Dave Sanjek on dums

I met David soon after he arrived in the UK to work at Salford, and we immediately hit it off. I already knew about his father’s definitive history of the US music industry, and that David had helped with an updated version of the publication.  Within a few minutes, though, our conversations were off in many different directions. We immediately discovered we had many passions in common, but he seemed to know so much more about things I only had noticed, or he offered such an interesting left-field take, that I was intrigued. As part of the burst of intellectual energy that emanates from Salford we were in frequent contact, and the events at the university always served as stimulus for some interesting debate, often leading to a whole line of unexpected discussions which took us late into the night.

He was also kind enough to say positive things about our team at BCU, and delighted that we turned up en masse to events he’d organised or co-organised. It was great to be involved in fairly recent public seminars and conferences around Northern Soul, the work of Tony Palmer, and popular music on television and in film. Along with Ben Halligan, Dave had welcomed a range of contributions from IC members to the Sights and Sounds conference and book.  Our conversations always threw up new possibilities for further collaboration, and now sadly none of these is possible. We were working together on an edited book on Northern Soul, which I must now complete alone.

I have always been attracted to independent thinkers, and David personified that concept.  I loved his paper at Sights and Sounds about why the Medicine Ball Caravan, the cult hippie rockumentary, didn’t work, and that his take on Northern Soul re-re-located its sounds back into US music culture. He was as happy writing about musical theatre as about Jimmie Rodgers, Frank Zappa or Jump Blues, and as adept at eulogising about the magic of the music experience as he was at detailing its economic structure or the issues of music IP.

Dave Sanjek, you were a great friend to Interactive Cultures and you will not be forgotten.

Professor Tim Wall

The Egypt project is about gathering journalists in a virtual newsroom to report on  one specific theme, they would build on each other reports. The theme is  the upcoming parliamentary and Shura (Upper House) elections in Egypt, Meedan is building this newsroom, AMAY is publishing it and the professional journalists are their web and social media department staff, citizen journalists are recruited by a local partner and both citizens and professional journalists are to be receiving training workshops on a variety of topics that help them develop their reports.

Interactive Cultures is developing a curriculum for these trainings; so the citizens would learn more about how to make their media production appealing to the mainstream media, and journalists will get closer to the social media sphere, what does it mean that media is becoming social and all of them would learn how to verify the citizen reports.

Nevertheless, under the leadership of Prof. Tim Wall, I am monitoring the project and evaluating it .
The  project is going to benefit  both types of reporters  are benefiting, a  traditional way of improving popular journalism is conducting direct training to people on how to use social networks and make media reports, what should not be the case a country that already has a very active citizen journalists, proved by the vibrant networks formed organically by people during and after the revolution to cover the protest news across the most populated country ( 85 million) in the Arab region.

In other words, quality citizen reports are needed for all societies, but where the good citizen journalism practices are, the priority is to get these reports out of the social networks and make them available for people who do not use the internet. This is the gap the project is expected to cover; to optimize the audience (consumers) rather than the reporters (producers).

Now, I am  again booking a new return ticket to Cairo, to attend  the international conference of The Faculty of Mass Communication in Cairo University, in collaboration with the University of Westminster  and UNESCO, I’ll  present a paper about the interaction between social and traditional media, in which, the Egypt project is strongly present.

Friday 30th September (1pm – 4pm)
Birmingham MAC, Foyle studio

After last year’s inaugural Jazz and the Media conference, Birmingham City University have teamed up with Harmonic to deliver the second instalment. This year’s focus will be social media and how it can be best used to promote jazz and develop new audiences, as well as how jazz collectives are using these tools. Hosted by Tim Wall with guest speakers including Sebastian Scotney (London Jazz), Andrew Dubber and the festival directors themselves.

Tickets are £20 (£17), plus an exclusive £10 ticket offer for students. You can buy them online or from the box office on 0121 446 3232. Please also visit the website of the hosting venue, MAC.

The project ended some time ago, but Dave Kane and I developed the project report further, taking it to an internal and an external conference, and finally we submitted it as a journal article which was published earlier this month by EducationalFutures.

