Created in Birmingham

It’s nice when you ask for something and then it turns up, even if it takes a while. Four years ago I (Pete, btw) put in a request to the interwebs for a “searchable small gigs database feed site thingy” which I could throw a bunch of criteria into and be given regular updates of stuff happening in my area that might be of interest - a middle ground between my usual sources and the useless torrent of information that most what’s on sites provide. There have been a few attempts since then but Live Brum is the first that’s gotten me slightly excited.

Partly this is the pedigree. It’s run by Josh Hart who recently left Made Media to concentrate on this project. Made, as you may know, built the fantastic Town Hall Symphony Hall website and Live Brum looks to be applying the ideas there to the rest of the city’s venues.

The other part is that its incredibly flexible. You can filter the information in numerous ways and subscribe to those results with ease. Stuff like subscribing to Rock and Pop at the Hare and Hounds is nice enough but being able to subscribe to a search for a band or any keyword is quite lovely.

Lots of other neat things too, such as embedding the event in your blog or website in the same way as YouTube videos, the magic being if the details change on Live Brum those changes will be reflected on your site too. Think of them as dynamic flyers. Here’s one:

And, with my tech-head on, the way Josh has built the site lets him add all sorts of new and innovative features and integration with other social networking sites with ease. This is still early days for the site.

The trick, of course, is making sure the site has all the correct information. From chatting to Josh the other week he’s pretty sure he’s got this sorted out in a sustainable way, partly by ensuring promoters and venues can take their information back out in a variety of ways making it worth their while putting it in. I think there might be a bit of a steep learning curve for some of them here but, frankly, it’s about time the live music industry caught up with the 21st century. And, of course, if this site works then it will put Birmingham miles ahead of most other cities.

So, in short, cautious big grins all round. Nice one.

A testament to the passion and drive of Soweto Kinch, the award-winning jazz saxophonist/MC/producer/poet/writer/whatever he wants:

For one day only the entire area beneath the Hockley flyover will be alive with inspiring sights and sounds, ground breaking art and music.

For the line-up see the flyer, for other info see the Flyover Show on Myspace.

Soweto can explain the motivation behind the Flyover Show much better than me and that’s exactly what he does in this video:

For a taste of how much he’s putting into the project, check the second video where we takes he message to the (Broad) streets:

A perfect storm of Birmingham creative scene interestingness is happening on Monday 26 May with Capsule producing an event for the Fierce Festival at the really-rather-good Town Hall (who seem to be widening the scope of the events they’re putting on).

Julian Cope will be presenting his lecture entitled ‘Ancient Worship Of The Gods Beyond Rome’, followed by a screening of ‘Haxan; Witchcraft through the Ages’ with a live soundtrack provided by Bronnt Industries Kapital.

More details and ticket buying info are on the Capsule page.

Julian Cope will be returning with Capsule for the Supersonic Festival, 11 to 13 July. Weekend tickets are available for a bargainous £65 and (limited) day tickets are now on sale too. Check their website for details but don’t dally if you want a ticket.

Creative Republic (who fund this blog) are organising a series of events over the next few months, the first of which focuses on the West Midlands Cultural Olympiad which is

a four year celebration of culture and creativity that will be launched over the weekend of 26 September as part of the plans for the London 2012 Games

Details on the background to all this can be found at www.london2012.com/beinspired.

Here’s the invitation to this particular event. Attendance is free but you’re asked to register here and also encouraged to sign up to the Creative Republic Charter (if you agree with the principles, of course).

Update - there’s also a Facebook event for this.

BiNS flagged up a story in the Birmingham Mail the other day entitled “Fury over car art” about Bournville residents’ outrage over a wrecked Mercedes on display outside the Bournville Centre for Visual Arts.

The car references Crash, the novel by JG Ballard, and is part of an exhibition called Zodiac 3000 taking place at the International Project Space, transformed for the duration into the J.G. Ballard Centre for Psychopathological Research, “an institute built to interrogate the New Psychology explored in Ballard’s fiction”.

Unofficial Ballard website Ballardian.com has reported on this and they reproduce the exhibition’s press release. They’ve also picked up on the Mail’s article.

