The ‘Keep Talking’ in lockdown podcast

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A new podcast highlights the pioneering work of community researchers tackling poverty in Stoke-on-Trent.The new podcast Keep Taking About… looks at the role of a community researcher, identifies some of the challenges they have overcome, both in their own lives and throughout the global pandemic, and how they have built a community which has supported the group’s wellbeing and cohesion.

Nicola Gratton, the Lead for Civic Engagement and Evaluation at Staffordshire University, led the project in which community researchers continued to engage with the Keep Talking project in a range of creative ways, including poetry, photography and baking – even creating a book of recipes that helped people through lockdown. They share these experiences in the podcast series which covers isolation, disability, creativity, friendship and family, and community.

A full press release can be read here https://www.staffs.ac.uk/news/2020/08/community-researchers-keep-talking-in-lockdown-podcast

C3 Centre Research Seminar: Tim Anderson – The Death of Liveness

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Stupid, Bang, Stupid is a film by Tim Anderson with music by Corrin Jamal (aka Tim Anderson), exploring authenticiy, presence and liveness in a locked down workd.

C3 Centre Research Seminar

The Death of Liveness – Can Concerts and Collaborations compete with Computerised Choirs and Covid19

Tim Anderson (PhD Candidate)

Thursday 16th July 2020 14:00 – 15:00 (See MS TEAMS link below)


 Keywords:   Aura    Liveness    Presence    Collaboration    Performance   Coronavirus

 Artworks have been traditionally valued by what Walter Benjamin described as their aura – a “magic” property connected with their authenticity, made recognisable in their provenance.  With performance art, the equivalent quality is liveness, or presence.

In the current pandemic,  live performance is placed on hold, with co-performers and collaborators kept at arms’ length.  This seminar considers possible strategies to create multimedia artworks under lockdown conditions.

Select References

  • Auslander, P. (2002) “Live from Cyberspace”, Performing Arts Journal: 70 pp. 16–21. MIT.
  • Bolter, J.D. MacIntyre, B. Gandy, M. and Schweitzer,P. (2006) “New Media and the Permanent Crisis of Aura”, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 12, no. 1 pp.21–39.
  • Stupid, Bang, Stupid (20 June 2020) YouTube video, added by Corrin Jamal [Online]. Available at https://youtu.be/ULmvEEvduio [Accessed 1 July 2020].

 

16/07/2020 14:00 – 15:00 on TEAMS

 

FACTORY ONLINE MEET (3 July 2020, 10:30am)

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FACTORY Online Meet

To keep our creative communities in Staffordshire connected, FACTORY is organising online meets, where we have the opportunity to come together and chat informally about topics around current challenges for our Creative Communities. In the era of Covid19, we and our creative sectors have specific challenges when wanting to connect with audiences, creatives, customers, networks and each other.

Topic: Socially engaged art – extending your practice to work with the public
Experts: Alice Thatcher and Sarah Fraser
Friday  3 July 10:30am – 12 noon
Sign up for free at https://hopin.to/events/factory-online-meet-3-july-2020

Join BCB Associate artists Alice Thatcher and Sarah Fraser as they unpick motivations and methods for sharing your creative practice with a wider audience. This practical session is aimed at early-career artists and arts professionals who would like to extend their practice to work with people. We will be exploring what socially engaged practice is and why it is important. We will outline practical strategies for working inclusively with people, planning and delivering creative activities (online and in person) and how to develop a socially engaged practice as a career. 

Alice Thatcher Following her graduation from University of Sunderland in 2012, Alice Thatcher returned to Stoke-on-Trent. She is committed to her own role within the cultural and creative growth of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. Thatcher’s practice examines the similarity between “vulnerable” communities and the properties of clay. She is interested in how people can use clay to communicate their identities, learn new cultural, social and creative ideas from one another, and experience the versatility, beauty and heritage of clay and ceramics. 

Sarah Fraser Sarah Fraser studied visual arts at the University of South Africa. After working in further education with adults with learning difficulties and disabilities for over ten years, she has shifted to combining her practice as an artist with studio based community work over the past 3 years. Since 2019, Fraser has worked in Stoke-on-Trent, leading on a community co-production project of Staffordshire flatback figurines; conceptualising and delivering and arts and health projects (on and offline); and collaborating with the Portland Inn Project fellowship project in 2020. 

