Elmina: An Unusual Black and White Movie

CADRE Lecture Series
Free Public Lecture by Douglas Fishbone (Video and Performance Artist)

Tuesday 14th February 2012, 6.00pm, MK045

Elmina: An Unusual Black and White Movie Douglas Fishbone discusses his latest work Elmina, shot entirely on location in Ghana.

Douglas Fishbone often uses satire and humour within his film, performance and installation works to examine consumer culture and the mass media in a critical and disarming way. His work weaves elaborate narrative and visual tapestries from freely found imagery, often sourced directly from the internet, that question the way information is presented, manipulated and processed in the contemporary visual landscape.

Elmina, Fishbone’s new feature-length melodrama, pushes this exploration in a different direction, presenting an unusual experiment in collaboration that connects two vastly different audiences – the Western art world, and the African home video market. Filmed in Ghana with a cast of major Ghanaian celebrities, Fishbone’s only artistic intervention is the insertion of himself, a white American artist, as the lead role in an otherwise completely African production. The work fully adopts Ghanaian film making conventions, and was written and directed by one of Ghana’s leading production companies. Elmina continues Fishbone’s examination of relativity, perception and the politics of representation and audience engagement, while raising broader questions about race, globalization and the possibility of a shared visual language.

Elmina will be distributed on VCD in Africa and immigrant communities in Europe later in the year, challenging the way both art films and African films are usually produced and distributed.

Elmina had its world premiere at Tate Britain in 2010 and was nominated for an African Movie Academy Award in Nigeria in 2011. It was recently on view at a solo exhibition at CIRCA Projects in Sunderland, at Dublin Contemporary in Ireland, and as part of the exhibition The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989 at the ZKM in Karslruhe, Germany.

Creative Journeys - A programme of talks by creative industry professionals

Visual Communications semester 2 programme of talks by creative industry professionals begins on February 9th this year with a presentation by illustrator & film maker, Roderick Mills. Talks are open to final year Visual Communications students and MA Digital and Visual Communications students. Alumni or any others wishing to attend can book seats by contacting J.Green4@wlv.ac.uk
There are limited number of seats for visiting guests and booking is essential.

All talks will be held in the lecture theatre, MK045 of the School of Art and Design and begin at 2.00pm. Presentations last approximately 

75 minutes.

Programme details:

February 9 

Roderick Mills – Illustrator & Film Maker

 

February 16 

Ian Dodds – Illustrator

 

February 23 

James Langdon – Independent Graphic Designer 

March 1 

Simon Richings – Digital Creative Director DDB 

March 15 

Giorgos Maraziotis – Illustrator 

March 29 

Gerard Obrien and Gareth Langley – Co Founders Digital Creative Agency Star Dot Star

Sunday Times Magazine 50th anniversary

It's the 50th anniversary of the Sunday Times Magazine.

The Saachi Gallery have an special free exhibition celebrating this event. The gallery are showcasing the work of some of the world-famous photographers who have contributed to The Sunday Times Magazine since its launch in 1962. You'll see photographs by Don McCullin, David Bailey, Eve Arnold, Snowdon, Sam Taylor-Wood, Terry O'Neill, Uli Weber and many more. The exhibition runs from January 31 until February 19.

For another post on the Sunday times Times covers visit:
http://blogs.creativepool.co.uk/blog/sunday-times-magazine-covers/

Swatch competition

THE COMPETITION
The TTR World Snowboard Tour Trophy and the official Swatch Tour Watch are looking for a new design. The challenge: get creative with the theme Progression & Style. This is your chance to break into the spotlight through the snowboard and art world!

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Register here, download the design template and get creative.
Create a graphic design expressing Progression & Style
Submit your artwork online before 27th March 2012, midnight (UTC time).
The uploaded designs are displayed in the gallery and can be shared through facebook.
A jury evaluates the artworks and invites 3 nominees to the Swatch Art Rules Night where the final winning design will be unveiled.

THE PRIZEYOUR personal creative look on the TTR World Snowboard Tour Trophy 2012/2013!
YOUR design on the official Swatch Tour Watch 2012/2013!
YOUR moment of fame on stage at the Swatch Art Rules Night!
YOUR creative holiday: 2 weeks in New York City including travel costs, accommodation and pocket money for 2 people!

Poster for Tomorrow Competition

The condition of women has undergone undeniable improvements during the last century. But these improvements haven’t happened everywhere and even where they have been the strongest, well, they are far from being strong enough.

Gender inequality still lingers unchallenged: it’s one of those things that are hard to see precisely because they are right in front of our eyes.
Design a poster that sees beyond the status quo and imagines a different future. We need gender equality now, because more opportunities for women are more opportunities for us all.

Competition Calendar:
Call for entries open: 8 March 2012
Call for entries close: 10 July 2012
Online jury vote: 20 July - 10 September 2012
Live jury session, Paris: 5 October 2012
Worldwide exhibitions opening: 10 December 2012

Download competition details from:
http://posterfortomorrow.org/system/assets/storage/docs/PfT_2012-Brief_ENG.pdf

Stereogranimator

New York Public Library Labs is proud to bring you the Stereogranimator, a tool for transforming historical stereographs from The New York Public Library's vast collections into shareable 3D web formats. This site is all about your participation, so have fun with it and experiment with it. http://stereo.nypl.org/ 
Here's two created earlier

GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator

GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator

Backing up digital files

Backing up digital files may seem a strange subject for this blog but it is an important topic that regularly crops up with students.

Having spent a considerable amount of time putting together a design solution, what could be worse than finding that document has been lost, or accidentally wiped. Visual Communication staff thoroughly recommend that all digital files are backed up – memory sticks, removable drives or CD’s are ideal for this. There is also an additional location – ‘the cloud’.

Take a look at Drop Box, which offers a free web-based file hosting service.

Drop Box uses cloud storage to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization. There are both free and paid services, each with varying options. The free service provides 2 GB of free online storage and users who refer Dropbox to others can gain up to 8 GB of additional free storage.

This post is recommending Drop Box as an additional back up option. By placing you latest project files in your Drop Box, you can be sure that your files are safely stored, online, should anything happen to your precious memory stick.

Represent, London - what makes an ideal candidate?

Represent, are asking a collection of renowned designers and studios for their thoughts on what makes an ideal candidate.

"Simply having a great portfolio isn’t enough to secure you your perfect position. Studios are looking for more than just evidence of excellent design work—they’re employing a person, and who you are, your approach and how you put that across is just as important as what you’ve done." says Represent

In the first 'Ideal Canditate' they speak to Stefan Sagmeister of Sagmeister Inc.
Questions posed include:

DESCRIBE THE IDEAL CANDIDATE IN THREE WORDS

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR YOU TO SEE PERSONAL WORK?

WHAT’S THE ONE THING A POTENTIAL EMPLOYEE CAN DO THAT WILL IMPRESS YOU?
For the full interview visit:

http://idealcandidate.represent.uk.com/home

Vote for Hamza

Hamza Darby, final year student has entered 'Don't Panic Online' design a poster competition. His design can be viewed and voted for, at:

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/designtheposter/spirit/entry/2548

Good luck Hamza 

January Letterpress workshops

Harriet Leith has been in touch to share some of her photographs of January's letterpress workshops at the Black Country Living Museum. Harriet, first year graphics student, had an enjoyable day learning to print with the help and assistance of the museums expert printer Ken. Samples of some of the museums regular print are shown in  these photographs - look out for the 'behaviour' sign for trams, as well as hand printed paper bags.