‘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.

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.

For full information and to download the application form, visit the Fierce website. The deadline for applications is 11 February.

Eastside Projects also need volunteers to contribute around the gallery. We posted the flyer on CiB’s tumblr yesterday.

VIVID‘s ‘In Association With…’ scheme for emerging and mid-career artists and producers is currently open for submissions. This is a bit of a late mention, as the deadline’s tomorrow (28 Jan), but still, worth a mention.

And finally, some information on Worcestershire Contemporary Art Show, which is taking place throughout May and June. They’re currently open to submissions for exhibitors;

ARTISTS WANTED TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS EXHIBITION.

I AM LOOKING FOR ARTIST WORKING IN 2D, 3D,FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY TO EXHIBIT WORK THAT REFLECTS THE ISSUES WE DEAL WITH EVERY DAY.

THERE ARE 3 CATEGORIES

ESTABLISHED ARTISTS
ARTISTS THAT GRADUATED UP TO 2 YEARS AGO
ART STUDENTS

INTERESTED? EMAIL ME A BRIEF STATEMENT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR WORK BEFORE 11TH FEBRUARY 2011 – ccdesignuk@yahoo.co.uk

As you may or may not already be aware, Chinese New Year is just around the corner, and Birmingham’s annual free festival will be taking place on 6 February in the Arcadian.

Kicking off at 12 noon with the traditional Ceremony of Dotting the Dragon’s eyes, festivities will carry on throughout the afternoon until 4.30pm. Entertainment will come in the form of an extravagant dragon and lion dance, acrobatic and cultural displays, with a firework finale and traditional Fire Crackers.

It’s also worth noting that Hurst Street will be closed, making way for stalls to fill the streets.

For a programme of the day’s events and to see what you can expect from the festival, take a look at the website www.cnybirmingham.org.uk

Led by Sampad, Radiu5 is calling for youth volunteers, aged 16 – 24, to take part in a digital mapping project which will celebrate and promote the creative activity of young people within a 5 mile radius of mac.

On 5 October, from 5 – 7pm at mac, Sampad are inviting anyone interested in this project to join them at mac, for an evening containing food, hands-on digital experience, and dance, music and spoken word performances.

Volunteers are welcome to give as much or as little time as they can afford to the project, plus part-time volunteers will receive bus passes and travel expenses.

For more information and to register your interest for the induction event, visit the Sampad website and fill in the form by 30 September.

I’ve often wondered why museums and galleries aren’t using their web presence in more innovative and useful ways.  I worked within a gallery for a number of years, and this gave me the unsurprising insight that many factors contributed to this: underpaid overworked staff, simply no capacity (in terms of time) to explore new avenues, gallery staff restricted to working within strictly defined roles with little room for experimentation, and those who do maintain the web side of things being under supported and in need of upskilling.  Plus above all, there are many challenges facing gallery collections (from conservation to valuation to interpretation and beyond) that the additional pressure of creating new ways of accessing that information sits at the bottom of anyone’s agenda, particularly when it could just end up as a copyright/intellectual property/Digital Rights Management nightmare.

Finally, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery have been brave enough to tackle these issues head on with the decision to publicly release their world-class Pre-Raphaelite collection, the largest in Europe, becoming the focal point for this work.  With assistance from JISC, BMAG appointed Birmingham-based digital agency TAK! after a five way pitch to design and develop a website application to achieve their goal.  And the resulting site is a beautiful, delicate and sensitive piece of design.  Visitors will be able to access high quality content which will enable schools, universities, and the general public to have a greater understanding of the collection in their own time, and in their own space – which in turn could encourage new visitors and raise the profile of the museum.

“TAK! have helped us create the largest online Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world” concludes Linda Suprdle, Project Manager at BMAG. “It’s a fantastic resource and provides an unparalleled level of access and quality to the works on display. Anyone with an interest in art should visit the site and discover the importance of the Pre-Raphaelites.”

I hope that this project will encourage other museums and galleries to consider making their collections accessible online.  They have the opportunity to create such valuable learning resources which could cross so many diversity and access barriers, and it seems a shame that the majority of artworks only ever see the light of day if and when a curator deems them relevant enough. Using online technology, all collections could eventually be available to view regardless of current exhibition theme!

If and when that does happen, I will be interested to see how the role of ‘the curator’ responds to that change.  The Pre-Raphaelite collection site already encourages users to create their own personal collections, so how far a leap would it be for people to share those collections and reasons for their choices with other users?  Imagine an itunes playlist or an amazon reading list – but for art, complete with personal interpretations, anecdotal thoughts, factual evidence and academic input.  THAT would be something I could become obsessive about!