June 1st, 2010 |
by Rob Horrocks
Published in
General, Technology, social media
As part of its Wednesday research afternoons, the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research recently hosted a talk from Katrina Sluis of London South Bank University.
Katrina Sluis is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Arts, Media and English at London South Bank University where she leads the BA (Hons) Digital Media Arts. Her scholarly interests include critical theories of photography, digital memory and contemporary fine art practice. As a visual artist, she works with photography and digital media to explore materiality, archiving and transmission in relation to the digital image.
Her paper was entitled ‘Digital Material Archives: Web 2.0 and algorithmic memory’.
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May 27th, 2010 |
by Jon Hickman
Published in
Events, General, social media
Tonight I delivered a brief talk at the Midland’s arts centre. Below is a transcript of my talk (minus my live rambles and tangents and including some typos – sorry). Also speaking were Jon Bounds & Pete Ashton.
Firstly an apology: as an academic I can’t take a title at face value. I find I need to hand wring and worry about the terms of a debate before I can do anything at all. And then once I have problematised the issue, I find that the title is wrong and I start using different words.
As a media and cultural studies academic who has been criticised by the Daily Mail for wasting tax payers money running courses on social media, this condition is particularly acute. I need to be seen to have thought too much about things to justify myself. So that being the case, I struggled to get into this topic and felt I had to change it. I hope you don’t all rush to get your money back, but stay with me for a moment. The new title is:
Social Media & Glocalisation
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May 26th, 2010 |
by Rob Horrocks
Published in
Creative & Cultural Industries, Events, General, Public Event, local authorities
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.
Full details of the conference programme, speaker biographies and venue information are on the West Midlands Cultural Observatory website
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.
May 21st, 2010 |
by Rob Horrocks
Published in
Events, General, Knowledge Transfer & Exchange
Our Wednesday research seminar this week was a presentation by Xavier Mendik of Brunel University. Xavier introduced a screening of the documentary Fear at 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess of Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
Xavier was invited to our regular research seminar to talk about the strategies he has developed for knowledge transfer work around the Cult Film Archive and Cine-Excess, the company he has formed to restore and reissue significant cult films. The release includes DVD extras that are designed as educational and knowledge transfer devices. The formula is working well with interest in the film and its academic based extras leading to significant interest from relevant media and sales reaching audiences beyond the academy.
Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) classic cult Italian horror – a masterpiece of the modern macabre that uses excessive visual styles and even more excessive on-screen murders to create new pathways between art-house and atrocity. The documentary featured enough footage from the original to cause one member of the audience to “step outside for a breath of fresh air”.
Research group member, and chair of this week’s session, Oliver Carter commented: “I have followed Xavier’s work closely since the late 1990s and it was a pleasure to welcome him to this week’s session. Xavier’s work with Nouveaux Pictures and the Cine Excess label demonstrates the variety of possibilities knowledge transfer presents. We are thankful for him taking time to come to the Birmingham School of Media and look forward to sharing our approaches to knowledge with him in the future.”
May 20th, 2010 |
by Jon Hickman
Published in
General
This may be of interest to some of my contacts and students. It’s a report on social media in PR and comms agencies, based on interviews with industry bods. I’ve only skim read it, so this is not an endorsement of the content or the methodology, but there seems to be some interesting points raised and if nothing else then, for me, it gives me an insight into how established industries are thinking about social media in terms of their existing business models
Posted via email from Jon’s posterous
May 19th, 2010 |
by Rob Horrocks
Published in
General
Hello,
I’m a new member of the Interactive cultures unit and I have just been given the necessary password information to start posting blog entries.
My research interest is popular music history. Through involvement my with a music history project called Home of Metal I became interested in the way intellectual property issues impact on the development and use of popular music histories. As contemporary music culture heritage becomes a more prevalent activity, with several archiving projects and high profile public exhibitions taking place in major cities, the issue of mediation in the creation of these texts becomes worthy of analysis. Fortunately for me this idea for a research project emerged at a time when the School of Media at BCU were advertising a studentship.
