Pete’s photos from Ben Waddington’s Written in Concrete tour as part of the Still Walking festival last weekend. Onna map.

BYOB Birmingham is a one-night exhibition where artists are invited to bring their own digital projectors (the beamer of the title) and explore the medium of projection by creating a collaborative happening of moving light, sound and performance.

Antonio Roberts and Pete Ashton are organising things and it’ll be presented by VIVID as part of the Flatpack Festival on Friday 16 March 2012.

If you’d like to get involved then details are on the website.

Pretty sure this is the first .gif on CiB too.

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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).

Creative Times are doing a series of events around the country, with the first being a panel discussion at Fazeley Studios on Wednesday November 30 from 6.30-8pm. It’s titled ‘The Beauty of Digital: New technologies, old aesthetics and where the two meet‘.

Tickets are FREE and available here.

Here’s the info:

A panel of four, chaired by Creative Times editor Chris Sharratt, will share their own experience of the creative interplay between old and new, followed by an audience Q&A and a chance to chat in the bar afterwards.

The panel for the night is:

Pete Ashton, Blogger, photographer, ‘webmonkey’ and trainer (peteashton.com/)
Chris Unitt, Head of Social Media, Made Media Ltd (mademedia.co.uk)
The Brothers McLeod, BAFTA-nominated animators (brothersmcleod.co.uk/)

The event is supported by Hello Culture.

Pete’s making a few appearances this month, and I’m speaking at a bunch of things too. Say hi if you come along.

I’d still struggle to explain exactly what it is, so here’s some blurb from the council’s press release:

The Creative City initiative will play a significant role by:

• Creating a fund to build on existing public sector funding of the arts through loans, grants, match-funding and investments. The allocation of funds will be based on the potential for job creation and economic growth.
• Outlining the vision for a new ‘museum quarter’, including a new museum of photography and the development of a new contemporary art gallery.
• Exploring ways to unlock private sector and philanthropic support for culture, linking cultural development to wider economic growth.

So this was really the launch of an idea. In the way that Manchester has Media City and London has Tech City, Birmingham (if it wants it) could claim the title of Creative City.

Thing is, the designations of those other two seem to have been built on much stronger foundations (a strong BBC presence and an already burgeoning tech scene, respectively). All we seem to have at the moment is ideas, visions (like this one for a Museum Quarter), pledges and plans with comparatively little substance. Maybe’s it’s just early days, but if the intention of this event was to make people excited about the possibilities on offer then I don’t think it worked.

Maybe the more substantial conversations are all taking place behind closed doors this afternoon – but then I got the sense from others that therein lies the problem. Chatting to people afterwards actually left me kinda depressed by it all.

Personally, I’m not sure what to make of it and I’m pretty busy, so here’s the audio from the speeches that were made. Please have a listen (they’re all quite short) and I’d love to hear what you make of this in the comments below.

In typical Peter O’Hanra-Hanrahan style, I managed to miss the bit where James Yarker from Stan’s Cafe thanked Cllr Timothy Huxtable for name-checking his theatre company but asked him how he squared that with the council cutting their funding by 100%. The response is in the final audio clip above (although it does make for uncomfortable listening).

On the subject

It would be hugely remiss of me not to point out this rather angry post by Pete Ashton, many of the sentiments of which I would endorse.

A couple more links

• This from James at Stan’s Cafe should be read
• As should this from Stef Lewandowski, should be read too, with some interesting comments
• Philip Parkin is upbeat but says he “struggled to find the substance”
• BOP Consulting point out this launch is all “particularly interesting as it is one of the first LEPs to announce its ambitions for the creative industries’
• Pete’s done a round-up of some of the discussion
• Pete also pointed to the discussion on the Re-Stirred forum

I rate Helga and Pete on those subjects and think there’s a real need for some people to get their heads around this stuff and see that it’s not as scary or difficult as they might think. That, and I’m still shaking my head at the berk who told me “Oh, I don’t do business cards” when I asked if he had any contact details.

More info (including booking) on the Fierce Earth website.

If want to read about the purpose of/thinking behind the course then Pete’s written about that here.

The exhibition, sponsored by The Royal Society For Arts West Midlands and Pure Planet Recycling Ltd is called Looking though Birmingham. Here’s some of the blurb from the EC Arts website:

Pete Ashton has created a series of slow animations consisting of sequential photographs shot through the artists own customised lens.  The lens is made from a vintage camera which forms a process called “Through The Viewfinder”. The slow animations will be displayed on salvaged CRT monitors that have been converted into peep-show machines.

A frequent subject of Pete’s work is “unnoticed Birmingham”, the patterns and shapes that emerge as the city succumbs to and builds on the entropy of progress. For this show he invites you to view Birmingham’s pedestrian flow filtered through a nostalgic, intimate perspective of inner Birmingham.  A second event will take place in June to view ‘outer’ Birmingham.

how arts sector professionals and individual artists can learn from examples of successful partnerships in austere cultural landscapes

I’m sure there are still some tickets available if you’re still thinking about coming.

The website’s been a hive of activity over the past couple of weeks, with links to similarly themed events happening around the country. Sandra Hall from Friction Arts has written about what she’s hoping to get out of it and Helga Henry’s written about why the event is important.

There’s also been some strong words from Pete in advance of the event.

It’s probably better to go with no expectations/preconceptions of about what you’re about to see but, in case you’d rather take someone else’s word for how it good it is:

• Terry Grimley in the Birmingham Post (5 stars)
• Exeunt Magazine (5 stars)
• Lyn Gardner in the Guardian (4 stars)
• Pete Ashton (with video trailer, but if you’re going I’d recommend not watching it)
• Lots of people on Twitter

Book tickets here.

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*Alternative titles for this blog post:

• Knees up Constance Brown (didn’t make sense)
• Constance-ly good reviews (just rubbish)