Fortunediablo Productions:

is an independent film, music and publishing company producing and distributing film, music and books through new media.

There are a few things to discover on their site. From what I gather their main project (at least on the film side of things) is called Ugly and in Love (warning on the strong content), the extract from which was filmed at The Mitre in Stourbridge and features (unless I’ve got my wires crossed) Swampmeat’s Dan Finnemore.

Mapping The Landscape is the:

Day to day blog of Artist Paul Hirst as he creates new work on his art residency at the Bond 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”

Factory Nights:

is a series of inspiring working sessions for ANY visual artists, photographers, writers, poets, musicians, filmmakers and any other creatives! Factory Nights is not a discussion event, seminar or workshop. Factory Nights are free sessions that simply provide an opportunity for creative people to come together in an interesting venue and supportive environment to make work or initiate ideas

The organisers are Rednile Projects and they’ve put out a call for “artists and anyone creative” for the next one:

Factory Night @ The Historic JA Crabtree & Co. Ltd. Factory (now the characterful  Lyndon House Hotel), on Thursday 16th February 2012, 6-8pm . In collaboration with Multistory and The Crabtree Society

A little while back I linked to a questionnaire about Birmingham’s music scene that was doing the rounds. The report and a series of recommendations are now out.

For a bit of background, there’s this from Cllr Philip Parkin, Chairman of the Leisure, Sport & Culture Overview & Scrutiny Committee (who were responsible for the report):

Last year’s UK Music report, ‘Destination UK’, was the ‘most comprehensive study ever undertaken on the power of music as a tourist draw’ and the first of its kind to quantify the economic value of ‘music tourism’ to the country’s regions. It also laid down a challenge to public bodies, locally and nationally, to ‘realise the potential of this considerable economic asset’. And the Scrutiny Committee that I chair in Birmingham has responded to that challenge, coming up with a series of recommendations for city council approval – in our scrutiny report ‘Destination Birmingham‘ – that I hope will send out the clear message that we see popular music as being of huge importance to the cultural and economic life of our city.

You can download the Destination Birmingham report (PDF) here.

There are a series of recommendations on pages 8-10. I’ve not read the whole thing yet but will maybe, probably get round to it at some point. A quick flick through seems to suggest there are some interesting bits in there.

The recommendation picked up by the Birmingham Post is for the council to have a person able to act as a point of contact for studios, venues, promoters, producers and artists. Someone with:

the ability to bring together different departments and take responsibility for providing advice and support

That sounds like it could be alright. I remember hearing that Soweto Kinch’s Flyover Show (which is happening over in South Africa at the end of March and coming back to Brum on 11 August) stalled for years because of the difficulties with coordinating with so many parts of such a large council.

As a side point, it’s a very different thing, but it kinda reminds me of the discussions a few years back about whether Birmingham needs a Creative Director.

This was the other main recommendation highlighted in the preface:

It is also important that we do more to celebrate Birmingham’s rich musical heritage. Following the success of the Home of Metal exhibition, and in the year that Black Sabbath reform, we should celebrate Birmingham’s role in the origins of heavy metal. We should also be celebrating other music events and genres – bhangra and reggae also have their origins in Birmingham.

And don’t forget Duran Duran.

If I’ve anything to add from the brief glance I’ve given the thing, it’s that there’s a lot about providing space and resources for archives and heritage and rather less about how conditions might be improved for the current/next generation.

Anyway, if you have a read of the report and Philip Parkin’s blog post I’d be interested in hearing what you think.

An interesting opportunity from Midland Heart:

The Spectacle Works provides affordable live/work accommodation tailor-made for designer makers and people in the creative industries who are starting up or already running their own business. It is based at Hylton Street in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and provides a rolling 3 year tenancy for people and their businesses before they move on to more permanent accommodation.

On the subject, The Lombard Method were advertising available studio space about a month ago.

художник на икониPolarbear was on Channel 4′s Random Acts last week.

Random Acts is a brand new short-form daily arts strand on Channel 4. Over the course of a year, it will showcase 260 specially commissioned three-minute films chosen for their bold and original expressions of creativity.

If you’re interested in spoken word stuff, you could do worse than make sure you’re on Apples & Snakes‘ mailing list.

Black Country Atelier is a 3D prototyping workspace. They also take design and architecture commissions and have just moved to the Jewellery Quarter.

I like the sound of their 3D printing workshops.

• 36 Hours – Birmingham, England – NYTimes.com
  “In terms of respect, Birmingham is the undisputed Rodney Dangerfield of British cities”. Thank you?
• New Birmingham Jazz Scheme: Stepping Up
  Birmingham Jazz have got three £1,000 grants to support the writing, touring or recording of contemporary jazz
• Walk of Fame for King’s Heath
  “A Walk of Fame is to be created along York Road to celebrate King’s Heath’s musical and comic heritage”
• Film and TV productions worth £10 million to Birmingham over just six months
  Stephen Poliakoff drama Dancing on the Edge starring actors Matthew Goode and Chiwetel Ejiofor, has just finished filming in the city.

I’m not really one for reprinting press releases that are sent to me but I’ll make an exception. Here follows a message from Pete.

—–

I’m running a couple of courses which I hope will become regular monthly things.

