I have been looking recently at the issue of sharing Artivity data. I did a short bibliographical review (attached at the bottom of the post) and it confirms that the idea of the semantic desktop was particularly popular around the middle of the 00's but it never really took off although the open source community embraced it (especially KDE and GNOME projects).
Some interesting projects came up in the review:
Artivity is a set of software applications which capture contextual data produced during the creative process of artists and designers while working on a computer. The captured data can be used as evidence about the creative process of artists and it can also be used as a way to document technique. Artivity software can also be used as part of a self-archiving tool for artists who wish to document their practice.
Ligatus, a research centre of the University of the Arts London, in collaboration with Oxford University are inviting applications for a PhD research project in the subject of machine learning in bookbinding history.
We are pleased to announce the forthcoming international workshop on the materiality of written culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: On the Matter of Books and Records. Forms, Substance, Forgeries, and Meanings Beyond the Lines, organised by the AR.C.H.I.ves Project (Birkbeck, University of London), the Ligatus Research Centre (University of the Arts London) and the History of Design Programme (Royal College of Art / Victoria & Albert Museum).
Following the JISC sandpit on the 13th and 14th of July, Artivity is now funded for another 4 months by JISC. This is great news for the project as it will give us the opportunity to develop a new plugin for Krita which is a raster image editing package. You can see the full sandpit presentation on slide share, including the deliverables for phase two.
The Artivity Explorer window is developing nicely. The panel on the left now is used as a summary of the statistics extracted from the data which looks a lot more tidy. The right of the screen is divided into two panels. The top one shows a graph of the collected data over time and it incorporates both editing activity of an Inkscape file and browsing activity. The bottom one is currently a list of recorded actions. Sebastian and Moritz are looking into coordinating the two and allowing some sort of navigation to accommodate large amounts of data. Screenshots attached.
I have just received an advance copy of the British Library's new book of essays about the St Cuthbert Gospel (The St Cuthbert Gospel: Studies on the Insular Manuscript of the Gospel of St John (BL, Additional MS 89000), edited by Claire Breay and Bernard Meehan, London: The British Library, 2015). The volume celebrates the Library's acquisition of this remarkable book in 2012, and two chapters discuss the binding in detail. My own looks at the history of the study of the binding as well as its construction and the techniques used in its decoration.
Last week I was in Germany to meet Sebastian Faubel and Moritz Eberl from Semiodesk. We had a great meeting and laid the plans for Phase 2 and 3 of the project. We discussed the new ppa Ubuntu Linux repository for Artivity and some interesting ideas for visualising Artivity data. Much of the data that Artivity deamon collects makes sense in relation to time.
You are cordially invited to the Ligatus and CERL Bookbinding Seminars, Plenary Session and Reception that will take place on 23rd June 2015 at Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4JU.
Places are limited therefore early booking is recommended.