Photo: Production line space as part of BCB Festival 2019. Credit: Jenny Harper

Ass Prof Fiona Graham releases a podcast about an iconic WW1 crater

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Not Just A Big Hole in France is a podcast recorded during a walk around the newly accessible Hawthorn Crater on The Somme with Associate Professor and former BBC Producer Fiona Graham and Historian and First World War tunnelling expert Colin Winn.

The first day of the Battle of the Somme is infamous in British military history. Unique access to this heritage site in France combined with scientific and film technology methodologies are creating new knowledge about the battlefield. Graham led the documentary narrative in an international interdisciplinary team of forensic archaeologists, historians, chemists, and film makers to uncover and archive the Hawthorn Crater at Beaumont.

The podcast is a short insight into the project and provides a glimpse into the project and its impact to its surrounding communities.

The full press release can be read at at https://www.staffs.ac.uk/news/2020/06/not-just-a-big-hole-in-france-researchers-uncover-secrets-of-iconic-ww1-crater

Dr Agata Lulkowska receives an international award for her work in film

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Dr Agata Lulkowska has been selected from among the highest-ranked articles of the year to receive the annual International Award for Excellence from The Journal of Communication and Media Studies.

Her article Voice of the Arhuacos: Transcending the Borders of “Indigenous” Filmmaking in Colombia was identified as outstanding by members of the Communication and Media Studies Research Network.

Read more about this at https://www.staffs.ac.uk/news/2020/06/film-lecturer-wins-international-award

Launching the C3 Centre

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We recently have launched the C3 Centre as the newest of Staffordshire University’s Research Centres, focussing on the Creative Industries and Creative Communities.

The centre provides a single overarching structure for all staff working together with our creative partners through the medium of arts and culture, working within the creative and cultural economy, society and sectors.

In short, it is not ‘about the arts’ but rather ‘through the arts’.

It provides a structural framework for activities that reflect the search for new conceptual and critical insights into practices used by individual artists, collectives and creative thinkers who are passionate about engaging, interacting and co-creating with their surrounding communities. If your practice focusses on areas, such as Ceramics, Creative Industries and/or Creative Communities than this centre might be of interest to you. We would suggest that our collective creative talent in our city and surrounding communities is what makes our region so impactful through its creative engagements.

So if you are interested in the cutting edge of creative practice, keep an eye out for our projects and events. We regularly hold exhibition, research talks, networking events, so stay in touch by being part of our community. Browse our projects and feel invited to come to our events, and get in touch with our individual staff if you have ideas for collaborative innovation and research projects. 

And if you want to just say ‘hi’, leave us a comment here. We would love to hear from you.

Applications are now open for CREATE PLACE

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CREATE PLACE: The Placemaking and Co-Creation Leadership Programme in North Staffordshire and Cheshire East

Applications are open!

£150k has been secured for a new project to develop creative leaders across North Staffordshire and Cheshire East. A total of £6m is being invested by Arts Council England in museums, libraries and arts across the country to help tackle skills gaps, a lack of diversity, and to support the continued growth and long-term sustainability of the sector.

Applications are now open for CREATE PLACE, focussing on place-making for both heritage & arts organisations in North Staffordshire and Cheshire East.  Important terms in our cultural approach are co-creation, co-production and co-curation. The programme will pay attention to the socio-economic contexts of second-order cities, including their usually rurally dispersed communities, and their need to attend to locality-specific, narrative-rich partnership work to engage hard-to-reach communities.

This programme is free for successful applicants, thanks to Arts Council’s Transforming Leadership Fund.

Drawing upon the region’s rich creative heritage, the Placemaking and Co-Creation Leadership Programme intends to develop leaders who will play a transformative role in the future of the arts in the region. Focussing on placemaking and co-creation, the programme will work with existing consortium networks, local authorities, higher education institutions and regional cultural organisations to address the needs of its rurally dispersed communities.

Download the application pack and more details from  here.

 

Heatwork

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Heatwork is an Arts Council funded project brining together experimental music and video composers alongside local and international musicians. The first performance of Heatwork took place on 15th Noivember 2019 at Middleport Pottery, a working industrial site housing many craft businesses. Interviews of people involved in the industry were used to create electronic sounds which were played live alongside the Brass Band and Clarient soloist. Marc Estibeiro composed the piece, which was performed by Matthias Müller, on his SABRE system, and the championship TCTC Group brass Band. Live visuals were performed by Dave Payling using his own footage and supported by additional films from Staffordshire Film Archive and BCB Festival.

