Names from the old The Public will be doing their thing as ‘Laundry’, a new association of artists in the West Midlands, on 9th Sept (2-4pm). “Mechanicalism” will be a durational Laundry performance featuring Julie O’Neill, Pamela Wells, Ann Walker, Brendan Jackson and Martin Villau, at the Eastside Arts Picnic in Birmingham… “Repeating a series […]
Archive for August, 2006
“You’ve all done Perry well…”
30 Aug 2006 at 21:15
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries
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Grayson Perry reviews the Erotic Awards finalists’ exhibition in London… “I was dreading a show of sub-Helmut Newton, sixth-form fetish fantasies set in sci-fi clichés or, golly gosh, I say, isn’t sex sooper fun Carry On “humour”. What I found was a curiously heartwarming display of what is hot and socially innovative in the sex […]
Makers in Focus
28 Aug 2006 at 21:58
David Haden
Artist(s), Birmingham, Creative industries
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The ‘Makers in Focus’ research project, which has been examining the professional development needs of West Midlands craft makers, has published the final report. (PDF, 500kb). One of the key findings… “The loss of young graduates from the region is alarming”, and in the next sentence the report seems to blame the… “Arts Council England, […]
3D revisited
27 Aug 2006 at 22:58
David Haden
Artist(s), Birmingham, Creative industries
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Three representative modern ‘3D digital artisty’ takes on 19th century history painting:- “Daphne & Apollo”; “Master & Servant”; and “Cloister Graveyard”. Zoo Publishing is a new start-up, based here in the West Midlands, which is documenting this sort of picture-making in their Expose book series and the 3D Creative PDF magazine (‘lite’ versions of each […]
We love technology
Matlock took his medium-format camera to the “we love technology” conference in the North of England, and came back with a portrait series.
Shrink wrapped
It seems there’s an unexpected side-effect from the new UK postage changes. Large tabloid-sized design magazines such as Blueprint are changing their size to fit the new restrictions. The changes are also likely to cost artists a lot more, if they are having to post artwork in long tubes, large A3-sized prints, portfolios and suchlike.
Auto-moggie
A Linux-powered automatic cat feeder (with video), perfect for the holidays. All we need now is a nifty house-robot that’ll pick up the end-product, when kitty starts using the living-room carpet as a litter-tray — and perhaps also water the hydroponic catnip.
Crashing in
23 Aug 2006 at 19:04
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries, Zeitgeist
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The Times speculates on a possible crash in the contemporary art market.
Convergence and comics
21 Aug 2006 at 17:23
David Haden
Comic art, Creative industries
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MIT’s Henry Jenkins, author of the book Convergence Culture, muses on convergence and comics… “Experiments in new approaches to popular storytelling often take place in comics — the risks are relatively low both because of lowered cost of production and because of the fringe nature of their readership … Comics now function as ‘The R&D […]
Heard the one about the car industry?
Want to be a comedian? Move to Tipton. Brummie and Black Country accents are the funniest, say researchers.
Firefox crop circle – the video
20 Aug 2006 at 15:31
David Haden
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Crop circles — evidence of mushroom-people from the planet Spore, folk art, or just silly-season viral marketing? Strong evidence for the latter, in the shape of the new ‘how we made the Firefox crop circle’ video.
Integrating long-tail folksonomies
Laugh-out loud funny – the automatic Web 2.0 marketing-speak generator.
Dumb art
Wired magazine continues its descent into the abyss of irrelevance.
Stuart Gurden
Stuart Gurden has a gallery show in Edinburgh that sounds interesting. It’s an eccentric visual arts documentation of the competing cultural claims made on sixty of Scotland’s ancient stone circles. The Peacock Gallery has a page on the show (scroll down past the huge white space — it’s either a knowing allusion to the white […]
Decline and Fall, etc…
After every set of national A-level results, there’s a predictable rash of lazy journalism bemoaning the “Decline and Fall of Education”. The most worthwhile article this year is by Mary Warnock. It talks about the interface between further (16-18) and higher (18+) education… “[there are] serious reasons to fear for the future quality of our […]
Synths the size of sheds
18 Aug 2006 at 15:12
David Haden
Entertainment, Photographers, Techie
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I recent posted about the new online photography archive for the Radiophonic Workshop. Now I’ve stumbled across another cache of photographs of an amazing London studio, with old synthesisers the size of small sheds, the Electronic Music Studios (1969-1979)… “In the 1960s to have access to a 12-bit computer with 1K of memory outside the […]
Art School Confidential
The team that brought you the so-so Ghost World film (not a patch on American Splendor) is behind the new Art School Confidential film, a film which sounds like Porky’s in a New York art college, with knowing snickers substituted for the belly-laughs. The U.S. DVD release is 10th Oct, perfectly timed for when freshers […]
Arts and health
A timely health-scare for artists and crafts makers — a craftsman in Scotland has died from anthrax, caused by the skins he used to make African-style drums.
Bright spark
Yamaha’s very sexy 2005 prototype for a new electric bicycle. Sadly, it seems it’s now not the one they’re putting into production — the one you’ll be able to buy looks more like a boring 1980s modped than a work of futurist art.
Wired in Japan
Wired profiles Japan’s female comics fan culture, and muses on the different relationship there between copyright holders and fan-made media. “Governments, journalists and scholars are debating whether Japan can mint Japanese “cool” into a multibillion-dollar export. … Japan seems to understand that creativity doesn’t fall from the sky. It needs nurturing, inspiration, tools and skills; […]