Created in Birmingham

• 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’

• Tributes to former Birmingham Repertory Theatre chairman Andy Allan
  A former chairman of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre who guided the venue through the controversial staging of a play which led to riots in 2004, has died at the age of 68.
• Briefing Document « Stan’s Cafe Theatre Company
  From: ACE Dance and Music, Big Brum, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Birmingham Arts Partnership , Birmingham Jazz, Punch, Sound It Out, Stan’s Cafe, Women and Theatre. To: Birmingham City Council
• Gil Heron
  Gil Scott Heron’s dad played for Kidderminster Harriers. That nugget from John Mostyn, via Sam Slater
• Introducing this year’s patron saint : Flatpack Festival
  “he appeared in more Laurel and Hardy films than anyone else, as well as writing gags, building sets and working with the likes of Abbot and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. He grew up in Ward End, Birmingham”
• Straina – 21st Century Fox
  This video was filmed around Birmingham and the German markets at the beginning of December
• Poorly Collected Works 2010-11 eBook: Jon Bounds: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
  A collection of writing by Jon Bounds from various sources
• Opportunity for new studio members at The Lombard Method
  “We have 3 studio spaces available to rent at The Lombard Method” Only £80/month

Some good news relating to film funding, just for a change. The BFI have a Transition Fund for “projects facing budget cuts in funding as a result of the changes in the national and regional film funding landscape”. There were two successful local applicants:

Birmingham International Film Festival
Award: £4,950
The Birmingham Black Film Festival promotes the work of local black film makers and is the only event of its kind in the West Midlands.

Flatpack Festival
Award: £14,400
Flatpack Festival aims to make audience engagement with film a creative process by delivering unique social experiences through the use of innovative screening venues in and around Birmingham.

• Job listing for Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum: Call for Proposals (The Event)
  Good to hear this is happening again, I liked the last one. “Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum is pleased to announce it is currently seeking projects from artists and curators in the UK for inclusion in The Event 2011, to take place 21 – 30 October”
• Happy Birthday to Frilly! – blog – frilly
  A big happy birthday indeed to Frilly
• Experiencing Burningham’s Live Graffiti Battle: Tagged@EXYZT
  “We hope Tagged@EXYZT opened new minds to street art and showed the soul and joy a community the city would rather not exist can create. For all of us involved it was an evening where Birmingham sparkled”
• Presenting the world’s biggest art prize: the £175,000 Gulbenkian
  “Graham Vick and his Birmingham Opera want to turn Brecht and Weill’s political satire Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny into a multi-participant online production examining the survival of the soul in a virtual world”
• Birmingham Hippodrome: Chief exec’s 10-year journey
  Interview with Stuart Griffiths
• Desert Island Life « More Canals than Venice
  Jeans Retailer Promotion in Decent Line-up of Events Shock. Featuring Project Pigeon, Flatpack Festival, LOAF, Chicks Dig Jerks, Them Lot and Mr Hudson (NB – some, perhaps all, of this has happened already)
• AE Harris
  The venue now has its own website
• Pickled
  Based in The Oasis: “Here at Pickled, we aim to provide a hireable exhibition space for anyone in the arts. From the amateur to the professional, we want anyone with an interesting art idea or project to come along and exhibit their work”
• The Style Kaleidoscope
  “A vibrant street style documentary of Birmingham, UK”

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.

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

The new site and programme is up for this year’s Flatpack Festival (23-27 March). Hoorah!

I’ve had a brief skim through and, as with previous years, would recommend ignoring the titles (which tend to leave me going ‘Eh? Never heard of it’) and read through the descriptions (which tend to leave me going ‘nice, I reckon I’ll go to that too’).

Of the things I’d already heard of, I’m looking forward to:

• Shorts on Walls featuring a screening of Man in a Cat
• Rubber
• Shadow Shows (with after party)

And this lot looks good too:

• Kinshasa Symphony
• Too Much Information
• Los Angeles Plays Itself
• and plenty others besides. Take a look at the programme.