Heatwork has its own project webpages at http://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/c3centre/projects/heatwork/

NoiseFloor 2019 Call for Works and Proposals

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We are pleased to announce that NoiseFloor will once again be hosted by the Music and Sound department in our Cadman Studio Complex at Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK.

  • Dates: May 7th and 8th 2019
  • Deadline for abstract submission: 18th January 2019
  • Deadline for Registration: 15th March 2019

NoiseFloor is an interdisciplinary event with a focus on experimental composition. This year we are pleased to announce our KEYNOTE PRESENTATION from SIMON EMMERSON, professor in Music, Technology and Innovation at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Our theme this year is Engagement.

“Who cares if you listen” is the title of an article from 1958, famously misattributed to the American composer Milton Babbitt. (Babbitt wrote the article, but the title was imposed by an editor).

60 years after Babbitt’s article, experimental or contemporary music is still often perceived as being “difficult”, “irrelevant”, or “out of touch”. To what extent are these conceptions and stereotypes merited? Should we as practitioners make more effort to engage with wider communities? Can this be achieved without diluting our work? Or is there an argument that our work should be governed by purely academic or aesthetic concerns? More generally, how can “challenging” art works or academic outputs reach wider audiences while still retaining their integrity? To what extent should our work engage with our social and environmental surroundings?

Works (compositions and performances) and proposals (for papers, lectures/recitals, panel discussions, workshops and other ideas) addressing this theme are particularly welcome. Of course, proposals for other relevant topics will also be considered. Submissions are invited from composers, academics, practitioners, individual researchers, postgraduates and any other interested parties.

Submissions should fall into one of the following categories:

  • 20-minute paper presentation (with 5 minutes for questions)
  • Fixed acousmatic works (up to 8 channel)
  • Acoustic instruments and electronics
  • Popular music and interactive systems (2 channel audio with video)
  • Fixed audio visual music (2 channel audio with video)
  • Workshop
  • Panel discussion

Please submit details of your composition, performance or proposal in the form of an abstract of between 250-300 words, together with brief biography (150 words), programme notes, and, where relevant, any links to audio/video examples of your work to our online submission form at:

http://staffordshire.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_57Tlg8B2e90P6At

Registration: The fees are £60 for presenters and for attendees, £35 for students. Concessions will be available for students of Staffordshire University. There is no submission fee.

Please note that you will need to provide your own performers and instruments and that contributors will be required to attend the event. More information is available at http://noisefloor.org.uk/ or by contacting a member of the organizing committee:

International Festival of Video Arts

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We are hosting the UK screening for the inaugural festival of video arts and visual music. This will involve same day world premieres of 10 works of Video Art and Visual Music in several venues around the world. The UK screening is a Stoke Film Theatre, on the University’s College Road Campus at 7pm on Wednesday 12th September.

Reserve a free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/international-festival-of-video-arts-tickets-48325756639 

VENUES

Cine Le Corbusier at French Embassy • Brasília, Brazil
MU.SA Museu das Artes de Sintra • Sintra, Portugal
Fonoteca Nacional de México • Ciudad de México, México
Reeves Theater, University of Tampa • Tampa, United States
Museo Artequin • Viña del Mar, Chile
Sala Concerti Pietro Sassu • Sassari, Italy
Stoke Film Theatre • Staffordshire, England

ORGANIZATION AND CURATION

Organized by

With the international curatorial support of

Events also taking place in Portugal, Sweden and Uruguay

More information: http://www.videoartes.org/

 

UNESCO’s INTERNATIONAL DAY OF LIGHT

In order to support UNESCO’s ideal of peace and contribute to improving the quality of education, the International Festival of Video Art and Visual Music 2018 will join to the activities of the International Day of Light.

It is important to emphasize that the involved institutions in the Festival, will contribute exclusively providing digital and local advertising around the activities. The accomplishment of such event reaffirms the role of the UNESCO and cultural centers in the promotion and socialization the following missions:

  • Education for Sustainable Development.
  • Peace and human rights.
  • Intercultural learning.