For the past few months every Thursday morning we've been going along to BetaBreakfast.
Betabreakfast is hosted by Betahaus a 2,000 sqm workspace in Kreuzberg Berlin. Betahaus describes itself as 'a co-working space for creatives'. It is set up to serve a way of working where teams come together and disband according to the project at hand and workspace terms are affordable and flexible. Betahaus has all of the usual facilities required to run a small business including the cafe where we meet for breakfast. The fluid nature of the space means that it is brimming with startup ventures and every thursday morning people meet over breakfast to take turn introducing themselves and their projects.
Betabreakfast is an informal opportunity to first show projects to a group of like minded entrepreneurs. Projects are usually self initiated so these are first steps in a feedback loop with Betabreakfast as a kind of startup school. Discussion is generally relevant to most present if not there is always the fall back of a good german breakfast. Sitting in on breakfast you often find observers from Brussels (EU) here purely out of interest of the startup culture in action.
Betahaus is not without a position feedback tends towards a non elitist social good with OpenSource and OpenData at it's heart and away from an overtly commercial Walled (Garden) approach. Although this position could equally be attributed to the whole of Berlin.
Betabreakfast is part of a wider trend in Berlin that is seriously competing to be the startup capital of Europe. In the field of online audio we find ourselves in impressive company in Berlin SoundCloud HQ is nearby in Mitte and Sourcefabric Airtime literally next door.
Avco is based in Betahaus, Berlin for summer 2011 with our startup project ShoutOut.fm
How to future proof digital works of art?
Avco has worked on computer editions for artist Michael Craig-Martin since 2002, writing software to control the display of his drawings.
In February 2011 Tate Conservation invited us to attend a symposium on how best to future proof digital works of art. We were consulted with regard to the works in the Tate Collection by Michael Craig-Martin 'Becoming, 2003' and 'Things Change', 2007. Daniel Jackson from Avco wrote the original software and Avco was commissioned in 2010 by the Tate to migrate the sofware as part of the artworks' digital conservation.
Thinking about how digital works of art exist in the world is of real interest to us, we have a great deal to say on the matter if you ever wish to hear our thoughts.
Photo by Daniel Jackson - Michael Craig-Martin, 'Things Change' 2007, installation for Tokyo New Art Centre, Japan
A contextual app is a game, data navigation tool, widget, mini-app, flash game, ajax visualization - basically a bit of software that displays information on a website related to your location in the site and the data you are interested in. An audio player is a simple example of a contextual app.
We wanted the Music Map to be useful across the NMC website and accessible from the data it related to. We achieved this by having the map launch from each of the composers homepages, from the features on the front banner and there is a also dedicated launch page. On clicking the map button the app opens fullscreen providing an alternative navigation to the information and audio resources on the site.
Each of the 250 featured composers have a Music Map and each composer is the starting point of their own map.
Using Flash rather than javascript means that the Music Map experience can be more immersive. The map launches full screen, it is graphically rich and animated. For non-flash users (i.e. iPhone users) all the relationships are available as 'Similar Composer' links. The map becomes more of an experience, particularly with the audio player providing a musical atmosphere (playing a track of the Composer you are viewing), and there are many drop-off points back into the website. Being contextual you can navigate from one composer to another, switching back and forth between Music Map and website modes.
It's the same data just another way of seeing it.