There’s also a Paper Party (as a kind of progression from last year’s Plasticine Party), a vintage mobile cinema and all sorts of other goodness. It’ll be great buy tickets and don’t forget to see the free stuff too.

• Handmade Birmingham Arts Market Social Meet Up – Eventbrite
  There’s to be a get-together of market folk on Monday 17 Jan
• Call for volunteers : Flatpack Festival
  Flatpack want volunteers
• WaB Sale! | We Are Birmingham
  The We Are Birmingham shop has a sale on – go grab a bargain
• latest scribbles
  Carl Booth is a designer and illustrator and this is his blog
• Dudley cuts « D’log
  In a survey by Dudley Council, the only area of spending to get a vote in favour of cuts was arts and entertainment
• BBC – re(Stretch) – four miles of elastic at Birmingham Hippodrome
  Here’s a bit of video showing that thing I was talking about the other day. It’s at the Hippodrome this weekend then clearing off and is well worth a visit
• a-n magazine – Social media: Blogging
  I did an interview for a-n magazine’s new series of videos about social media and mentioned a few blogs by some local folks – BRB, Stan’s Cafe, DiG and Clusta

Summer brought with it degree show time of year and also the first Birmingham European Theatre Festival (which I’m pleased to see will be back again this year). Listings started coming out for the HMV Institute too.

The days were getting longer, which was probably just as well for Rhubarb Rhubarb, who seemed to doing loads. Birmingham presented its final bid for the City of Culture and we crossed our fingers. Temper filled the streets with fashion icons. We looked at the trailer for Soulboy and discovered the blog for Reuben Colley Fine Arts.

The Arts Council announced a 0.5% cut in funding to RFO’s. Boo. We found some familiar faces in Synth Eastwood’s video tomfoolery from the Flatpack Festival. Treasured at the MAC looked good.

Bright Space started looking for people to get involved in Platform and I asked ‘Does Birmingham Future interest you?‘ and got a fairly resounding ‘Um, who?’. Theatre folk came together and spoke easy, the newly opened Zellig hosted the Bass Festival’s Fight The Power exhibition and there was talk of verbalising and visualisation.

Creative Republic launched Invisible City and Marketing Birmingham released a new promotional video for the city that featured a host of creative talent.

Into March and while Capsule took Home of Metal to SXSW and Flatpack were readying another festival, Rhubarb Rhubarb opened the Rhubarb East Gallery

Pete took a break from the CiB Shop to give an update 2 weeks in, The Photography Collective formed and held their first meeting and We Are Eastside launched linking up Eastside’s creative organisations. Project Brutal was announced too.

The Bulls Head shared a few mixes from some of their guests and residents, Tindal Street released Alan Apperley’s Indeterminate Creatures, we had a look at As One’s work (as it seemed to be springing up all over the place) and Juice Aleem asked us to rock his hologram, with the video being filmed at Boxxed.

So news of next years Flatpack Festival has arrived, and it looks like there are a few treats in store. Along with their usual eclectic mix of film, animation, prize-winning documentaries, multi-media performance and interactive projections, they’re got a few novelties up their sleves.

The promise of a 22 seater vintage mobile cinema, a Friday night Drive-In, live scores and late night parties sounds like a pretty exciting prospect to me.

Personally i’m looking forward to catching this perfectly restored 1960′s Vintage Mobile Cinema which will be touring the city screening a range of shorts, home-movies and archive clips.

Following the success of this years Invisible Cinema tour of original 1930s art deco Odeons, 2011 will uncover more of Birmingham’s finest cinema heritage, including ex-picturehouses and forgotten celluloid landmarks. They also have an exhibition of images from disused cinemas planned.

Here’s a few other things they’ve got lined up;

Prostitute – on the eve of its re-release, Tony Garnett revisits his 1980 drama Prostitute, partly shot in Balsall Heath, a few years before community action shut down the local red light district.

Loft in Translation – screenings in partnership with MACE’s Full Circle project, which encourages people to retrieve home-movies from their attics.