If you’re interested in technology in teaching and learning or just Flip cameras, do give the article a read – it’s free to download here.

The Business of Live Music

A conference to mark the completion of the AHRC funded project, The Promotion of Live Music in the UK.

31st March 2011

“It was exactly the same as 1000 other rooms above pubs that I’ve been to during my life time.” The live music space as heritage object – Rob Horrocks (Birmingham City University)

The role of universities, the NUS and student union venues in the business of live music

Paul Long at The Business of Live Music

A conference to mark the completion of the AHRC funded project, The Promotion of Live Music in the UK

Prof Tim Wall’s presentation at The Business of Live Muic conference, Edinburgh, 31st March – 2nd April 2011.

Tim Wall at the Business of Live Music Conference, Edinburgh 1st April 2011 presenting his paper: Contemporary Live Jazz Scenes in the UK regions.

Event: Thursday, 15^th September 2011

Deadline for submissions: Friday, 20^th May 2011

Digital culture innocuously pervades our everyday lived experience. It shapes how we define ourselves, organises our communication and mediates our cultural moment. The Online Mainline event aims to map the territory of the new digital age, examining how the online environment has come to shape our offline world and experiences in new, innovative and productive ways. Impacting upon our social experiences, business organisation and industry connections, the online environment has come to define the ways in which our society becomes mediated across generations and cultures.

Examining how online media functions as a mainline for the mediation and remediation of culture in the new digital age, the Online Mainline event seeks to open up an avenue for dialogue surrounding the uses and limitations of the online context as a tool for social, political and economic benefit. Seeking to analyse the new media and its associated alternative (and in some instances embryonic) media forms in the remediation of culture, areas of research interest that this event will interrogate include:

• Blogging and the Podcast
• Developing Technologies
• Social Networking Sites (Twitter, Facebook, Bebo)
• Youtube Generation
• Online and Social Organisation
• Online as Lifeline
• Fandom and Online Creativity
• Sharing Online and File Download
• Age and the Internet
• Online Gaming
• Gendering of New Technologies
• Online Convergence
• Online News
• Business and the Online Environment
• This list is not exhaustive and a diverse range of submissions are encouraged

Deadline for 300 word proposals: Friday, 20^th May 2011

Final papers should be 20 minutes in duration (including clips and demonstration)

Email submissions to: onlinemainline2011@gmail.com

Proposals should include:

• Presenter Contact Details
• Biographical information (200 words)
• Proposal in Word format (300 words)
• Details of technical requirements

Please direct enquiries to: Dr Kerry Gough, email: onlinemainline2011@gmail.com

A Screen Cultures Research Group Event

Deadline for submissions: Friday, 20^th May 2011

Animation Explosion seeks to examine the all pervasive nature of animation across multi-media platforms. The aim of this one day event is both multidisciplinary, but also multi-modal in its output, aiming to examine both a range of approaches to the analysis of animation, but also to identify the breadth in application through animation practice. The event seeks to provide a welcoming space for the dialogue between animation practitioners and academics alike. To this end, we are seeking both academic papers, but also practical demonstrations. In addition this event will also foster the space for roundtable discussion with divergent animation groups, educators working within the realm of animation and industry practitioners to examine the future of funding and the sustainability of animation work across an international context.

Areas of research interest that this event will interrogate include:

• Animation Innovation
• Animation Production
• The Cult of Animation
• Animation Breaking National Boundaries and Frontiers
• Animation Education
• Animation in Advertising
• Animation and the Online Environment
• Animating Gaming
• The Lifecycle of the Animation Short
• The Future of Animation Funding?
• This list is not exhaustive and a diverse range of submissions are encouraged

Deadline for 300 word proposals: Friday, 20^th May 2011

Final papers should be 20 minutes in duration (including clips and demonstration)

Email submissions to: animationexplosion2011@gmail.com

Proposals should include:

• Presenter Contact Details
• Biographical information (200 words)
• Proposal in Word format (300 words)
• Details of technical requirements

Please direct enquiries to: Dr Kerry Gough, email: animationexplosion2011@gmail.com

A Screen Cultures Research Group Event

Sponsored by Society for Animation Studies

In Association with Animation Forum West Midlands