Created in Birmingham

• Job listing for Trustee – Audiences Central
  “Birmingham Museums Trust is seeking Trustees to take up the challenge of steering this new organisation (a trust to run the city’s nine museums sites) through its first few years and delivering our vision for a national museum in Birmingham”
• InterFace 2012
  InterFace is a symposium for humanities and technology. In 2012 it is being hosted by Birmingham Institute of Art and Design at Birmingham City University
• IdeasTap | Creative Briefs: Fierce Festival Press Gang
  If you’re aged 16-19 and fancy some experience in multimedia journalism this may be the gig for you. Not everybody has ‘interviewed a dachshund’ on their CV
• Oxygen Rooms
  Rehearsal and recording studios in Hockley
• Flickr: “wagflickrmeet”
  Wolverhampton Art Gallery hosted a Flickrmeet the other weekend. Not sure if there’s a page with more info but all the tagged photos are here
• Turning Point West Midlands | Part of the Turning Point Network | Road Trip West Midlands – Artist and Writer wanted
  “The commission will fund a visual artist and a creative writing to undertake a road trip in the West Midlands and to produce art work (visual art / creative writing) in response to this experience”

• Eastside Projects Hosting: What is Art? Charity event at St Basils 13/01/12
  Organised by ESP member Kartal Uppal, this evening will look at and debate the question; What makes something Art? With contributions from Gavin Wade (Director, Eastside Projects), Tyler Cann (Curator, Ikon Gallery) and Cathy Wade (Artist and Lecturer)
• Things Team Fierce looks forward to in 2012. . . | Fierce Festival
  Lots of good stuff, with plenty happening around Birmingham
• Sarah Ray illustration: Screenprinting workshops
  Learn to make your own cards, posters or whatever. Silkscreen printing always looks to me like being a very satisfying process
• Flatpack Festival founder: Ian Francis
  A decent little interview
• Follow the Dancing for the Games projects online
  Loads of links to the projects that are part of the Dancing for the Games programme
• Aga | Luthien Photography
  Kamila’s been shooting around Digbeth (via Digbeth is Good)
• Birmingham NYE 2012 fireworks
  Sounds like things went a little wrong. If you’d read our New Year events round-up you’d have known to expect ‘low level pyrotechnics’

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.

• Autumn Glory reviews « Birmingham Royal Ballet’s tour blog
  This is good – an even-looking spread of reviews from BRB’s recent tour (from both big newspapers and individual tweets) with links through to the source
• Open Studio at Birmingham Printmakers
  “At Birmingham Printmakers we are holding an Open Studio on Saturday 26th November from 10am to 4pm”
• Living Books Wanted! for Fierce Festival 2012
  We are looking for people to take part in a unique performance project that will involve the step-by-step memorisation of an entire book. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a memory expert and no performance experience is necessary, but you will need a passion for stories and an interest in developing performing skills
• Birmingham’s Theatre-ish Christmas Party – 14 December « mid * point
  “Everyone connected with the wider world of theatre in Birmingham and beyond is invited to share a night together. Cheap bar and dancing…Chill out room and conversation…Cabaret stage and laughter…Basic food and sophisticated company!
  This event is being organised collaboratively. If you wish to contribute, please tell us. If you plan on coming and bringing people, an RSVP would help.” Details via the link
• More detail on the BBC Birmingham losses « D’log
  More details on the losses at BBC Birmingham. I had no idea all those shows are/were made here.
• Television Drama Studio Campaign – Equity
  Equity are campaigning to save BBC Birmingham and establish another large television studio in the region. If you use the form letter you may want to use a spellchecker.
• Arts Council condemned for spending millions on The Public, in West Bromwich
  “The Public is a clear example of a project where the execution did not reflect the original vision.”
• Moseley Record Fair in its Twelfth Edition – Domestic City
  This is from Ross Cotton’s blog
• Fashiny blogger mingle | Fashiny
  Fashiny (a fashion-related tech start-up based at Birmingham Science Park) recently held a get-together for some local fashion bloggers
• Notes from Producer Discussions and Forums during First Bite « mid * point
  I was saying the other day how the West Mids theatre lot seem to have got their online act together recently. I’ve certainly hearing about more about that kind of thing recently.

