Animation Forum West Midlands are running an after-work (6.30pm to 8.30pm) event at The Rainbow in Digbeth on Monday 28 April 2008. It’s called Shorts on Walls and in their own words:
Whether or not you actually make short films, Shorts on Walls is a great chance for animators to meet and network after work with other freelancers, animation companies and professionals over a mid-week beverage.
It’s free to attend but please let them know if you’ll be going down. There are contact details and more info on the Animation Forum West Midlands website.
Incidentally, props to AFWM for showing how this web promotion lark should be done – the news page of their site has an RSS feed and features a map of the venue. There’s also a Facebook group (with a list of participating animators/studios) to join as well as a newly-minted YouTube group.
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.
The Art of Ideas is three events taking place in Birmingham this week. I’m going to attempt to gather the various online responses in this post. As usual, send me links or add them in the comments.
Ruth Ward has set up an Arts of Ideas blog gathering together all the material associated with the events in one place, including the essays and images. Nice one!
Tuesday: Culture and Identity – The Role of Place in Shaping the Arts
Jon Bounds at BiNS was there. He also points us to Euphoria, mentioned by Catherine and celebrating the forgotten bits of Brum. Worth a look.
Twitter: @RussL: “Reading all this stuff about this talk last night: B’ham is the ultimate post-modern city. It’s strength is its ability (and tendency) to interrupt its own meta-narrative. Or is that too wanky? @AnthonyJHughes: “Art of ideas – do we really need to discuss/ have discussed our industry as if we weren’t there? Do we need to anylise creativity to death?” and “It’s a bit like a late night review where Tom Paulin and Sarah Dunant discuss why something is funny…..Margaret Street”
Wednesday: Why Should We Care About Creativity in the West Midlands?
I again took notes during the talks. Hope they’re of some use. Of course if the organisers recorded the event and make that public it’d be even better (hint!)
Thursday: Future of Sound This is now taking place at the John Lee Theatre at the Birmingham & Midland Institute, 7:00pm to 10:00pm
Two essays by Matt Price and Catherine O’Flynn are available printed on an absurdly large piece of paper. If these are online anywhere please let me know else I’m going to have to try and scan that bastard.
Twitter is a service that’s getting a fair bit of traction in Brum right now. Like most of these things it’s as useful as you find it to be so don’t feel you’re “doing it wrong” if you don’t get it, but I’m finding it rather invaluable so you might too.
It’s a combination of things really. The format is limited to 140 characters so it meshes well with SMS texting meaning you can use it from your phone but it also works on the website and via instant messaging along with a bunch of 3rd party applications (I like Twhirl myself). At it’s core it works along the same lines as Facebook status updates and you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s not much difference, but the magic comes from the way it manages conversations and the fine tuning you can do.
Above all it’s an example of what I’m calling an “ambient stream”. Nothing on Twitter is actually that important, unless it is. You can just check in every so often and get a feel of what your community/ies are up to. If there’s anything of relevance that’s great but if not then it’s no great loss. You can spend hours communicating with people or just ignore the service for a day – it doesn’t matter.
I find it useful for random meetups. If someone “tweets” (as it’s known) that they’re in a certain cafe or pub then I might pop in if I’m in the area. Or I might not. Or if I’m looking for help or advice with something I can send out a quick message and see if anyone’s free with no obligation.
(Oh, here’s a handy video which might help. Or not.)
Anyway, if you think it might be useful have a play and see what you think. But be aware it took me a good year to get my head around what I might use it for so it might not hit you at first.
So here’s a list of some of the Birmingham-types who are on Twitter that Created in Birmingham readers might want to follow. You might also want to scan through the list of people I’m following if it takes your fancy. I’ve tried to keep this list more arts/design than tech but there are, of course, overlaps.
I should probably stop there. The a good strategy would be to find some people you already know or are connected to and look at who they’re following. And if you fancy some really unfocused ambient Twitter-noise you could subscribe to this feed of Birmingham Twitterers.
Yes, it’s all kinda pointless. That’s kinda the point.
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Okay, here’s a good case study. Immediately after writing this I’m thinking what I might do before going home today. A tweet from Kerry pops up on my computer that she’s “going to ikon to private view for ruth claxton exhibition”. Hmm. That sounds interesting. Didn’t know about that. I may well pop up there.
This is the fifth in the Invigilator series where a single set of directions has been transposed onto different locations to determine the exact place for watching over; we can choose our significant starting points, but then a pre-determined sequence of lefts, rights and straight-ons takes us on a not-quite-random walk to an unplanned invigilation site.
Nikki recorded hers using Twitter from her phone, which was nice to see. I wonder how mobile microblogging could be used for other art-related events…
At the Moseley Creative Forum meeting last night (at which I was on the panel) the chair, Steve Harding, mentioned that the Community Development Trust which owns/runs the building had secured £300,000 of funding to completely renovate the main ground floor space. What was interesting was what they intend to do with it. After the event (which I think went rather well – I’d encourage Moseley creative types to go) I had a quick chat with the CDT manager Tony Thapar and jotted down some notes. Bear in mind I’m blogging this before they’ve made an official announcement so I might have gotten some of the finer details wrong, but the general gist I’m comfortable with.
