Category Archives: local authorities

Call for Papers – Birmingham Cityscapes

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An Inter-disciplinary Urban Research Conference
Saturday 18 June 2011
Seacole Building, City South Campus

Keynote Speakers:
Dr Mike Beazley, Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies, University of Birmingham
Paul Slatter, Director of Chamberlain Forum Limited, Birmingham

Engaging with current issues facing urban research in Birmingham, the Birmingham Cityscapes conference will provide a forum for academics, scholars, practitioners, community leaders and local residents to discuss urban research in the city. The conference will facilitate the development of new research networks and provide an opportunity for theoretical and applied knowledge transfer across the public, private, voluntary, and academic sectors.

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Music, Heritage and Cities at Un-Convention

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Members of the Interactive Cultures research group attended/took part in a panel at the recent Un-Convention event in Salford writes Paul Long.

Jez Collins, the originator of the Birmingham Popular Music Archive chaired a panel consisting of: Dr Marion Leonard, who was the curator of Liverpool’s The Beat Goes On, and who oversees on ongoing project to examine how museums collect and preserve (or not) popular music; Alison Surtees of the Manchester District Music Archive; Eve Wood, the director of the documentary (2001) and Mike Darby of Bristol Archive Records.

Speakers offered insights into each of their projects, revealing the variety of practices in this field, the public appetite for music heritage and the innovations and connections that curation has been making. Surtees for instance outlined how the online MDMA had generated input from around 2000 individuals, half of which regularly posted material on the site. Some of these were members of the bands featured and indeed, these explorations of music past also connected with the present scene in ways that avoided the potential necrophilia of such work.

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On, Archives! conference report

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Professor Tim Wall & Dr Paul Long, recently presented a paper at a ‘On, Archives!’, a conference that took place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA from July 6-9.
This is Paul’s report.

On, Archives! was hosted by the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) and also contained within it a dedicated symposium on ‘Broadcasting in the 1930s’ organized by Hugh Chignall (Bournemouth) and Jamie Medhust (Aberystwth).

En route to Madison we stopped over in Chicago. Now Chicago is undoubtedly a ‘cinematic’ city, so mythologised in American and wider cultures as to be already familiar to new visitors like me. We arrived on Independence Day which meant that the Stars and Stripes was ubiquitous and firework displays abounded.

Given the tendency to wax lyrical about such places in comparison to the familiarity of home I’ll reserve further remarks for another occasion. However, and acknowledging the trompe l’oeil effect of the cityscape and delights of wandering the streets in sweltering heat, what impressed were the various ways in which the cultural heritage of the city was celebrated.

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Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research hosts event with West Midlands Region

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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.

Empowering Public Sector Workers with Social Media

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To what extent is social media a useful tool for meeting the government’s local empowerment agenda? That was the question being asked in a panel session at an event last week organised by the National Empowerment Partnership which is managed by the Community Development Foundation.

‘Local Engagement: Sharing Practical Approaches’ was aimed at local authority officers and those working in the various organisations that make up the National Empowerment Partnership. The panel I was presenting at included Hannah Peaker from the London Civic Forum (who interestingly had spent time on the Obama campaign in 2008) and Stephen Frost from izwe.com. I was there courtesy of the work the role I’ve had with Digital Birmingham over the past year.
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