Archive Revival - Artists and filmmakers who appropriate and repurpose archive material including work by Thom Andersen, Duncan Campbell and Peter Tscherkassky.

Other confirmations – 1992 video diary In Bed With Chris Needham, a vivid snapshot of an adolescent metalhead in Loughborough; the UK premiere of Shadow Shows, an experiment in surreal horror created by Pram and Film Ficciones; and Every Minute Always, an immersive sound piece using headsets in a cinema, inspired by Brief Encounter.

The full programme will be announced in February 2011, so keep an eye on their website and blog for more updates.

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.

• We Could Be Heroes Clothing
  “This is We Could Be Heroes Clothing, an independant clothing company set up in the UK.” And this is their blog
• IdeasTap | Forums: CASTING – Actors needed for UK Film Council funded short film.
  “We are currently looking to fill a number of primary roles for a new project, ‘Fifty’, a short film to be made in association with Screen West Midlands as part of the UK Film Council’s Digishorts scheme.” I happen to know they’re after a bus too – can anyone help?
• The Birmingham Press
  I’d not spotted that they have a website
• Birminghamsalon’s Blog
  Audio from Birmingham Salon’s ‘What are libraries for?’ debate is up online
• Twitter / Deluka: On stage at #newtwitter launch party
  Nice…
• Twitter / Mostly Jazz Festival: News News. Mark Ronson AND …
  “News News. Mark Ronson AND Duran Duran in Swordfish Records on Tuesday 28th from 4pm. Head down to meet them!” Sorry for the late notice on this one
• Media Archive for Central England to release The Black Country 1969 DVD on 1st November – Switchboard
  “Media Archive for Central England are preparing to release the first of a number of retail DVDs that will be released in the coming months and years, and our first DVD release is The Black Country 1969″
• Son Of The Public Meeting | We Are Birmingham – The Shop
  Details of the shop emerge – a new logo, potential premises, company directors…
• Popular Music History – So What? – Discussing the political economy of popular music history
  Rob Horrock’s “PhD research scrapbook”. He’s the manager of Einstellung too
• Opportunity for filmmakers to screen their films as part of Hello Digital 2010
  Producers’ Forum have “a space at The Custard Factory Theatre, which seats 100 people on 21st and 22nd October from noon -18:30″. Give them a shout if you want to submit a film or two
• Digbeth is Good » Getgood Link: Art Stalking: 48 Sheet
  Nice vid about the 48 Sheets project with a link to Ana Milgram’s take on it/response
• Sister Tree
  “Established in 1997 by Sharon Jones and Margaret Polack, Sister Tree is a Theatre Production Company which concentrates on leading workshops in all branches of the art”
• Midland Actors Theatre
  “MAT is a leading touring theatre company. We are dedicated to telling stories. Our aim is to take stories, myths and legends from different cultures and traditions, and retell them in new ways”
• Mind Your Language – jon bounds
  Worth bearing in mind – “I’ve worked out over a few years that “private view” means two things: if a show is big and important it means “no entry unless you’re invited”, if a show is small or not that well known it means “please come, there’ll be free wine and nibbles”. It’s developed as art-jargon for some reason, and people who know know and those that don’t don’t. But it does put off people who might otherwise have liked to have attended—and the smaller shows could do with that, in fact they want it.” Now to decide if your show is big and important or if it’s smaller
• Black Country Creative Advantage
  “Black Country Creative Advantage is a 2-year project of the Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation at the University of Wolverhampton and Longhouse/Multistory in West Bromwich”. They have a conference coming up on 9 Oct
• 2011 submissions call : Flatpack Festival
  “Lengthening nights and falling leaves mean it’s time to start cranking up for Flatpack”. Click the link for details on how to send your stuff in
• Birmingham Post – Galaxy radio puts Capital into Birmingham
  “A spokesman for the firm said no jobs would be lost in Birmingham as a result of the rebrand and that breakfast and drive-time shows would be locally made”