Pub Conversations tonight

Pub Conversations is a rather cool thing I just found out about. The next one is tonight but they crop up regularly.

The deal is fairly simple. The talks are curated by Self Service, a “constantly evolving” group of 14 Birmingham-based artists, one of whom selects another artist who inspires them to talk about their work in a pub. These take place in the Lamp Tavern in Digbeth (map) and they then podcast the recordings which is nice to see. I like it when these sorts of events live on past the actual occasion. Here’s the feed.

Like I say, the next one is tonight. While it’s free they’d like you to book in advance as space is limited by emailing selfservice@hotmail.co.uk, though I’m sure if you turn up and they’re not full they won’t turn you away. Maybe. Here’s who’s talking:

Becky Shaw has been making work that explores the relationship between individual and social since 1993. Projects often involve humorous and sometimes critical contributions to public and private contexts including hospitals, universities, business parks, factories and shops. The resulting works combine live elements, photography, made elements, writing and speaking, and may reverse or misuse existing processes. New works have been commissioned by organisations including Grizedale Arts, New Art Gallery Walsall and Kunstprijs Amstelveen, Netherlands. Becky spent three years making work in response to Liverpool Marie Curie Centre, for PhD research. Current projects include a response to Firstsite’s new building in Colchester, an exploration of retail and regeneration in Preston, and a collaboration with Joanna Spitzner, USA,that explores the American and British car industries. Becky is Research Fellow at ICIA, University of Bath, attempting to follow one object all the way back through its manufacturing process as a way to understand contemporary objectivity and subjectivity. Between 2000 and 2006 Becky was co-director of Static, Liverpool.

Her guest, Steven Eastwood, is a filmmaker whose practice spans experimental fiction, documentary and essay film, artists’ moving image and live art. His films collapse the vernacular of the cinema and the documentary, appropriating and then misusing many of the conventions of a dominant cultural media, and taking the form into unusual contexts. Some of the films are performances; others are interventions or drifts that involve strangers, others still are unsettling in their willful lack of direction (literally) or conclusion. Steven has exhibited at the ICA, BAFTA, EMAF, Brief Encounters, the Lux Centre and Anthology Film Archives, amongst others. Recent installations include The Film, The Film, The Film at MM Luka Gallery Croatia (2006). Steven has been the recipient of a number of grants and awards, has written conference papers and chapters on filmmaking as a social situation and regularly programmes screenings of artists’ film and video. He recently curated two symposia, Interval (1) and (2), based on the film philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. He has lectured widely, and is currently on leave from his position as Assistant Professor in Film, SUNY Buffalo. Steven is about to complete a Ph.D through UCL The Slade, titled ‘Cinema into the Real’. In 1997 he formed the production company Paradogs; in 1996 he co-founded the Volcano! Underground film festival (1996-2000); and in1995 he formed OMSK, a platform (now a collective) for emerging artists with diverse practices.

There’s a lot of information about the collective on the Pub Conversations website. I may well pop along tomorrow as this is the kind of thing I think is essential for Birmingham. Any other events like this going on, do let me know.