Firstly, the money hasn’t just been handed to them by some quango. This has been a long process gathering funds from a variety of places including local donations. The final chunk came from the European Regional Development pot the 6 month application process for which was apparently a nightmare. So I’m guessing this has been fairly well thought through.
The basic plan is to offer a “third space” for freelancers and home workers, the majority of whom in Moseley tend to be in the creative industries. Facilities will include internet access, desk space, secure lockers and the ability to hire the upstairs rooms for meetings and presentations.
More importantly the space will enable folk to mix and network giving the creative community a base which isn’t a pub/cafe or someone’s kitchen. Essentially they’re looking at developing a Co-working space, something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.
At its heart is a desire to provide something the community can use that will keep people in the area rather than forcing them to go to Digbeth or the Jewellery Quarter, especially for those just starting out or who don’t need a city centre office. There’s also, due to the concentration of SMEs, the opportunity for the business support orgs to use it as an outreach / info spot. And Tony was also keen to stress how the centre could be used to “bridge the digital divide” by providing computer-based tools and skills to those who feel left behind by all the nonsense the likes of me spout.
The beauty of this, as I see it, is that it’s not very prescriptive. There’s a space with facilities that people can use as they see fit. Of course making sure the basic facilities are suitable is the most important thing so I hope they’ll be using all the tools available to get this right. A blog or similar detailing the plans and facilitating feedback at the very least.
But yeah, I’m usually quite cynical about such things but this looks like a good un. Moseley-types – go get involved.
The 96ft mock-gothic tower in Edgbaston was built in 1758 as an elaborate hunting lodge for the entertainment of the landowner, John Perrott’s wealthy friends. Perrott’s Folly has been closed to the public for many years, and this will be the first opportunity to climb the spectacular tower and see paintings and sculpture by Partenheimer installed on each floor. This project forms part of Ikon’s offsite programme which develops the relationship between art, artists and audiences outside the gallery, challenging expectations of where art can be seen and by whom.
After many rumours over the last month The Barfly group has taken over the Digbeth Institute building previously run by the Sanctuary club. Currently Barfly sublet the back room with its entrance on Milk Street with a capacity of 400. This will increase their Birmingham audience sizes to 2,250, albeit split between at least three rooms. Comparatively the soon to be relocated (possibly to the old Dome building on Bristol St) Academy venue holds 3,000.
Given that this represents one of the major cultural celebrations in the city, one which has been claimed to be one of the largest outside of New York (if I remember rightly) I’d be interested to hear what you all think.
News reaches me of the artists who’s work will be in the new Cadbury building in Bournville.
Jo Naden will create a bronze sculpture based on the form of a cocoa seed pod, drawing on the rich history of the plant as a “food of the godsâ€.
Eryka Issak’s large scale glass sculpture will quite literally “flow†down one of the building’s pure white walls, using overlapping 3D curved glass to give the sense that the work is a flowing stream of Dairy Milk chocolate.
Chris Keenan’s photographic set, Purple Interventions, will use the trademark Cadbury purple coloured props such as balloons, traffic cones, lights, flags and painted blocks to create surreal and playful images of Bournville landscapes and street scenes.
Matthew Robinson will produce a large scale print, taking direct reference from parts of the Cadbury factory building and surrounding area. Taking new digital photographs and melding them with a variety of archived sketches and digital pieces, the work will form a digital montage using manipulation to a point where a new sense of multi-dimensionality is formed.
Hi Pete I’m pulling together some information on Birmingham’s art scene for the University of the Arts London (which includes St. Martin’s) and Arts newspaper on why London students should consider coming to Birmingham post graduation.
I’ve done a round-up of galleries, theatres, venues etc and wanted to liven it up with some quotes from artists, media and bods that are passionate about the city’s creative scene on why ex London students should come to Birmingham. (I know it’s a bit of a sales pitch but it’s a great inroad for us to talk about Birmingham as a student city.)
If you’d like to give me a couple of lines, or recommend some people with interesting things to say, by Monday that would be great.
I hate these sort of things. 200 lines, sure, but a couple? So I’m passing the buck to you guys. Any ideas? Leave them in the comments and I’ll alert Tracy to their presence.
If you pop into the Mac today and look on the counter you’ll see a stack of tabloid supplements put together by the Birmingham Post to mark the inemant closure and rebuilding of the centre. And since the two main articles were written by the mighty Terry Grimley, who’s knowledge of the history of Birmingham’s cultural scene is, frankly, as large as the moon, they’re actually well worth reading and not the shallow puff pieces you might imagine.
Sadly these articles have not been put online for the education of the nation which is a real shame as they do go some way to explain the background to some of the controversies that have dogged the Mac this last year. But hark! I have a scanner!
There are also some neat photos of the how the new building will look which I’m posting here, again scanned from the supplement (hence the low resolution). Above is the view from across the lake while below is the new entrance across the river from the cark park.
Animation Forum West Midlands are running an after-work (6.30pm to 8.30pm) event at The Rainbow in Digbeth on Monday 28 April 2008. It’s called Shorts on Walls and in their own words:
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