Created in Birmingham

Over the past few months a group of people have been taking part in MOB:

MOB is a project inspired by the current craze of ‘flash mobbing’ where seemingly unplanned ‘happenings’ take place involving hundreds of children, young people and adults. MOB is about creating new ‘disturbances’ that help share the values of the Olympics & Paralympics.

Among various other things (the full list is actually pretty exhausting), they’ve performed at Prince Albert School, spent a day with First Light Movies, did a photoshoot with Adrian Burrows and rode a red bus around the city doing good deeds.

All of the activity has been collected together on this Tumblr.

The final part of the project is an exhibition that’ll be launched at The Drum on Monday 18 April at 6.30pm.

• We Are Birmingham team up with Bullring for a very exciting public art project | We Are Birmingham
  Tom Tebby, Carl Booth, Matt Murtagh and James Thompson are doing something to cover the hoardings while the Spiceal Street development goes on
• ‘type-writing’ Symposium – good, long, comprehensive write-up of the event from Rachel Marsden, who was also one of the speakers
• Porter, E. and Barber, A. (2007) Planning the cultural quarter in Birmingham’s Eastside
  From 2007 (deposited June 2010) “ In Birmingham UK, the aim to create a new cultural quarter in the industrial inner city area of Eastside represents a unique opportunity for the city to examine and learn from past lessons of the “cultural turn” in urban policy. The article examines these lessons and whether the Eastside scheme is set to repeat the mistakes of the past”
• Turning Point West Midlands | Event, 26 May
  An afternoon to find out about professional development opportunities for artists, makers and curators in the West Mids
• BBC U-turn over Asian Network closure
  “The BBC has reversed its decision to close the Asian Network digital radio station – but will look to cut its budget in half”
• Licence to shoot | The Sunday Times
  Nice bit of profile for First Light Movies in The Sunday Times. “Wanting to give today’s youth a voice, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli is backing young movie-makers in an inspiring project”
• Jurn crowd-funding call « D’log
  “My JURN search-engine is expanding, with your help! I’d like to build on the two years of hard work I’ve already put into building JURN. I want to make a world-class dedicated search-engine for open-access content in the arts, humanities, and (if funded) the social sciences”
• April Bloomfield: the English chef taking Manhattan by storm
  Similar to the article we linked to a few months back. Fascinating lady
• Orbital – Live At The Dance Factory
  Live recording of Orbital at The Dance Factory, Birmingham, UK, June 5th, 1993
• Social Media Tips for Musicians
  Bobbie Gardner did a talk for someone (I think it was Sound It Out) and has written up her notes
• A Birmingham Flickr Directory
  A nice, healthy list of Birmingham-related Flickr groups. Started in 2006 and still being updated

• First Light Movies: Win Hammer film posters here!
  First Light’s blog has got off to a good start and now they’ve got a competition going. Have a look at one of the films they’ve funded and, by commenting on it, you can win yourself a poster
• stereographic » Plus+ 2008 – call for help…
  Can anyone help Stereographic out? They need:
  (1) a mannequin – full sized / male or female. (If by any chance anyone has a reflective mannequin that would be a mega bonus!)
  (2) any ‘discarded design’ fellow designers / artists / companies have that they want to get rid of – things like demo prints / failed pitch designs / overruns on brochures etc
• WOW: Hello, my name is Sarah :)
  Sarah Carter is “a design student that loves branding and typography”. She’s been working on Baskerville: The Animated Movie and did some live drawing at Re-Sketch at The Rainbow. This is her blog
• Miss Halliwell make their back catalogue available for free download!
  Little Chris spots that Miss Halliwell (not Geri) have put their two EPs up online for free
• Modulate says “Hello” with digital technology
  “some of our members have been working away in the background on one of the interactive installations, “Field of Light ”, a project dreamed up by the PLUS team, who also devised ’Illuminate‘”
• Plus+: Booking Tickets NOW OPEN
  £40 (25 conc) for four days, £15 (10 conc) for one. Get em while they’re hot.
• Anthony J Hughes on arts funding
  Interesting piece – “Funding as a concept and the funding and economic redevelopment projects aimed at supporting ‘creative industries’ has actually become a system supporting government ‘intervention’ and policy”
• stitches and hos October
  The 8th meeting of the “monthly knitting hootenanny” at the Hare & Hounds is on Tues 28 October

What I wrote the other day about Fluid Design flying slightly above my radar probably applies just as much to First Light Movies who do some fantastic work, but often on a national, rather than local scale.

They describe themselves thusly:

First Light Movies funds and inspires film projects with five to 19-year-olds throughout the UK.

Since launching in 2001, we have enabled over 12,000 budding young filmmakers to write, act, shoot, light, direct and produce over 800 films. Working with filmmakers and organisations, First Light Movies films cover a diverse range of topics and genres, and make use of accessible digital film technology.

With all the good stuff they’re doing, I was pleased to see that they’ve started a First Light Movies blog. Perhaps that’ll help me keep up with them.

I had a chat with Gary from First Light at the Birmingham Social Media Surgery last night and he seems keen to experiment with the format in their work and see how best to use it – perhaps showcasing the work they do, promoting their own (and, just as importantly, others) events/projects and all sorts of other things to boot.  Good to see.

• Call and Return : ludogeography
  Nikki Pugh’s new project looks like being the Emergent Game writ large, although I’m wary about second-guessing this – one of the strategies is ‘take nothing for granted’, after all. Missions will be announced on 19 September but the time to sign up is now. Workshops will be taking place in Japan soon (told you it was writ large)
• Craftspace shortlisted for a national award – Audiences Central
  “Craftspace have been shortlisted for this award in recognition of their work with ‘The Project Group’ (an arts social enterprise) and the Quilters’ Guild of Great Britain”. I can’t find a mention on the Craftspace website but congrats to them all the same
• New First Light Movies Studio Award Deadlines Announced
  “With the First Light Movies Studio Award organisations with experience in collaborative filmmaking with young people can apply for up to £30,000 to fund the production of between two and four short films”. Deadline for applics is 14 October
• New book from Tindal Street Press
  Spaghetti Gazetti report that “Tindal Street Press is delighted to launch their latest book ‘Never Never’ by David Gaffney”