News & Events

Over the next year I’m going to go back to my roots and make more pictures, both still and moving, as well as writing words (which I may do less).  As a political (small ‘p’) animal at heart, it is work that has something to say, or maybe more importantly work that asks questions, that inspires me most in terms of my own creative practice.  (I don’t force this upon my students, although they do at least have to have a focused idea they are pursuing!) ... read more »

Message from my activist colleague Corine Dhondee about the heavy-handed tactics she witnessed by the police when secretly filming protests at the council building.  We might look at what is happening in Libya today and say we are lucky and have nothing to complain about, but I feel we must protect the freedoms that we have today, as if we take them for granted and let our freedoms erode and don’t defend them, then tomorrow if they are all gone, it will be too late to complain.

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Message from   Corine:  ... read more »

Earlier this week MIT Press published a ‘video book’ called ‘Learning from YouTube’ by Media Studies Professor Alexandra Juhasz.  The book is not of the physical kind, nor is it a downloadable file for your Kindle or iPad.  It is a website-book which has been peer reviewed and given an ISBN number, which exists in, amongst and around YouTube, with the site being the subject matter, field of research and platform for dissemination. ... read more »

I’m posting information here about Serena Beakhurst, the missing 14 year old girl from London, because the national UK media have not covered this story at all.  She went missing on December 15th, see the main story below.

The silence in the national media of Serena’s disappearance is in stark contrast with the coverage of Joanna Yeates, whose tragic disappearance got masses of global coverage even before her body was found and landlord arrested. ... read more »

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Exactly one week until the good people of England, Scotland and Wales go to the polls, our film got a sudden boost  of publicity yesterday when – stranger than fiction – the current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a woman pensioner who confronted him “a bigot”.  * 

Here is how the plans for the film’s main characters, due to be released next Thursday May 6th (UK election day), are shaping up. 

Character synopsis 

Jim Carrey plays Gordon Brown  ... read more »

On Radio 4 a while ago there was a debate about patron saints and nationalism, and if it was a healthy thing.  One of the guests said they thought Saint George’s day was a good opportunity for different communities to celebrate in England, as Saint George himself represented inclusiveness as he was born in Turkey (ref), and is the patron saint of Aragon, ... read more »

Just the other day I wrote about how the  punk scene of the 70s, and the hip hop scene of the 80s and early 90s, both drew on DIY culture and the principle of creating your own noise if you were being ignored.  Punk lost its’ pioneer Malcolm Mclaren a couple of weeks ago, and this week Hip Hop lost one its’ own pioneers, Guru from the group Gang Starr, who lost his battle with cancer. ... read more »

If you are an American reading this, then please understand that in the UK yesterday we have just had our first ever televised political leaders debate in an election campaign, broadcast on ITV in a 90 minutes live transmission.  As you know, you’ve had yours since 1960 with the Kennedy/Nixon debate – we are only 50 years behind you!  There’s no turning back now…… ... read more »

Now with the General Election less than a month away in England, all talk is on how many votes the three main parties will get.  The figures I am more interested in, especially long-term, is how many members will each party have?  The only talk of party membership in the media has been about the far-right British National Party (BNP).  There have been stories about their leaked membership list,  the legal challenge to their ... read more »