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

• Birmingham’s flagship garden show to be held in derelict bank
  Sounds pretty cool to me.
• Project Platform Review – Bright Space- Eventbrite
  Project Platform was an interesting thing and here’s an invite to a follow-up discussion. Given some challenging circumstances, ‘how can we build on our successes and improve the relationship between youth and culture in Birmingham’?
• Birmingham City Council insists on £2,000 tea at three-hour meeting
  In April, the Local Government Chronicle did a list of ‘the 50 most influential people in local government’. People asked why there was nobody from Birmingham City Council. Here’s your answer.
• Sarah Ray illustration: Art markets this weekend
  Moseley market and Harborne carnival are both on this weekend. Sarah will be at both
• Dirty Bristow Issue Two: Beast | Dirty Bristow
  “80 pages packed with essays, stories, opinion pieces and artwork on the theme of ‘Beast’”
• Piccadilly Arcade – Part II « Birmingham Conservation Trust
  A look at the ceiling of Piccadilly Arcade
• Birmingham Royal Ballet – Carmina burana rehearsals on Vimeo
  “Céline Gittens and Tyrone Singleton in early studio rehearsals for David Bintley’s ballet, Carmina Burana”
• Fierce Festival Caravan of Artists 2011 – 12 | Fierce Festival
  “These are the artists that will form the core of the festival in Spring 2012. Over a nine month period they will develop their ideas with us, through city walks, discussion and residencies in Birmingham. We will share the process and development of these works over the year, online, through ad-hoc events, words and pictures. We invite you to follow and share that journey.” With pics and vids and everything
• People’s Festival « Active Arts
  “The Castle Vale Active Arts People’s Festival brings together performances, workshops and activities across the area.” 29 June to 9 July
• Museum Network Warwickshire
  “News, useful resources, events, training, joint projects, support and issues will all be here”
• IdeasTap Student Ambassador x 4
  One wanted for Birmingham City University. Could be a good thing to be involved in
• Urban Breakfast
  “Birmingham’s Premium Weekend Breakfast Delivery Service”. Granted, it’s not yer usual CiB thing but it’s a compelling service all the same

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.

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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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:

• Fierce/Flatpack launch at VIVID
• The Irrepressibles at Town Hall

Wednesday:

• Shadow Shows at the Patrick Centre

Thursday:

• Shorts on Walls at VIVID
• Too Much Information at The Electric

Friday

• Nesst 2
• Queerfest to Fierce at VIVID
• Los Angeles Plays Itself at Ikon Eastside

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

• Burningham
• The Commentators
• The Soldiers’ Song
• Prayer

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?

• We Are Fierce – Open Invite to Flatpack & Fierce Festival Launch, Tues 22nd March
  Don’t forget to RSVP
• YouTube – Motionhouse Machine Dance ‘The highlights’
  A dancing digger. Cool
• Culture – Funding opportunities 2010 | EACEA
  Apparently something on this page says that Birmingham Rep have been given some European cash for ‘Four Cities, Four Stories’
• Swede it! :: Become a star on the big screen at Broadway Plaza
  Re-make a movie lo-fi-style for Broadway Plaza, AMC Cinema and Kerrang. Submissions in by 20 March. Proceeds from the screening go to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. There are prizes too
• Moqapi Selassie
  “a Rastafari dub poet, born and raised in Birmingham”, says the Apples & Snakes newsletter
• GET A GRIP – An open call for illustrators, artists and designers
  “We’re looking for enthusiastic designers, illustrators and artists of all different styles and disciplines, who like our ethics and business, and reckon they’d be up for working with us.”
• Inspired Designs
  “Inspired Designs allows users to search the decorative art collections held by museums services within the Black Country region”
• 16 Days
  “For 16 days from April 1st 2011, Tether will be stationed at The Lombard Method in Birmingham. The Nottingham based collective will work towards creating 16 new works that seek to interfere with the Lombard Method and the way people interact and react within it”
• Love Birmingham
  “I will try my hardest not to moan about the state of things as ‘Love Birmingham’ will exist to be a wholly positive collection concerning Birmingham.” Aw, shame – criticism is so hot right now
• YouTube – Kerrang! Radio: Watville Primary School Sing Iron Maiden – Flight Of Icarus
  Kids at a school in Wolverhampton singing Iron Maiden. From the comments, it seems this vid’s very popular with Brazilian metal fans. Fancy

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.

• 10 Questions for Birmingham’s Independent Music Industry answered by Andy Derrick
• “4. In recent years, there has been a range of initiatives and projects designed to support the development of music in Birmingham. Can you list 5 projects or initiatives that you think have proved beneficial to the “Independent Music Industry?”
  No”
• Ladywood’s Got Talent
  Ladywood’s Got Talent is looking for performers to enter. You don’t have to live in Ladywood (the wider Birmingham area will do) but some sort of talent will stand you in good stead
• Harborne Orchestra
  “Harborne Orchestra is an independent community orchestra based in the Harborne district of Birmingham, England. The players are of all ages and ability. Rehearsals take place weekly during term time in preparation for three concerts a year”
• We Are Fierce» Sneaky Peak at some of the Festival
  Info about March’s Fierce Festival is starting to appear
• Be2Awards 2011 | Built environment blogger of the year
  Simon Felton’s Birmingham Central blog is up for an award and I reckon it’s well worth a vote (no registration needed)
• Petition : Training Space for Birminghams Dancers
  A petition for an urban dance centre in Birmingham, similar to London’s Trocadero Underground. Sign here
• Article19 Feature Article: Don’t Do It!
  I’m thinking of adding this to our Contact page. Here’s what not to do when sending press releases (to bloggers especially)

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

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:

• Bass Festival
• Birmingham Book Festival
• Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival
• Fierce Festival
• Flatpack Festival
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
• Supersonic Festival

[* 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:

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:

Splendid.