For Summer of Code, I propose to implement a platform for distributed collaboration and interaction with large-scale digitial art projects. The project will center around a pilot piece open to participants in the yearly art festival Burning Man. This document describes the motivation in greater depth and gives an overview of the technical details of implementation.
Much of the work of the Creative Commons to date has focused on improving the reuse of creative work by making it possible to create derivative works. An area that has recieved less attention is the Commons as an environment where artists collaborate to create complex works of art.
The dominant technology in the arena of collaborative creativity is arguably the wiki. Current wiki software, however, focuses collaboration on editing text. While other types of media may be present, they are involatile within the context of the wiki.
A more fundamental limitation of wikis is the requirement for consensus. Each artifact in the system has a single authoritative version decided upon by editors. While a consensus-based model might be appropriate for projects with an objective baseline, such as an encyclopedia, there are a variety of situations for which no deciding authority exists.
Scalable Vector Graphics is a standard for two-dimensional graphics that represents the image as a structured text document, much like HTML. Alterations in the image require only changes to the source text, making them prime candidates for reuse.
At this time, no tools exist for the collaborative creation of composite SVGs. The creation of such a tool, particularly when combined with an interesting content project, would serve to engage artists in a new medium while bolstering participation in the Commons.
Central to the system is the use of a work graph which holds contributions from artists as well as information about the social graph and relationships between elements. Responses to content requests take the form of a traversal of the work graph.
A message queue for XML pipelining will be passed through the traverse and accumulate messages to fulfill the request.
Each contributor will have a separate subgraph within the work graph, and viewers will be able either to follow predefined paths or view alternatives and combine work in original ways. The social aspect of the work graph will contain tagging metadata that viewers can use to sort through the possiblities.
Though the pilot project is oriented specifically at SVG, the platform is appropriate for any type of XML composition.
In order to be accessible to the participants of Burning Man which is held at the end of August, some aspects of this project would need to begin initial development in advance of the official opening of Summer of Code in late May.
A potential development timeline is: