Pretty Shitty City

Swansea Arts Forum Trust are holding an open discussion about the Arts in Swansea on 31st January at 7.30pm at Glynn Vivien Gallery.

“The keynote speaker will be Professor David Warner (Principal of Swansea Institute of Higher Education) who will be talking about a future vision of the Arts in Swansea and how Swansea Institute is contributing to this.

Afterwards we would like to involve the audience in an interesting discussion on how they see the Arts developing here in Swansea. This affects all of the Art community in influencing the City and County of Swansea to recognise what an asset they have to enhance Swansea’s image. “

For more information please visit the SAFT website.

http://www.swanseaartsforum.org/home.htm

…so we plug back

Welovelocal have written a nice little article about us for their blog. The website is basically a community driven directory where you can recommend your favourite things about an area and share local knowledge.

So check out the blog and get stuck into the site.

http://www.welovelocal.com/

I’ve been keen to check out the Framework Social events ever since I’d first heard about them, but I was also a bit apprehensive. What kind of people go out to bake bread and listen to music?

Last Tuesday I finally plucked up some courage, spurred on partly by the fact that I had my own promotion to do (thanks for letting me flyer guys ), and ventured down to St. James Social Club to see some art.

That’s what Framework is basically; a place for people to perform, watch and interact with (or is that intra-act?) art.

I arrived early-ish so that I could take a seat comfortably and watch from the sidelines (not very sociable, I know). The organisers were friendly and they filled me in on the programme of events. I payed my £2 (proceeds going to Oxjam on this occasion) and went to the bar.

St. James’ Social Club is a great little venue for performance, with the tables and chairs arranged in a sort-of U shape around the dance floor come stage. Its worth mentioning that Swansea Jazzland organise events here every Wednesday.

So what happens at the Social?

Read the rest of this entry »

Framework, a Swansea based Artist Collective are hosting their next event at St. James’s Social Club in Uplands this Tuesday (3rd July). So if you’re looking for arty, eclectic entertainment this week, you should pop down.

This time we’ve got the following host of talent to enjoy; performance work by Fay Crispin, video work by our own Paul Woodland, ukulele musings from Joan Jones and of coarse the usual bingo excitement will continue. We’re also proud to present Jonathon Anderson as Framework Socials’ very first artist in residence.

Framework Social is a space for experimentation and the development of practices so we are open to suggestions for works, live or static to show. It is also a space for us to build a creative community together so it really is an open space in which you can contribute and participate.

Entrance will cost you two pounds.

The Framework Social is being held at St. James Social Club, St. James Crescent, Uplands, Swansea, SA1 6DR.

Here’s a map of the area.

Tyron Francis is a freelance photographer based in Swansea, and as he’s just re-designed his website, I thought it was a good time to do a little profile on him.

Through exploring Swansea, music & people, Francis has built up a portfolio with varied work, and he gets the geek vote too, for publishing his work under a Creative Commons license.

The two main themes of his work seem to be community and music, both of which he his obviously passionate about. The photos have a gritty documentary feel, but still feel colourful and full of life, capturing moments of raw emotion and day-to-day life as if they were always the same thing.

In his own words, Tyron sees “… photography as a tool for social awareness and change, or rather MY tool for social awareness and change.”

http://www.tfrancis.co.uk/

All images © Tyron Francis and licensed under Creative Commons.

Carbon Made is a neat online portfolio made for designers who want to show off their work on the web but have no html knowledge.

Problems with MySpace aside, it’s a great tool for bands and musicians to network with fans, promoters, and other bands. But when it comes to visual artists, it just doesn’t cut it, and whilst Flickr is good for free image hosting, it’s not quite right for a design portfolio.

If your an illustrator, graphic designer or even animator then Carbon Made is perfect. It offers a simple, easy to use layout, a clean & elegant blank canvas for your images and some pretty nice technology such as RSS feeds and Google Analytics integration if that’s what turns you on.

There are limits though, the free plan only allows 5 projects and 35 images. If you want more space and video hosting you’ll need to pay, but its still a great place to start and so much better than MySpace for this sort of thing.

If you give it a go and like it, then feel free to send us a link to your portfolio

http://www.carbonmade.com/

The guys over at the Third Mind forum have updated their logo, so it seems like a perfect excuse to highlight what they’re about to those of you who haven’t sampled their website yet.

In their own words…

“Thirdmindmedia is a community based website, dedicated to all things urban, electronic in South Wales, whether it be drum’n'bass, hip hop, breaks, dub, grime, garage, djing, mcing, graff or raving…”

Its a great place to keep up to date with gigs in Swansea and the surrounding areas, especially if your interested Drum’n'Bass and Hip-Hop etc. The forum is pretty focused and is kept active by a small group of regulars, definitely worth checking out a few times a week.

Don’t pretend you didn’t know! …its Fairtrade Fortnight in Swansea from the 26th of Feb till 11th of March.

Get up to speed on the events at Fairtrade Swansea.

Spl.Ash Media are a group of individuals, passionate about the entertainment industry.

Through their new website, Splash Media Online, they’re offering support for musicians, bands and any artists in the entertainment industry, from design and brand image to business and legal support.

The website looks really smart, if a little image-heavy, and promises a regular podcast (damn, they beat me too it! )

Shared Creation has posted an article about Pretty Shitty City in their projects blog. The piece is very flattering and it’s great to see that the range of topics covered on this site is being appreciated, you can read the article here.

The Shared Creation site has some very similar aims to Pretty Shitty City; including creative collaboration, technology, community, art & film making etc. (check out Consumed: a zombie film project!)