Susannah since has moved to her eponymous blog that contains her daily scribbles as well as her ever evolving insight into her progress of writing a novel.

Now having been down this road, I know what it can be like. Susannah, just before moving over to her own blog, she self published her story / essay / photo essay about the adult movie industry and the recession 'They Shoot Porn Stars Don't They?'. Now, the writing is great, the story is again, moving, interesting, funny, harrowing, etc, the photos are clever and it received a very positive, very wide reception.

What is interesting for me personally however, is the fact that Susannah is a widely read, highly respected journalist / blogger. She has won countless awards and accolades, she clearly know's her subject, and in a weird way, it's niche, at least her style of writing about the industry is niche. But for all this, she couldn't find someone to publish the essay so she self published, and in recent months has decided to go down the same road with her first novel. In other words, if someone like Susannah is self publishing because she feel's it is the best way to reach her audience and do what she want's to do creatively, then that's a great thing for all other self publishers / independent publishers out there.

One artist that simply blew my mind however was, Chiharu Shiota, as the exhibition site says, 'remembrance and oblivion, dreaming and sleeping, resonate in Shiota's performances and installations'. Personally, I'm a fan, if not addict, of lucid dreaming, I can induce lucid dreams and wake up inside my dreams most nights / mornings. That combined with recurring dreams about apocalypse and doom, Shiota's work definitely hit home.

Images of the all encompassing physical, visual and mental experience are below, it blew me away, making me feel unsettled and at peace at the same time. Completely unnerving and unhinged, epic on a micro scale, tens of thousands of lines all interjecting and making a whole, powerful stuff. If you get chance, go to an exhibition and absorb the feeling.

I can see why people are taken by his creations, I'm particularly drawn to the switching surfaces of his pieces, between the drilled holes and completely smooth with interjecting lines. There is an immediate cross between modern space exploration equipment, some of the pieces look like they've fallen straight off the space shuttle, and the barnacle coated underneath of a sea faring vessle. I love the idea of space crustaceans collecting on the hulls of spaceships, which is what his work connotes to me.

Hiroyuki has his own blog where you can keep up to date with his latest pieces and exhibitions.

The work is by Tavis Coburn and is for The BAFTA Awards. In a great call, and clearly knowing what the fans and internet like, they commissioned Tavis, of Dutch Uncle design studios, to create a poster for each of the nominees for best film.

I've come across Tavis's work before, he's an illustrative artist of the highest caliber. Educated at California's Art Centre College of Design his work is inspired by, in his own words, "1940's comic book art, the Russian avant-garde movement and printed materials from the 1950's & 1960's," and you can tell.

It inspired me this morning, the colour, the strong lines across the faces of the subjects and the imagery surrounding as well, the contrast that is typical of the 40's comic book art that inspires him. Love it, made me smile first thing and is great to start things off with. The image for Hurt Locker is below, and the others are in a gallery.

Cementum - Iteration 1 - Past - Me talking about my experiences novel writing

Cementum - Iteration 2 - Present - Me talking about my own experiences on a creative journey with Operation Concrete

Cementum - Iteration 3 - Future - Me talking about my own on going creative journey with ditto and Rawstone Media as well as other peoples

Essentially, one of my favourite blogs online is that of Bobby Solomon, he's a creative designer dude and his blog, Kitsune Noir is full, like completely choc-a-block with awesomeness. His weekly / bi-monthly guest based 'desktop background' content is awesome, his mixtapes are usually worth a good listen and he find some of the best creative stuff online. I'm going to steal his model a little and start doing some similar things.

1 - I plan on stepping up the content, so it's no longer just about what I'm up to, but it's a lot about others as well, I feel with what I achieved with Operation Concrete next year, I've got a legitimate voice and opinion on creativity now, I'm credible (whatever that means) to a degree, so I'm going to talk about others

2 - I'll keep on about what I'm doing, when and where I get chance, things with Rawstone Media, I've got loads of short story and photography personal micro projects I want to get done and with other people

3 - Repeating content in the form of interviews and guest posts, I want to profile at least one creative person a week, and hopefully, have them answer the question, 'What does being creative mean to you?' Which hopefully will bring in some interesting answers and a nice catalogue of content that I might turn into a little book on the subject or something

That's it really, other people, me and repeating, and we'll see how things go from here.

