The recent conference at the Open University, The Future of Cultural Work inspired much debate and discussion amongst delegates and touched on many pertinent issues for my PhD research into cultural entrepreneurship and education policy. With many strands including capitalism and work, precarious labour, working in television and inclusion & exclusion, it offered a variety of perspectives and provocations in relation to cultural work and cultural labour. Not only were the themes appropriate to my research, but many key academics on the subject presented and attended the conference – I must admit to being a little start-struck! Read the rest of this entry »
A new one hour film about Birmingham’s music heritage called Made In Birmingham: Reggae, Punk, Bhangra received a private invitation only premiere recently.
In the video above, Jez Collins of interactive cultures explains the purpose and the genesis of the film, and how it connects with the Birmingham Music Archive.
The first West Midlands Cultural Research & Intelligence Network (CRAIN) conference takes place on Wednesday 2nd June 2010, 9:30-13:30, at Birmingham City University’s Margaret Street venue in central Birmingham.
The event, Chaired by Tim Challans (former co-ordinator for the West Midlands Culture & Sport Improvement Network), will highlight the latest research and intelligence relating to culture, sport and tourism and review the implications for the West Midlands: a region striving to assert itself as a national and international visitor destination and a leader in the digital agenda. The intention is for the event to dynamic and interactive, providing plenty of opportunity for delegates to dictate discussions.
The conference is being organised by the West Midlands Cultural Observatory, in association with Birmingham City University, the West Midlands Cultural Research & Intelligence Group and West Midlands Regional Observatory.
William Ellis is a photographer who first worked with the Interactive Cultures team at the Scarborough Jazz festival during September 2009. William was exhibiting some of his photographs at the event and began to collaborate with our team of academics who were conducting a research project, experimenting with narrative by putting the festival online as it happened. William captured the essence of what it was like to be at the festival and contributed a steady flow of images to the ‘Just Like Jazz‘ website, often within moments of shooting them. The project was a considerable success, not least because of William’s contribution.
We don’t know what the future of digital marketing looks like, nobody does, really. You might say it’s all about touch or augmented reality but that’s already happening. What happens next? One of our latest projects will aim to find out by shaping the next big thing.
Over the next two years we will be working with leading marketing agency Clusta, to develop a digital innovation lab within their business. Breaking media firsts is a key part of what Clusta do; this project gives us and the agency a chance to build on these foundations and explore how we can make innovation processes the heart of a creative business.
Can you help shape the future of digital marketing?
The project is being realised through the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships scheme. We are currently recruiting an associate to work with Interactive Cultures and Clusta in developing the lab. The associate will be a recent graduate (or will be about to graduate) who will work day to day within Clusta establishing the lab, and eventually leading a small team of digital innovators, matching new uses of technology to client briefs. The associate will be supported by staff in the Interactive Cultures unit and User Lab at Birmingham Institute of Art & Design.
We are developing a number of KTP projects. If you would like to talk to us about how we could work with your business, through KTP or other approaches, please contact Annette Copper on 0121 331 7280 or email annette.copper@bcu.ac.uk.
I attended an event in Copenhagen back in March this year. It was organised by Jazz Danmark, a government funded body whose role it is to promote and foster Danish jazz. My keynote was about how musicians could use the opportunities of the internet, and it seemed to go down reasonably well.
Pic: Lord Carter outside the Ikon and Fazeley Studios, CC Dave Harte
On Tuesday 16th June the Government published the Digital Britain report. The report outlines the direction of policy in several areas of digital media from infrastructure to digital literacy. On the following day Birmingham held the first in a series of regional debates on the report. The event was organised by Digital Birmingham, part of Birmingham City Council, and featured a keynote address by Lord Stephen Carter who oversaw the writing of the report. Parallel to this “official” event, a 2nd Digital Britain Unconference was held at Fazeley Studios. Lord Carter also attended this event where he spent some time taking questions from the floor.
I am an intern in Interactive Cultures department, currently studying MA Event and Exhibition management. I was asked to help organise the Digital Britain Unconference and am going to share some thoughts on how to go about organising one. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about policy and support for creative and cultural industries. In Birmingham a lot of support for the sector, as well as for businesses generally and SMEs in particular, has come in the form of funded business interventions. A few weeks ago Nick Webber and I had a lively debate about these assists, which led us to wonder about the value that the sector and the region has had from all of these interventions in Birmingham.
One of yesterday’s speakers at the kick off event for Creative Metropoles was the Chief Town Planner for Oslo, Ellen S. de Vibe. In her presentation she had a lot to say about how town planning can create an environment to encourage creative industries, and help the city to learn value its creative industries. I was fortunate enough to be sat next to her at the dinner in the evening, and she explained a little more to me about here idea that cities needs to surprise their citizens and visitors, to ecnourage exploration of the space.
Interactive Cultures is the research centre of the Birmingham School of Media at Birmingham City University.
Tel: +44 (0) 121 331 7280 info@interactivecultures.org
Conference report from Annette Naudin.
