on, like a school assembly where the head teacher doesn’t really know what’s going on. I’ve got nothing against speech impediments but if I were paying nearly thirty grand for a MC I want some smooth talking shit going on, y’know?

Another criticism is the choosing of the bands the whole night was Rock/Ska/Pop, which means the Screamo band put in the second from last slot was never going to get as many votes seeing as they drove most of the crowd to the connecting bar. In fact the esoteric voting system is so much BS I won’t go into it in detail, needless to say the MC’s main job was to push the text voting, seeing as the other voting was the highly scientific system of raised hands and I wouldn’t trust this broad to count her children in the car on the way back from Alton Towers.

I would love to see the same structure applied to a regular night were six or so unsigned band played half an hour each and split the door, giving relatively new bands a chance to cut their teeth and punters a regular night to sample a section of the local scene.

Hello, As Pete mentioned, I’m Danny and I will be your guest blogger for a while, I will be trying to give you all the Birmingham friendly creative news that I find, although my main priority will be not screwing up like deleting the internet, getting Pete sued into the ground, or accidentally starting a Civil War. If there is something that you feel should be covered and I have missed, drop me a line at artiseasy(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk.

I don’t feel so much that I have been given the keys to a brand new sports car, as much as that I’ve been given the keys to an 18 wheeler lorry and its my job not to plough that bugger into a bus queue full of nuns and orphans. So without further adoing

• “Australian lawyer, novelist and human rights campaigner Randa Abdel- Fattah will be at a special event on the eve of Birmingham’s second annual Writers Awards evening”.

• A nice interview with Catherine O’Flynn, winner of the Costa First Novel Award here.

• Audiances Central normally have some good opportunities, these caught my eye, or rather caught my girlfriends eye, she’s giving me a hand and lovely hands they are too.