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Dachsund UN

This one’s kinda brilliant. Fierce Festival are looking for 60 dachsunds from around the West Mids to take part in one of the projects featuring in next year’s festival:

Bennett Miller’s ‘Dachshund U.N.’ is a replica of the former United Nations office in Geneva which will hold a meeting of the Commission of Human Rights. Each of the 47 nations will be represented by a dachshund.  The piece is a ‘playful and often chaotic comment on the aspirations of the Commission of Human Rights, and our capacity as humans to imagine and achieve a universal system of justice.’

Watch the video. I’m very much looking forward to this happening.

If you want your dog to get involved then More Canals Than Venice has the contact details.

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I hadn’t realised this was online and picked up on it while skimming the latest from this / inexplicably / styled website from the Arts Council. I’ll let plan b (not that one) explain:

We are making a living portrait of 24 hours in Birmingham with the people who move through its streets, parks, waste grounds and tow paths on foot for the Fierce Festival and the Midlands Art Centre (MAC) See planbperformance.net/?dayinlife.htm for details

A Day in the Life – The Walkers of Birmingham is much more than just a living map, it is a portrait of a city as experienced at ground level. The animation emphasises walking by filtering faster journeys and making these lines more feint

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Continuing the theme of writing about some of the stuff I get out and about to, last night I followed the robots down to AE Harris for the Fierce Start Party.

Fierce directions

The idea with these things is to introduce next year’s artists to Birmingham and vice versa. There are a few Fierce stalwarts and returning names in the 2011-2012 caravan but plenty of new faces too. Because I’m too lazy to type them all out and too impatient to wait for them to appear online, here’s the list of names:

Fierce caravan of artists 2011-2012

I arrived in time to have a bit of a natter with some people, watch some archery (BE Festival‘s Miguel winning the competition there) and see a balloon-festooned woman dosed up on sleeping pills who had quite literally danced until she’d dropped. The usual kind of Fierce thing then.

I should probably have got down a bit earlier to catch some more stuff but that’s the problem with these ’4pm til late’ things – it’s hard to tell when to turn up to catch the action. Still, there was plenty on display around the venue. I particularly liked the look of what Ron Athey will be cooking up – something to do with automatic writing.

Ron Athey

In conclusion: Excellent and I’m looking forward to seeing how some of the embryonic ideas presented will turn out in 9 months time.

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In the past couple of days the two festivals have posted retrospectives.

Flatpack have posted a slideshow of photos (with more on their Flickr account)

.

While Fierce have rounded up their 2011 festival with a nice, photo-heavy blog post and some links to things others have written about them. They sign off the post saying:

On June 18th we’ll announce the Fierce Festival Caravan of Artists 2011 – 2012 who will form the core of next year’s program at our Start Party. It will be free and welcome to all so come along.

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Flatpack and Fierce have barely begun, but I’ve already been taking a sneak peek of a few of the things they’ve got going on, including Symphony of a Missing Room, the Vintage Mobile Cinema and a trip over to the Dirty End.

Yesterday morning I headed over to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, for a visit unlike any other. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Symphony of a Missing Room by Lundahl & Seitl, feeling slightly apprehensive as I was given a pair of wireless headphones, blindfolded and led cautiously around the museum by sounds, voices and a mysterious hand. The whole experience was what I can only describe as dream like, and had me leaving feeling like I’d been awoken from a deep, disorienting sleep.

So far it’s been receiving plenty of rave reviews on Twitter, who all seem to be able to put the experience into words so much better than I can. If you want to check it out for yourself, book via the Fierce website, it’s definitely one to give a go.

Last night also saw the launch of both Flatpack and Fierce, at VIVID, which has been transformed into The Dirty End. Along with live music from Juneau Projects, they had a few tasty treats and cocktails on offer which will apparently be sticking around for most of the festival.

The Vintage Mobile Cinema had it’s first Flatpack outing this afternoon in Victoria Square, where it gathered quite a few admirers. The 22 seater restored mobile cinema, originally toured British factories from 1967, promoting modern production methods. As one of only seven made, this gem is the last standing after being brought back to life to tour the country once again.

With it’s cosy little interior, complete with red cinema seats, it feels rather like a mini Electric. I was also treated to a clip of Buster Keaton’s silent film Sherlock Junior (1924), which is being screening tomorrow night at the Town Hall, accompanied by live organ and piano.

If you fancy hopping aboard, the vintage mobile cinema will be at Handsworth Library on Thursday, Birmingham Markets on Saturday, and Cannon Hill Park on Sunday. Take a look at whats on across the weekend over on the Flatpack site.

I’ll try and update this post with other Flatpack & Fierce adventures, but in the meantime let us know which events you’ve made it to and what should be on our ‘must see’ lists.

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Flatpack and Fierce 2011

It’s festivals a gogo with the Fierce and Flatpack festivals kicking off today with a whole load of interesting stuff coming to Birmingham between now and Sunday.

You’ll no doubt have done the decent thing and booked up a load of tickets for both of these already but, if not, there should still be time. I’ve had a nosey through the programmes and reckon that I’ll be going to the following:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday

Installations and ongoing things that I’ll try to catch when I can:

All subject to having to work to do and so on. Plus I’m not around this weekend, which is a shame because there’s some ace stuff happening.

What are you going to be going to?