This is going to be a big round-up post of what 2009 was, and what 2010 will be in terms of my personal life, my professional life, my creative life, my project based life, my novel writing and everything in between.

This post might seem a little involved, but it’s just me congealing things and solidifying a few ideas I’ve had in my head and on paper for a while.

2009:

Just over a year ago I posted what I wanted to achieve in 2009 and with my future in general, it was a gigantic list of bullet points that listed everything from novel writing to art, sculpture and life. A lot of it has gone undiscovered thus far, for example, learning the basics of architecture and designing my own house. However, I did achieve a lot of what was on the list in the last 12 months, and I plan on doing a lot more. Here’s 2009 in a nutshell.

• I applied for and successfully received a English Arts Council grant to the amount of £5,000

• I revised and edited away at my first novel, Concrete Operational, to the point where I felt happy I was ready to independently publish it

• I created the collaborative media project, Operation Concrete, in which I brought together five bands and five artists around five themes of the novel to produce an album of original music and an art book of original art coupled to extracts from the novel exploring human emotions including; Love, jealousy, madness, anger, desire

• I created a bespoke, handmade made package called The Collection, that includes the novel, art book and album together, in a limited number of 200

• I created a short film based around a monologue from the novel, with the amazing E T Cook at the camera and editing helm

• I held a launch night for the novel, art book and album, and short film at which the bands played, the film was shown, readings from the book were read and a seven day exhibition of art was kicked off

• I have now set up, and with this post will be officially recognising for the first time, my second entrepreneurial venture, Rawstone Media Industries, a micro-independent-publishing-house.

• I lived my first full year in the Big Smoke, London, working as a social media strategist and digital creative which has been an awesome third year in this industry

• I advised on, consulted with, talked to, built and initiated digital and social creative engagement for companies ranging from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe through to Universal Studios.

So, all in all, it was an extremely busy and successful year, other notes of awesomeness include hitting the two year mark with my amazing girlfriend, city hopping a little and hitting Madrid, Berlin, Marrakech and Edinburgh, hitting the ripe old age of 26 and no longer being able to apply for a young person’s rail card, and meeting all the amazing new people that I have met over the last 12 months.

2010:

I’ve still got the big list of challenges and goals that I want to achieve over the coming years, but they will remain where they are at the moment whilst I congeal the foreground and concentrate on a few new things over the coming 12 months.

• I am going to officially launch Rawstone Media Industries with a huge promotional push for the business, the first project, Operation Concrete, and the second project for the business and myself.

• I am aiming to do at least two projects this year, that currently seems like an absolutely massive goal, but we’ll see how the year goes

• First project of 2010? Loosely titled: ‘A reason to live’ is going to be about the exploration of the human condition and the reason people struggle to survive against the terror of reality, based around my second novel ‘Tastes Like Copper’

• I aim to bring together artists, musicians, photographers, cinematographers, animators, graphic novelists, and anyone else I can convince to join in around the general theme of, ‘Reasons to live’ such as; joy, revenge, beauty, family, sex, etc

• I am starting a new job as senior editor at the collaborative media agency Ditto, they are: “A UK based collective of multimedia artists and producers. With our online communities we are global in reach and work and collaborate with international artists entertaining audiences around the world.”

• My first project for Ditto is currently under NDA, but it is for one of the worlds biggest media companies and global in reach, split between New York, London and Tokyo. I’ve got an amazing opportunity here and I’m going to put absolutely everything I have into it.

