My friend Brian – you know, Brian out of UB40 (namedrop, namedrop) – just popped over to give me an original piece of his artwork that I’d admired at an exhibition of his but could not possibly have afforded. It’s based on Concierto de Aranjuez from Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain album. Unbelievably generous of [...]
Category Archives: Art
What’s next: singing in public? 0
I started drawing pictures of cats in the last couple of days, using Paper on the iPad. Cats are pretty much the only things that I can draw that people can correctly identify without prompting. For some reason, they always come out looking a bit sad. For a half-hearted April Fools thing, I joked that [...]
Categories: Art
On Downloading Pickle 0
I’m a latercomer to the world of comics and graphic novels. It’s odd, really, because I knew some great cartoonists, comic book artists and enthusiasts growing up in New Zealand. Some of them went on to own comic book stores, some produced some great independent comics, and one even ended up doing Judge Dredd and [...]
Categories: Art,New Zealand
Portraits in Finland 1
Me in Helsinki (click to enlarge) I’m staying in Helsinki at the home of Tomas Whitehouse – a Kings Heath Brummie who moved to Finland about five years ago. I got to know him through Clutch and was massively impressed with his photography (check out his website), so I was very excited when he asked [...]
Categories: Art,Photography,Travel
Fight the Power – the art of protest 0
An exhibition opens this evening at the Custard Factory – in the shiny new bit that’s been refurbished (and is actually looking pretty amazing). The exhibition’s called Fight the Power – and it’s well worth a look. Ammo from Punch Records walked me through it this morning, and I took this video. It’s no substitute [...]
Categories: Art,Birmingham
Tagged: exhibition, protest
A theory of the internet and the art of protest 1
I’m working with an organisation called Punch Records at the moment on what’s called a Knowledge Transfer project. The idea is to put academics together with businesses and cultural organisations in order to try and make university knowledge ‘useful’ in the real world. This might take some explaining, but there’s a cool payoff which I [...]
Categories: Art,culture,University
Tagged: propaganda, protest, South Africa, UK
Heart n Soul for the day 1
[Video link] I’m in London today with my New Music Strategies co-ninja Steve Lawson, working with an arts organisation called Heart n Soul, helping them with their online presence. They specialise in access to arts for people with learning disabilities. They’re also behind the fantastic band The Fish Police – and we’ll be working with [...]
Tagged: consultancy, web
30 days of ideas – 09: Recordings in Concert 13
Photo by Illinois Springfield Today’s idea is about sound. Specifically, acoustics and recorded music. Simply put, my idea is for people to turn up to a concert hall, sit down, and listen to a record. There are a few ways you could approach this, but ideally, the listening experience would be curated and explained track [...]
Categories: 30 Days,Art,culture,Music
Tagged: Audio, Concert, Concert Hall, Recordings
30 days of ideas – 07: Street Gallery 8
Photo by Sharky1974 I’ve become quite a fan of graffiti art in recent years. I was always sort of aware of the quality out there, and I’ve long been an admirer of Otis Frizzell (who I commissioned to design my tattoo). In my travels in recent years, I’ve been struck by the different art lining [...]
Welcome to Brum 1
Photo by As_One I particularly like this “not legal, but tolerated” bit of graffiti, by Tempo33 and AsOne. There’s something friendly about it that seems to be capturing a pretty cool mood in the city at the moment. Not sure whether the art helps create that mood or merely reflect it – though I suspect [...]
Categories: Art,Birmingham
Tagged: graffiti