The first is Matt and Pete’s Photo School (see poster)

Here we’re combining an academic approach to photography with the the practical peer learning of a Flickrmeet. As well as hobbyists we’re also looking to help those who can use photography better in their businesses or as a personal development course.

Through a combination of group teaching, personal goal setting, one-to-one mentoring and peer learning, Matt and Pete can help you become a better photographer, whether it’s for photos of your family or as a valuable business tool.

The first class in on Sunday Feb 6th at The Victoria from 12-5pm. The usual cost is £60 per head but we’re doing an introductory offer of £25 for February.

The second is Social Media Group Therapy (see PDF poster).

This is run with the Moseley Exchange and is aimed at the self-employed and small businesses who are having issues with their online activity. “Group therapy” isn’t just a joke. I think people’s problems, once unpicked, can be best be answered by those facing the same situations.

Social Media Group Therapy avoids the snake oil and magic beans of fly-by-night “experts” with a structured environment of peer learning led by someone who understands the pros and cons of the online world.

This course is on Tuesday March 6th at the Moseley Exchange from 6-8pm and costs £25 per person (£20 for Exchange members).

Or, more accurately, Google Maps in Eastside Projects. You can now use Google Maps to take a tour around the gallery and their Painting Show.

I’d seen the Google Art Project and I knew they’d started mapping inside shopping centres, airports and comic shops but I didn’t know they were doing anything in the UK. Fancy that.

This is pretty impressive:

Ken Jones of Bright Eyes has sent an incredible list of gigs he attended at the Town Hall (and other venues) from 1964 to 1974

Presumably that’s not Bright Eyes as in Conor Oberst’s band. Or maybe it is.

In other Town Hall news, Classic FM have got an interview with Andrew Jowett, the Chief Executive of Town Hall Symphony Hall Birmingham.

A moving image exhibition project, an art gallery and a South Asian arts organisation make for quite a nice banding together, I think.

Tonight’s event celebrates Chinese New Year and Fake Magazine inform us that highlights will include:

On the Way to the Sea, directed by Tao Gu which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Rotterdam Film Festival in 2011. They’ll also be work by China’s most famous director, Wong Kar-Wai as well as animation by Royal College of Art alumni, Sharon Liu and Setaka Mizuno. They’ll also be plum wine and a live traditional Chinese musical performance in the interval.

The National Trust recently made the details of over 700,000 of the objects in their care available online for the first time.

I quick search for objects around Birmingham reveals 1,350 items, a fair few of them with accompanying pictures.

You can check out the online collection at nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. If anyone spots anything particularly good in there, please let me know.

With thanks to Museum Network Warwickshire for pointing this one out.

Secret Admirer puts interviews with bands, mainly from around Birmingham and the West Mids, on her blog. I was just at the This Is Tomorrow gig the other night at the Hare & Hounds, so the Matt Beck interview and Silver Souvenirs made for good reading.

Is anyone else out there blogging about Birmingham’s music scene? The Blue Whale Blog used to be my main place for that kind of thing but that’s been quiet for a while. BrumNotes and Counteract do a decent job but there must be more (especially non-indie stuff) out there.

It was good to see this list of favourite sites from BCT’s Leigh Walker. I’d not heard of a single one of them before so I’ll link them up from here too:

• Photo by D J Norton
• Old Maps
• Austin Memories
• A History of Birmingham places and Placenames
• The Lapal Canal Project

Head over to the Birmingham Conservation Trust website for why Leigh picked these.

If anyone else happens to do a list of their favourite Birmingham-centric websites then let me know – in the comments, by email or Twitter, take your pick. It’s always good to hear recommendations.

• Twitter / @TheCBSO: Big congratulations to our …
  Congrats to Paul Keene from THSH who won Concert Hall Manager of the Year at the Association of British Orchestras Awards
• Dine Birmingham survey
  A quick survey for Dine Birmingham with the chance to win £30 off a Valentine’s Day meal
• Poets’ Place
  “an informal gathering of poets, writers and performers. An opportunity to meet like-minded people, give and solicit feedback, or just sit in a corner and write for two hours. Organised by Birmingham Libraries and Apples & Snakes”
• The Hidden City – Networking Launch – 1 Feb 2012
  “The interactive map of Birmingham highlights a database of stories, past or present, that are hidden away within our community – these can be related to Music, Arts, Culture, Science… anything!”

The Oasis Radio has been up and running since Monday and is broadcasting until 27 January. It’s broadcasting from Birmingham City University and is being played out in the Oasis shopping centre and online.

It’s mainly music and such, but they’ve also put together quite a decent short documentary about the history of the place too:

Papergirl Birmingham has teamed up with billboard art project 48Sheet.

Made in the Jewellery Quarter is the name of a group exhibition featuring Capricorn Coating, Alabaster & Wilson, David-Louis and LJ Millington:

The goal of ‘ Made in the Jewellery Quarter’ is to let the people of Birmingham and the wider region know what is made on their doorstep, plus give them the opportunity to buy a piece of craftsmanship and a contemporary product from artisans, designers and most importantly locally based businesses.

I like how a bunch of different businesses have pulled together and taken it upon themselves to make this happen. Anyway, the exhibition will be at the Art at Artfull gallery, 23-24 Warstone Lane, B18 6JQ from 1-28 February.