Possible third and fourth possible projects involve:

• Champ the Bean Dragon – A series of children’s books about a dragon that breathes beans instead of fire and his adventures with various companions. Collaborating with musicians, artists and animators to bring together an immersive experience for adults and children alike

• CartoonCore – A series of 80’s styled cartoon introductions. Collaborating with animators, cinematographers and musicians to produce a series of 60-90 second long cartoon introductions in the truly awesome style of 80’s and early 90’s cartoons such as Transformers, Thundercats and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

Other smaller things I aim to pick up this year:

• Photography – Put my SRL to better use and get out and get to the places I want to photograph around London and elsewhere and possibly do a few small projects

• Short Stories – Try to get out a few short sci-fi stories based around the ideas I’ve been noting down for ages now

• More online content – I’m drawing up a weekly schedule that I’m going to stick to for as long as I can of blog posts for here, for Rawstone Media, online video, and all the other gubbins like Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc, etc, etc.

Anyway, this post is getting a little out of control now, so I’m going to stop. 2010 is going to be a great start to what I predict to be an intense and exhilarating next decade, wonder where I’ll be in 2020? I can’t wait to find out!

See you on the other side.

This post is long overdue, I guess I should have done this shortly after the actual launch night but December turned out to be just as busy and stressful as the preceding months and I ended up pretty much sleeping for the entire 10 days I had off over Christmas.

So anyway, the last 12 months have been a truly amazing, eye opening, challenging, unrelenting set of long nights full with self discovery, smiles, frowns, ideas, creativity, drinks and madness. I couldn’t have asked for more, and I couldn’t have received more support from the people that were involved. A true journey into the world of independent publishing and collaborative media.

So to kick off Thank You To Everyone Involved!

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The roll of honour!

Bands:

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Jealousy

Dan Dunne & The Reels

Madness

Invasion

Desire

Akira

Love

My First Tooth

Anger

Rue the Day

-

Artists:

-

Jealousy

Holly Exley

Madness

Benjamin Phillips

Desire

Bill Talbot

Love

Tori Treasure

Anger

Gareth A. Hopkins

-

Other:

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For proofing the novel and ensuring it made sense

The Oxford Editors

For being extremely accommodating on the night of the launch and for the exhibition

Vibe Bar

For giving me £5,000 toward the project

Arts Council

For producing an amazing mix of the final record

Area 18 Studios

For doing all the web design and always being on hand when I was panicking

Mikey Stephens

For producing the awesome sound pods for the exhibition

Leigh Cranston Props

For producing stunning art work for the novel, art book and album covers

Michael Cranston Design

Everyone else who lent a hand, read a passage, gave me feedback, listened to me banging on, or generally kept me company online during the long nights and early mornings, I could not have done it without you.

-

The final products:

-

Concrete Operational – The novel by Richard Galbraith

BUY ON AMAZON HERE
The first stage of the novel is available to read below

Concrete Operational – The Art book

BUY ON AMAZON HERE

The art based around the extract for Jealousy by Holly Exley is available to look at below

Concrete Operational – The Album

BUY ON AMAZON HERE
The artwork for the album and the track for the extract Jealousy by Dan Dunne & The Reels is below

Concrete Operational – The Collection

BUY VIA PAYPAL HERE
The limited edition, handmade, bespoke collection box-sets are available to look at below

Concrete Operational – The Short

DOWNLOAD AT VIMEO HERE
I may make this available on a DVD soon

Concrete Operational - The Short - The book trailer from ricgalbraith on Vimeo.

Concrete Operational – The Exhibition
Jump over to Flickr to have a look at how the exhibition turned out.

Next step is letting as many people know about the project as possible which is getting underway as we speak. All in all it’s been an amazing experience, and I plan on doing a lot more like this in the future, I’ve set up Rawstone Media Industries now which will hopefully allow me to do that. Thanks again to everyone involved!

Anyone is welcome, entry is free, there will be amazing music, incredible art, readings from the novel and the screening of the official Concrete Operational trailer. Map available here and there is a Facebook event where you can sign up officially.

Also, I have some digital embeds for you, using the Issuu service, which is actually pretty cool, I can give you the first stage of the novel (160 pages) and the artwork for the theme of Jealousy.