It’s a brave move by the IPS. As their exhibition curator, Andrew Hunt, tells the Mail “Ballard is fixated with white, middle-class suburbs, which Bournville is”. A willingness to upset the residents of an area well known for it’s Quaker-derived standards, and all in the name of art, must take some courage.

The exhibition continues until 31 May and the Centre is open Monday to Saturday, 12pm to 5pm (7pm on Wednesday).

I went along to the Animation Forum West Midlands event, Shorts On Walls, on Monday which was most enjoyable. The organisers were certainly pleased with how things went and have said so on their pleasingly blog-ish news page.

Also on that page is the evening’s screening schedule with links to the animators’ profiles. I understand they were trying their best to accept last minute submissions meaning giving out a running order on the night wasn’t possible, so it’s good to see it here.

It also helps me to pick out the films that I particularly enjoyed and give them an extra plug here.

First up, ‘Don’t Touch’ by Louis Hudson from Dice Productions.

The Nickolodeon-style anarchy of Pedro & Frankensheep from the Brothers McLeod was great and has apparently been picked up by CBBC.

A name that cropped up again and again was Natalie Ann Hinchley. She has a credit on Pedro & Frankensheep, her Second Home Productions outfit produced the jaw-dropping ‘The Animal Book’ (only the trailer here but it’s still a treat)

and, although I can’t find a video to embed, go and check out the Light House commissioned ‘Onions’ on Natalie’s website - animated bunnies are always a winner.

I’m at risk of just listing everyone here so I’ll finish with a few quick mentions:

• Although less polished, the video for Nyoto Ndogo’s track Dunia (remix) has a good energy about it and I like the song (presented by Andrew Burchell).
• ‘What If’ by Mat Parker’s Short Animations 4 Education was uncomfortable viewing for the right reasons (trailer only on the site).
• Steven Spencer describes ‘My Brown Friend‘ as a “dark exploration of addiction” which it is.
• Finally, the YouTube embedding has been disabled but I’ll forgive that (just about) to mention ex-BCU MA student Guillaume Weiss’s ‘4:51‘ which I thought was just incredible.

The Edge, “Birmingham’s first dedicated live and time-based arts venue”, wants to put the joy back into making art:

Saturday Sesh is not networking, it’s not a series of seminars, it’s just a place for artists to meet, to share ideas and resources and to make things happen.

All of which is highly laudable, so more power to their collective elbow. Anyone interested should feel free to drop in from 3pm on Saturday 3 May and every Saturday after for drinks, nibbles and a chat. Admission is free.

The Edge can be found at 79-81 Cheapside, Digbeth, Birmingham B12 0QH, or roughly where the green arrow is on this map.

The International Dance Festival Birmingham started today and continues until Sunday 25 May at venues all over the city. Pete mentioned this back in January and pointed out how truly international the line-up is, with performers from Taiwan, Australia, South Africa, Cuba and Russia, as well as “rising star” Rosie Kay from Birmingham.

The full line-up for this week (and indeed the other weeks) can be seen on their events page.

Pulling out highlights would be a fool’s errand but for those looking to sample the impressive wares without parting with their hard-earned, there are a few free events to catch:

• Performances in shop windows around the city centre are taking place daily from midday all this week - head for Oasis, the Puma Store, Bathstore and Chamberlain Square. More details here.
• In Victoria Square on Friday night, 9pm and on Saturday at 4pm and 9pm you can see Watch This Space which I have very high hopes for indeed.

Lastly, the festival has a blog, although I see this hasn’t been updated in the past week. I’m hoping they use it to collect together all the photos, videos and reviews that will be spun out by visitors to the events, similar to the Collective Memories that Pete did here (and that I’ll be continuing to do).

Photo by Brian Slater.

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.

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.

The next Pub Conversations conversation, where an artist and a guest of their choice discuss stuff in a pub, takes place on April 29th in the Lamp Tavern on Barford St. Melanie Carvalho and Ross Birrell are the speakers and there are usually questions from the audience. Free but spaces are limited so email selfservice [at] hotmail.co.uk to book. And while the recording will be podcasted the Lamp is a lovely little pub.