I completed an MA at CMCR at The University of Leicester and worked as a record label manager before returning to BCU as a research student. My work at the record label led to an interest in the placement of music in marketing as well as providing valuable experience of the music industry. I maintain involvement with elements of the music industry through managing the band Einstellung.
I’m delighted to join the Interactive cultures team and look forward to contributing to a vibrant research community and posting a few more blog entries as my research develops.
April 8th, 2010 |
by Tim Wall
Published in
General
Rob Horrocks will be starting his full time studies with us on 4th May, developing a proposed thesis on ‘The use of sound recordings in public exhibits and digital archives documenting popular music histories’.
Rob will be joining a group of strong popular music and new media academics, and playing a full part in the intellectual life of Interactive Cultures and our wider research centre.
We interviewed four particularly strong candidates from an impressive set of applications, and Rob’s combination of strong postgraduate background, his involvement in the application of digital media to music history, and his enthusiasm was impressive.
We have also offered the other suitably qualified candidates unfunded PhD places and we hope they will take them up.
October 27th, 2009 |
by Jez Collins
Published in
General
Sam and I recently submitted some of our audio pieces to the Radio Futura 2009 which is the radio station that operated during the Future Places event in Oporto, Portugal in October. We were really pleased to be asked to supply content for the station. We sent over seven pieces of work that were a mixture of Knowledge Transfer Fellowship work between BCU and the Birmingham Music Archive and other partners Sam has worked with as part of the AHRC project.
Future Places is explores Digital Media and Local Culture and is six days of exhibitions and events addressing the potential and the impact of digital media on local cultures and took place October 13-17, 2009 and is a project of the UT Austin|Portugal Program
http://colab.ic2.utexas.edu/futureplaces/
Radio Futura
Radiofutura broadcast 24/7 via RadioZero and from 91.5 FM Frequency during futureplaces 2009. A full webstream of the programme is now in the works.
FuturePlaces 2009 presents RADIO FUTURA
The official FuturePlaces radio station
Broadcasting live during FuturePlaces 2009 digital media festival.
October 14-17, 2009 – Porto, Portugal
A joint venture between Future Places and Rádio Zero.
LIVE EVENTS. SONGS. RANTS. FIELD RECORDINGS. SOUND POETRY. MUSIC. EXPERIMENTAL. HOT TOPICS. PURE WEIRDNESS.
Check the broadcasting schedule here. Contact: radiofutura2009 @ gmail.com
Portuguese radio jingle here. English radio jingle here.
The two pieces that Radio Futura ran were the Birmingham Popular Music Archive Phil Lynott documentary which also aired on BBC WM, Absolute and Spin FM and Music in Moseley.
This was another example of the Fellowship work in practice and the wide ranging ways of disseminating that work to audiences, in this case internationally.
To listen to the above pieces and other work by Sam follow the link: Sam Coley Vimeo
August 26th, 2009 |
by Jon Hickman
Published in
General, social media
The Ikon Gallery, in Birmingham City Centre – Image CC by ell-r-brown
I recently had an informal meeting with Ikon, Birmingham’s contemporary arts gallery, where we discussed how they can use social media effectively. Many galleries, museums, and other attractions have profiles in a number of social networks and Ikon is no exception. The main social media activity from Ikon is on Facebook and Twitter where they have developed a fairly active following. The Twitter account is particularly interesting when used to live blog from a series of talks. Encouraged by this initial success (which has come relatively easily), Ikon are keen to push forward and develop a more comprehensive social media strategy. I asked Ikon three key questions, and discussed a number of solutions for them. Ikon are keen for you to add more in the comments below.
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August 26th, 2009 |
by Jon Hickman
Published in
General
Our star turn on iTunes came to the attention of MacWorld – read their article here.