Concrete Operational - The Novel - Stage 1

Download Concrete Operational - The Novel - Stage 1 by Richard Galbraith as a PDF.

Buy Concrete Operational - The Novel from amazon.

Concrete Operational - The Art Book - Jealousy

Download Concrete Operational - The Art Book - Jealousy by Holly Exley as a PDF.

Buy Concrete Operational - The Art book from amazon.

The album will be on sale soon, but as a sneak preview.

Download Concrete Operational - The Album - Jealousy 'Hey Hey My Head' by Dan Dunne & The Reels as an MP3.

I’m going to do a very big video session on how Mike and I finally landed on what is below, including everything from fonts through to ideas based around sacred geometry and the internal theories of the novel. But, for the mean time, I want to merely present the designs and hear what you think. The reasons will come later.

The images should link through to the high res versions on Flickr, but to skip straight there, click here.

Concrete Operational - The Novel - Front

Concrete Operational - The Novel - Back

Concrete Operational - The Art Book - Front

Concrete Opertional - The Art Book - Back

Concrete Operational - The Album - Front

Concrete Operatinoal - The Album - Back

Concrete Operational - The Album - Inlay

]]> http://www.cementum.co.uk/216/concrete-operational-the-designs/feed/ http://www.cementum.co.uk/210/elkay-estate-agents-bad-business/ http://www.cementum.co.uk/210/elkay-estate-agents-bad-business/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:25:22 +0000 Richard Galbraith http://www.cementum.co.uk/?p=210

Right, this is a short and to the point blog post, it’s slightly off topic, granted, but I’ve had enough, as undoubtedly the vast majority of others who read this blog have, with fucking estate agents.

The only reason I can see for their existence is to make other people’s lives unhappy. From my experience in living in rented accommodation, for the last 8 years, I have never, not once, found a helpful estate agent.

I have lived, doing a quick finger count, in approximately 10 different rented apartments, flats and houses in the last 8 years, which has actually meant 8 different estate agents and a couple of private lets. Never once have I been treated with any form of respect, or politeness or even with a smile, by the estate agents, every single time the swine have tried to fuck me over in some capacity and having recently moved again, and having been treated with contempt once again, I’m blogging about it.

Not because I think blogging about Elkay Properties, in Old Street, London, that operate on a lot of lettings around the Hoxton area, will get back the £30 I was ripped off for an admin fee through no fault of my own, but because I hope, it’ll be a little lesson in social media and the power of word of mouth.

You see, as has probably become apparent in a few of my previous blog posts, I am a social media professional by day. This means I help everyone from brands to film studios engage with people, the sorts of people that talk a lot online, have opinions and like to voice them opinions through this great medium of social media.

I help them connect because they ask, because they are beginning to understand that if I, or anyone else who is miffed or generally pissed off about a product, or film, or brand, or customer service issue, can now publish content online, at zero cost, which ultimately, skipping out a few points, can affect the purchase decisions of others and cause big change. There are a lot of other reasons, but that’s one of the biggies.

Now, back to Elkay, essentially, I asked a number of times (count 4) what my deposit was on my new flat, they failed to let me know, over and over again, which resulted in me, their customer, having to fork out a £30 admin fee on my move in day, or ‘you don’t get your keys’. No, 'Sorry, our mistake, we'll sort it out, here, enjoy your move,' no, just a simple 'pay the fee, or you don't get your keys'.

Thanks a fucking bunch Elkay, your fuck-up cost me money and you made me feel like a cunt, now when people search your company name in Google, this blog post will come up, saying ‘ELKAY PROPERTIES ARE A BUNCH OF INCOMPITENT FUCK HOLES’.

Right, rant over, I will post on the positive side of social media, how it can help your creativity, how it can help raise awareness of what you’re doing, get you feedback and open doors sometime soon, I just needed to take 15 minutes to get that off my chest.

Here's some bunnies to help you calm down, but before you get too calm, rant about more estate agents in the comments section.