Pete James, custodian of Birmingham Library’s legendary photographic archive, sends through info of From Canton to Guangzhou, part of Birmingham’s China Festival running through this year at BM&AG.

This exhibition presents the work of two photographers who have made very different visual records of Birmingham’s Sister City in China. It contrasts the photographs of buildings and street scenes taken in the historic city of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) by the European photographer Felice Beato in 1860 with those of the contemporary Chinese photographer Xu Peiwu (1997 - 2007), whose work witnesses the dynamic change during the urbanization and rise of Pearl River New City in Guangzhou.

The exhibition runs from 3 May to 10 August at BMAG with the official opening on Thursday 8 May. Invite only, by the looks of things, so if you wanna go contact kath.leahy [at] birmingham.gov.uk, tel: 0121 303 8775.

Probably more interesting than hobnobbing in the Round Room is a seminar in the afternoon of the 8th at 2pm at BIAD, Margaret Street with Pete, Dr Jiang Jiehong (Director, Centre for Chinese Visual Arts, BIAD), photographer Xu Peiwu and Cheng-Hsuan Kao (PhD Candidate, Kings College London). Here’s the flyer (PDF).

Here’s the winners of the My Fierce Festival public vote competition thingy:

Theatres
Whisper (Proto-type Theater)
Playing The Victim (Switch)
I Told It To A Mannequin (Francesca Millican Slater & Lindsey Price)

Public Spaces
The Fête Encounter (Various Artists)
B1 Labyrinths (Needless Allies)
It Sank With The Shape Of Us (Victoria Pratt)

Unconventional Spaces
The Moment Before We Kiss (Michael David Jones)
The Divine Edgar (Scott Johnston/Film Ficciones)
Foot Washing Foor The Sole (Adrian Howells)

These will take place over the May Bank Holiday weekend, 23 to 26 May, as part of the Fierce Festival.

A very last minute notice from Sandra at Friction Arts of an event that seems to have parallels with their Reality Estate shindig.

This show is the result of a project where Director Cees Bavius & writer Pieta Bot set up ‘shop’ in a disused supermarket in an urban district of Rotterdam… The performers for this show ranged from 14 to 83 years old and their here to share their stories! For some of our visitors this is their first trip outside of Holland so please join us to welcome them and see the show.

That’s tomorrow.

Punch Records ran a competition to design the ident for this year’s BASS Festival and the winner is Pretesh Mistry:

The two runners up are here.

I’ve been criminally negligent in reporting on the My Fierce Festival shenanigans this last week but have raised myself from my ineptitude, or something, to inform you that today is the final day to vote on which acts will appear as part of Fierce this year. Get to it!

Artstalking Ana reports on Wunderkammer which opened on Wednesday at BIAD with a live performance, which I’ll let Ana describe:

David Miller and Edward Wakefield were lying inside perspex cabinets as characters drawn from when they were students at Margaret Street. Ed was lying in state, with audio playing (unfortunately you couldn’t hear this very well with all the noise) and David was writhing ineffectually in his white ribbon bondage.

Photo also by Ana with more in her blog post. The show continues (presumably without the live bodies in cabinets) until the 16th, 10am-5pm, not weekends, in the Foyer of BIAD, Margaret St. There’s then a “critique” on the 16th at 6pm.

The website for the New Generation Arts festival has been launched, complementing their blogs nicely (although, if I might be picky, the link from the site doesn’t take you to the right blogs page - sort it out please). As you’d expect there’s a diary of the events taking place over the fortnight along with a list of participants which gives a great snapshot of activity in the region along with links to their websites and such, shockingly a rare occurrence on sites like this.

There’s also the massive 52 page brochure avaialble to download as a PDF, though I’d probably recommend picking up the printed version if you can.

Part of New Generation Arts this year is a game to be played across the city using online tech but also with a hands on arts’n'craft angle. It’s been devised by Nikki Pugh along with a bunch of other souls and having been in the preliminary ideas-bashing stage I have high hopes for this being rather good.

For now, go decide if you want to be a human or a luden, subscribe to the respective feed and await further instructions.