Fire On The Lifeboat reveals THE site for those sick-days.

Having caught some awful virus which has rendered me unable to speak, eat or sleep without a great deal of discomfort, I shall make this brief. Coming to my rescue today, as it has many times in the past, is Abandonia.

Listing literally hundreds of abandoware games (computer software which is no longer being sold or supported by its copyright holder), the site offers free downloads for nearly almost all of them. If retro and 8-bit is your thing or you owned a computer in the eighties, this will be the best thing you've ever found on the web.

Disclaimer: While this site may be the perfect cure for boredom, illness and bitmap nostalgia, Fire on the Lifeboat cannot be held responsible for job-loss or relationship-breakdown as a result of rediscovering Dune, Final Fantasy, Elite, Dizzy or Ultima.

Contributed by Fire on the Lifeboat.

Listening hard to murmurs along the media grapevine, Fire on the Lifeboat highlights some calls for media submissions from the visual art/film world.

Young artists in remote areas of the UK often find it hard to receive funding or capture an audience for their work, due to their lack of proximity to a large media-infused city. However, there are often more calls for artistic submissions than you might realise in any given area and often geography isn't a factor in selection. If your work is relevant, properly presented and good, it stands as good a chance as any. Why not take a look at the following calls from the Northern region of the UK?

Isis Arts have put out a call for artist film and video on the theme of 'Every man's home is his castle'. The theme lends itself to a broad interpretation from the exploration of different national boundaries to individual's private personal space, from isolation to Big Brother, from a refuge to a 'show house'. ISIS support artist residencies and projects across northern England.

Northern Lights Film Festival showcases work in all genres and visual forms, including narrative, documentary, experimental and design-oriented work. They have a call for the North Star Short Film Award, a short film prize totalling £40,000!. Entries can be live action or animated, or hybrid and may be shot or created in any format: film, analog/digital video or entirely on a computer.

Aberdeen's SoundAsArt conference welcomes papers on the topic of sound art that address questions of origin, exploration of boundaries between related practices, investigations of current practices, and speculation on the future development of sound art for the more academically minded of you out there.

And finally, if you really want to look further afield, Bangkok-based DIME 2006 International Conference on Digital Interactive Media and Arts are looking for interactive installations, interactive cinema, and any other emergent art form that focus on the use of innovative technologies. They are also looking for papers on a whole host of headings including "Entertainment Art and Technology", "New Media Emerging Technologies", "Code Art" & "Interactive Stories". What better way to get a sun-tan?

And don't forget, submit your blogs/showcase sites/myspaces to noisefestival@hotmail.com and get some well-deserved exposure with compliments from NOISE!

Contributed by Fire on the Lifeboat

Fire on the Lifeboat takes a look at the visual art of Annika Garratt.

Bournemouth-based artist Annika Garratt offers a feast for the eyes on her online portfolio through a variety of means and modes. Oils on canvas is where her work achieves most resonance and whether it is her portrayals of new blossom over swept seas, reclining goddesses, or forests of deciduous Klimts that her hand decides upon, Garratt balances finesse with hue, and subtlety with surety.

Equally happy to accede to the drama of pencil or daguerreotype stylings of acrylic on board, Garratt appears happiest when experimenting with both form and execution. Check out her site for delicate flower murals, paper-mache paintings and cut-and-paste photo/drawing splicing and examine the scope of the work for yourself.

Also worth a mention today is the daily-updated wood s lot. A phenomenal resource for writers, artists and musicians, it focuses upon the finest avant-garde and experimental work of the past centuries and offers links to retrospectives, opinion and showcases. There is no finer hub of artistic intention than this site - Kurt Schwitters is featured today.

Contributed by Fire on the Lifeboat

Fire on the Lifeboat investigates free music on the web.

The psychadelic quagmire of myspace is no secret. Anything can be uncovered here. Diamond quality psuedo-electro gabba remixes of Christina Aguilera; veritable opal-and-topaz singer-songwriters baring their hearts for your broadband connection; the deeper echelons of Norwegian black metal complete with razor costumes and dwarf-train; lumps of militant militant feminist Grrrl power groups covering Enya on their Casio banks. The mine of internet music is deep and dark and the shop just ran out of head lamps.

All the more reason to get to it. Host your breakfast vocal creations, your orchestral manoeuvres in the bath, your stadium bedsheet rock on the internet. Reach an apathetic audience, attract unstable fans, rebuff record label advances… the world is your sitar.

