marcus westbury

There is a palpable sense of decline, decay and even a little despair in Europe. I’ve spent the past few weeks passing through major centres such as Dublin, London and Cologne and made a few side trips. The recession is hitting, creative communities are suffering and yet they’re demonstrating initiative and resilience at a time [...]

The discussion just keeps coming… The  HVRF talk i gave last week has garnered a lot of attention for its analysis and response to the problem of dysfunctional commercial property markets. In the contexts in which i find myself talking about Renew Newcastle the economic issues are rarely discussed or analysed. Given the interest i [...]

Just a quick heads up that i am speaking at the Brisbane Ideas Festival on Friday of this week. New Operating Systems for Creativity New York arts worker Liz Slagus, arts commentator Marcus Westbury and Urban Informatics consultant Dan Hill discuss how technology and new media are rearranging our creative lives. Liz, Dan and I [...]

I have two separate speaking engagements this week. On Wednesday night i’ll be speaking as part of the Inspired Media series organised by the folks at Portable Content: Date:    Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Time:    6:00pm – 8:00pm Location:    Horse Bazaar Street:     397 Little Lonsdale Street City/Town:    Melbourne, Australia Their facebook group has all the information. [...]

One of the strange things about being on television is that it creates the impression that you’re busy, jetsetting and living some sort of glamorous, high profile existence. To be fair, i did get to go to the Logies but it isn’t all tedious and bizarre nights surrounded by people who dig up people’s gardens, [...]

It’s been pretty quiet around here – mainly becuase i’ve been a little preoccupied with getting the new series of Not Quite Art finished off. We wrapped production last week and the show is now in the hot little hands of the ABC. Look, they’ve even got a web page up for it! I will [...]

For those of you who are in Newcastle and want to find out more about the “Renewing Newcastle” proposals, we are holding an information night on Wednesday 10th of September at 6:30pm. The venue is the Lock Up (next to the now derelict Post Office) at 90 Hunter Street Newcastle. I’m pleased to say that [...]

Expect much more on this as the months roll on but i’ve finally gone public about what I’ve been running around proposing for the Newcastle CBD. It’s so crazy it just might work. Courtesy of ABC Radio 1233 (you can hear the interview and see some pictures here)… Vacant shopfronts in the Newcastle CBD should [...]