Created in Birmingham

• American Independents Day comes to Birmingham
  “Ted Hope & Christine Vachon have produced over 120 independent movies between them (including Boys Don’t Cry, 21 Grams, American Splendor & Happiness).” They’ll be at the Spotted Dog in Digbeth on 7 April
• Using Film in Education – West Midlands Seminar
  At the Light House on 12 May
• Welcome to the human race — ELO-ke Night 2nd April
  Dirty Bristow are putting on a night of Electric Light Orchestra Karaoke on Saturday 2 April
• Arcane Magazine
  “We will bring you the latest news on Birmingham club nights, promotional drinks offers at bars, restaurant deals, music events, sporting events, dance shows, comedy nights – and so much more in between”
• Interview with Lee Kemp, Fullrange
  “I could genuinely count the number of useful creative networking events i’ve been to on the fingers of one hand shortly after I’d pulled that hand out of a blender”
• Due to Birmingham’s flourishing industry and…
  The Birmingham Stock Exchange building’s been sold for £8m. Cue musings about Sherlock Holmes’ story about a young stockbroker taking up a new job in the city
• Second Home Sketchbook | While the paint dries and the renders crawl…
  Chris Randall at Second Home Studios has got himself one of those blogs. Could be interesting.
• Interview with Will Grant, Buto
  He’s the Technology Director there.

I just read an email pointing out that Creative Playground has changed tack slightly and is now Digital Playground:

Digital Playground was created in an attempt to network the digital creative industries within Birmingham

The next meet-up is on Friday 25 June at the Spotted Dog in Digbeth. Joining the Meetup group and RSVP-ing would be handy.

There should be a fair few people down there. As well as this, the Spotted Dog will be hosting Digbeth is Good’s 2nd birthday and the folks at Aquila TV are relocating their regular All Bar One drinks for the evening.

Of course, it might be popular for another reason. A meet-up for Digital Playground? Um, did anyone try googling that?

• The New Art Gallery Walsall – Mitra Memarzia: The Unwanted Gift Shop
  “Mitra Memarzia will transform the Artists’ Studio at the gallery into a gift shop where unwanted items will be celebrated and given a new lease of life”. 18 Jan – 18 April 2010, although you can leave gifts at reception in advance if you like
• The Through the Viewfinder photography of Pete Ashton
  The online hub of Pete’s TTV Photography is up and running. He’s an Artist now, dontchaknow
• Digbeth is Good » Ben Waddington’s beer mat art at The Spotted Dog
  “an advent calendar made up of painted beer mats depicting signs and scenes personally significant to Ben. It’s on display until the twelfth day of Christmas, 6th January 2010″
• Wolverhampton declared to be a better city than Detroit, Los Angeles, Seoul and Accra
  In a frankly tossy survey by Lonely Planet that I shouldn’t really wasting a link on, except it’s an opportunity to say that Art Gallery, Light House and quality of gigs at the Civic are all pretty darn good. So there.

Wrote Under (“Birmingham’s only non-for-profit multimedia publishing co-operative”) have a couple more events to trumpet.

First up, on Sunday 14 Dec from 3pm til late they’ve got their ‘anything goes’ open mic night at The Adam And Eve in Digbeth. Expect music, spoken word, comedy… pretty much anything of that ilk.

Then every other Friday at Digbeth’s Spotted Dog, from 6pm they’ll be hosting “meetings of like-minded creative people and those who would like to see a project come to life”. The first one of those will be on 19 Dec. Could be interesting.