Darker than vermilion?

When I signed myself up to witness the 60x60 concert on the final day of 2011's cultural eXchanges I had already guessed I was letting myself in for something spectacular; the rest of the week had been an absolute eye-opener and I had no doubt in my mind that this concert was going to give me plenty of food for thought too.

The first real indication that this event was already going to be different from what I'd anticipated was the layout of the hall; tiers of seats and hushed whispers, exactly what I’d expected. But I hadn't anticipated the two large speakers and apparent absence of musicians.

The electronic collection, consisting of sixty compositions of sixty seconds each, was performed in complete darkness (which made note-taking very interesting indeed) except for a clock face projected onto the front wall of the room.

The collection itself was very chilling, creating a definite sense of unease and disjointedness - the whole composition gave off a very 'Silent Hill' vibe in my opinion, which created a very extraordinary atmosphere which would be hard to replicate.

The collection we heard was ‘Vermillion’ – although perhaps they should consider renaming to a different, darker shade to fit the tone of the pieces.

For more informationc click HERE.


Samantha Inglis

Free Biscuits! now that I've got your attention ...

You know you've had a truly inspiring day when you can't get your thoughts in order for your next creative piece. Having experienced some of the work of twenty-three of De Montfort University's third year students I feel far more motivated than I have in some time to sit and simply write.

Today I learnt that I've been taking the creative side of creative writing for granted. Ordinarily I would sit down, pen and paper in hand, and write prose. I'd never before considered using post-it notes or jigsaw puzzles, let alone printing T-shirts as a medium for my words - until now, that is.

The collection of works at the Demon Crew publication event was truly inspirational for the mixed audience of university students, fellow writers and the general public. I feel this event has opened my eyes to new realms of possibilities just waiting to be explored, and I can't wait to get started.

And did I mention there were free biscuits?


Samantha Inglis

Half-way thoughts

So, here we are half way through the 2011 Cultural Exchanges at DMU, and what a week it's been so far!

The Postgraduate creative writing event has definitely been my favourite to date, with five varied but uniformly enthusiastic writers coming together in a mix of humour, reality, refection, gore, sex and ... more sex, it really wasn't an event to be missed; the entire audience was engaged from start to finish, which is exactly what I look forward to at such an occasion.

Having had such a brilliant experience so far, I've certainly geared myself up for the rest of the week, holding high hopes for the 'Arts in Prison' event tomorrow evening in particular, and to finish the week with a dash of Alan Moore, what more could I want?


Samantha Inglis