Start getting the word around by sending your music sites to noisefestival@hotmail.com and wait, just wait, for them to be featured here.

In the meantime, here is some music that deserves to be let out into the sunshine, for these bands are embracing our medium and letting you download tracks from their websites for free. You have no excuse.

Wu-Tang Clan - 215 tracks, productions, demos and collaborations.
Dangerdoom - MF Doom & Dangermouse (of Gnarls Barkley fame) EP available.
Deerhoof - Noisy, eclectic, sonorous, melodic, unhinged rock.

On the day that Maoists seem set to join the Nepalese government, Fire on the Lifeboat highlights the role the internet has in maintaining freedom of expression.

Why Nepal? Two reasons:
 

i) Nepal’s situation is one of the political issues of our time. Engage with the world and inform yourself about the climate you live in politically, socially and artistically – the world is a small place. If you are to become relevant in any way to whichever field you choose to pursue, an interaction with the issues of the day are essential.

 

ii) The range of information. The internet plays host to a realm of opinions, documents, fictions and facts – none or all of which could be accurate. For instance, take at look at Nepalgov and FreeNepal, two websites dealing with the same country and conflict in vastly different ways. Blogging is at the forefront of the push for freedom of information. Radio Free Nepal is a simple, free blogger.com site that can be established within five minutes. And yet, as the blog claims, Radio Free Nepal is one of the only sources of news from within Nepal that is not censored by the monarchy. This interview with one of the authors provides a fascinating insight into its operation.

 

However, as this fictional blog piece warns, beware of anything that claims to be the truth. There are no facts, only versions of events. However, along with a healthy dose of cynicism, the internet and its spectrum of information is one of the most vital tools in remaining balanced and informed about local and global situations.

 

So, some advice: Establish a blog, read everything, write something.

(And in the meantime, while you wait for the submission of your new political blog to upload to noisefestival@hotmail.com, investigate the Irrepressible campaign and pledge your support against political censorship on the internet.)

 

Contributed by Fire on The Lifeboat

The roots of portrait painting are to be found in Prehistoric times, but it came to really flourish as a prominent art-form in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The early twentieth century saw the artists’ portrait repertoire expand even further and, despite a fall in popularity towards the middle of the 20th century, portrait painting has once more undergone a revival at the start of the new millennium.

Eduard Castells NOISE space provides an excellent example not just of how far the portrait has come but also of how the internet is now being used to showcase art,. Taking the Dalai Lama, The Phantom and a wide range of characterised animals, Castells applies a unique touch to an age old process.

His NOISE showcase features a series of caricatures, portraits and studies of a wide range of subjects from superheroes to hipsters to misfits. Pictures of alienation, friendship and vice abound, but one thing really stands out in Castells’ work: personality and character. Idiosyncrasy and individuality shines from each picture, providing us with figures who all have a story.

The narrative aspect of Castell’s work grabs the attention; whether it’s the lechery of sweetheart, the uptight comedy of senhora, or the pathos of bighead, these are beautiful caricatures that have been brought to life by the artist’s talent. Castells shows himself to have a fine grasp of a variety of mediums, experimenting with pencil sketch delicacy as well as refreshing swathes of colour. The artist’s digital collages add an entirely new dimension to his work also, ensuring that he walks an expert line between Marvel comic-art, Picasso’s portraiture and Photoshop kitsch.

Contributed by Fire on The Lifeboat

Seeking to exhibit the very best in young British talent, NOISE blog will serve to communicate, inspire and entertain with a new series of posts highlighting some of the best submissions received by NOISE alongside links to some of the most innovative and challenging online work the web has to offer.

In addition, NOISE blog will keep you informed of all the latest festival happenings, collaborations and events all the way up to the October 2006 NOISE media showcase.

Blogs are the literary medium of the 21^st century. Democratic, functional and unlimited in scope, blogs can be used to showcase art and fiction, host music files and pictures, offer political comment and journalistic insight, or simply act as a filter and hub for information and links. It’s the perfect way to exhibit your talent and signing up for an MSN space couldn’t be easier.

Submit your noise space to noisefestival@hotmail.com and keep checking NOISE blog to see if your site is featured. Remember NOISE festival has no preferences. If you are under 25, creative, and are able to present your work digitally then it is you we are looking for!