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Tomorrow, I’ll be at The Public for the showcase event of the DCD Programme. In case you’d not heard of it:

Arts Council England West Midlands’ Digital Content Development (DCD) Programme is a three year programme of investment which aims to catalyse the creation and creative use of digital content platforms for arts organisations across the West Midlands region

The website went up recently and the map on the homepage shows some of the projects, along with how much money they received. Further information is due on the website at some point, but if you look at the page source then you can glean a little more. On the basis that you probably don’t want to ruin your eyes, here’s what I found:

  • Birmingham Repertory Theatre – Towards the development of an online multi-user playwriting resource (£27,884)
  • Pesky People – Development of a multiplatform approach to venue access information (£25,000)
  • Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum – PostCart: creative digital access of art gallery and museum collections (£24,750)
  • Library of Birmingham – Development of an Alternate Reality Game for young people (£23,750)
  • Talking Birds Theatre Company – Development of The Difference Engine – a multiplatform real time access tool. Some mention of it here (£1,500 + £20,860)
  • The Play House – Develop an online resource to match the company’s participatory ethos (£22,349)
  • Eastside Projects and Birmingham City University – Piloting a 3D online art gallery (£22,000)
  • The MAC – Playground: exploring the use of digital technologies in a new-built art centre (£20,500)
  • Royal Shakespeare Company – Creation of a new digital arena for the creativity of the RSC. Pretty sure this was Such Tweet Sorrow (£20,000)
  • Audiences Central – To develop a web platform and plug-in for cross regional arts marketing (£18,000)
  • B Arts – Development of a new form of arts centre/collaboration (£17,380)
  • Rhubarb Rhubarb – To create an online evaluation tool (£17,000)
  • Shropshire County Council – Citizen Journalism (£15,612)
  • Rideout – To explore the production of creative digital content engaging youth crime statistics (£15,000)
  • Radio To Go – A collaboration with the British Library to pilot an online music archive. Called The Pilot Project (£13,750)
  • Rosie Kay Dance Company – To create an online version of the touring production, 5 Soldiers (£12,500)
  • Indigo Ltd – The development of a pilot online platform exploring new forms of crowd-source fundraising in the arts (launching soon and called Angel Shares) (£11,750)
  • Wolverhampton Arts & Museums / Black Country Museums – Research and Development of a collaborative online resource for the Black Country Museums (£10,550)
  • Black Country Touring – Exploration of enhancing a site specific, theatrical experience through live streaming (£10,348)
  • Multistory – To create a new media platform for celebrating local stories as part of place-making (£10,235)
  • Fierce Festival – Towards a Viral Online research game (£8,253)
  • Birmingham Opera – Exploring new models of ownership and sales of published works (£6,737)
  • Borderlines Film Festival Ltd – Experimenting with mScapes technologies (£5,600)
  • Orchestra of the Swan – Research and development towards a strategic plan (£5,000)
  • Capsule – To support digitally enhanced new marketing and distribution opportunities (£4,880)
  • Welsh National Opera – research and development of phase one of iMaestro. To allow Welsh National Opera to research digital copyright law and the possibility of exploiting full-length opera samples under the Creative Commons license (info about that here) (£4,600)
  • Ikon Gallery – Towards the development of a social media project (£3,500)
  • The Other Way Works – Professional development around Augmented Reality and Transmedia (£2,575)
  • Ex Cathedra – Market development, engaging an online music aggregator (£1,323)
  • Dance Consortium – Exploring social media in relation to contemporary dance marketing (£1,000)
  • MADE – To explore the use of digital platforms in placing making (£1,000)

As well as these projects, the programme supported a range of other activities including workshops, innovation labs and other events.

I’ve heard of one or two of these projects, but the vast majority are new to me so it’ll be interesting to hear a little more. I should probably also add that I’m involved in the Rosie Kay Dance Company project – that’ll launch next week so I’ll blab a bit more about it then.

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Throughout the week of 22 – 27 March 2011, Birmingham will be treated to an eclectic programme of film and performance from Flatpack Festival and Fierce Festival, who’ve announced that they’ll be sharing dates next year.

Flatpack’s fifth festival will celebrate and take film to unexpected places; where new film fraternises with silent cinema and archives are re-imagined. Expect live soundtracks, workshops, installations, offbeat family screenings and a vintage mobile cinema which will roam across the city.

Fierce Festival returns after two years and the appointment of new Artistic Directors Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison.  True to tradition, spectacular projects and public interventions will collide with the kind of agenda setting performances and wild parties on which the festival’s ten-year reputation rests.

The full line up for each of the festivals is expected in February 2011, so keep an eye on their websites over the next few months, www.flatpackfestival.org / www.wearefierce.org

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That title should perhaps be capitalised, but I’m not sure whether it’s a Proper Thing or just a loose kinda ‘it’s complicated‘ thing*.

Anyway, I’ve had an invite to the launch of a publication celebrating the ‘vitality, innovation and diversity’ of this group that comprises:

[* not sure what I'm implying here]

**UPDATE**

Ah, it is a Proper Thing, I’ve found a blog post about it and a picture too:

BIFG

We’ve never had a caption competition on CiB as far as I can remember. Just a thought…

**Another UPDATE**

Ask and you shall receive – this was submitted to the CiB email address:

jj_brum
Splendid.

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