evnt workshop notes

Yesterday I went to the [evnt workshop](http://p.evnt.org/wiki/InvitationToWorkshop) at Space. Here are my raw notes.

—-

*Ben*: opened the proceedings

*Rachel*: Media Arts Officer - map the territory, commissioned:
A dynamic mapping tool available for public, online participation which makes visible the networks that exist between people, organisations, machines, venues, distribution and art-forms in the media arts sector in London.
Rather than commission an external consultant to write a document which would soon be out of date.
Calendaring system, wireless node database

*Timo*: Mapping ideas:

* email in & out of Arts Council
* geographic shifts over time
* relationships over time
* where the money is
* *event mapping* - tangible, strong motivation, low level (appropriate granularity), complementary

*Jack*: gave a brief overview

*Matt*: The website is one point in a constellation - SMAL, openguides, wireless london, evnt etc.
Living thing, whose calendars they’re reading (mattw), color intesity for event density, everyones events, tags, my events - would like to incorporate my activity (when I went to the month long exhibition), my notes, etc.
iCal and rss feeds
visaulisation of tag co-ocurrence to understand how people talk about events

*Intros*: Earle Martin - [OpenGuides](http://openguides.org), Dave Green - [NTK](http://ntk.net), Rachel Baker - [Arts Council](http://artscouncil.org.uk), Roger Rees - [MAzine](http://mazine.ws), Dorian Mcfarland - [Artscrape](http://artscrape.org), Julian Priest? - [SMAL](http://smal.omweb.org)/[Futuresonic](http://futuresonic.com), Stuart Tily - [Shooting People](http://shootingpeople.org/), Ruth Catlow & ? - [Furtherfield.org](http://furtherfield.org)/[HTTP](http://http.uk.net), Gini Simpson - [SPACE Media Arts](http://www.spacemedia.org.uk/), Peter Ferne - [BristolWireless](http://bristolwireless.net)/[Futurelab](http://nestafuturelab.org), Giles Lane - [Proboscis](http://proboscis.org.uk), Nico Macdonald - [AIGA ED events](http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?contentalias=edlondon), [UXnet](http://uxnet.org), Emily Druiff - [Media arts](http://smal.omweb.org/modules/wakka/MissM)?, Kelli Dipple - webcasting curator at the [Tate](http://tatae.org.uk), (opensource php event management, handheld for on site event management), Jan Grant - [ILRT, Bristol](http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/) - Iugo project, semweb, academic confs, locating communities of practice, Colm Lally - [E:vent network](http://eventnetwork.org.uk/), local gallery, [Tom Carden](http://www.tom-carden.co.uk/) - UCL, (airport simulation, pedestrian movement, software for architects), Steve Coast - [OpenStreetMap](http://openstreetmap.org), Mikel Maron - [World as a blog](http://brainoff.com/geoblog/), Pierre Vella - Media Arts coordinator at [Space](http://spacestudios.org.uk/), (PHP iCalendar), Darrel Berry - [KU24](http://www.ku24.com/), Saul Albert - [Wireless London](http://wirelesslondon.info), Free LBS, [Dorkbot London](http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/), Semantic City, Jo Walsh - [Wireless London](http://wirelesslondon.info), semweb, GIS, tools glue etc.,

Rachel’s equivalent in Bristol? Mariam Sharpe - Senior Visual Arts Officer, Arts Council SW. No specific Media Arts focus (yet - what about Nema?)

### Session 2.1: Data integration

Evnt is written in python, iCal input and output - doesn’t do all of it but there’s a new GPL library that does the whole spec.
It’s not intended to be webfacing - web API for your desktop software.
It’s calendar sharing, no central database of events - we don’t have the time or the money. Looking for multiple installs, cf. mailing list software.
‘Where’ is currently a free text field.
iCalendar spec includes ‘categories’, ~tags, need to be able to roundtrip to iCal etc. (which doesn’t currently support categories)

*Geodata*: openguides.org, wiki plus locales (geotags) and categories (topic tags), optional latitude and longitude. [http://map.wirelesslondon.info/map/wl2](http://map.wirelesslondon.info/map/wl2)
Free geodata: postcode outcode (BS6), lat & long, [http://googlemaps.co.uk](http://googlemaps.co.uk)
[http://openstreetmap.org](http://openstreetmap.org) draw streets over gps traces, API is working, applet needs work.

*Calendering*: RFC2445, xCal seems to lack traction, timezone support not great. ArtScrape.org. Long running events such as art shows need to be handled differently from, say, openings or one or two day conferences. Otherwise you just fill your calendar with them. Attending/planning to attend/have attended flags.
What could evnt offer, to people running events?

*Distribution*:
*Misc*: RSS - use dc:subject for tags?
FOAF - integration benefits from a SHA1 hash of email address.
Render cal to an image with no ?foo=bar in the url (for livejournal users).
Would be good to be able to walk the (bipartite) graph of events and attendees.

— Lunch —

### Session 2.2: Show & Tell, API hands on, future API

[http://mapufacture.com,](http://mapufacture.com,) powered by WorldKit
[http://brainoff.com/worldkit/londonplanning/](http://brainoff.com/worldkit/londonplanning/)
Visitors Studio [http://furtherstudio.org/live/](http://furtherstudio.org/live/)
built by Further Field and Neil Jenkins in Bristol.

*API*: Ignore the everyone page [http://b.evnt.org](http://b.evnt.org)
tag pages [http://b.evnt.org/tag/art](http://b.evnt.org/tag/art)
people pages [http://b.evnt.org/mattw](http://b.evnt.org/mattw)
people’s tag [http://b.evnt.org/mattw/tag/art](http://b.evnt.org/mattw/tag/art)
Subscribe = download .ics or mattw/changes.rss
…/mattw/381/_xcal = <user>/<event_id>/<format>
Currently doesn’t support multiple authors for a calendar as if you subscribe to a calendar it is read only.
(Join evnt-discuss)

lwp-wsse auth

*Future*: Would like to be able to skin it by chucking a css file at it.
Flexibility in what is returned (for easy incorporation in other sites).
Best practice guidelines for non-semantic event markup.
Scraper for the above.
Email (& SMS) API
Email (& SMS) reminders or digests
Support sharing of calendars between /public/ servers

### Session 2.3: Feedback from other group, Visualisation

*Visualisation*: Axes: geography, language, (co-)attendance
tools: jung, walrus (good for trees, not webs), freemind, foafnaut, ([LSA][]?), processing
busy-ness over time
trim tagspace by time

[lsa]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis “Latent Semantic Analysis”

*Feedback*: audiences - managing v. mapping events, timeline view important, postcodes for geodata?, Rachel to check Arts Council licences for postcodes and OS data.

Coding will be wrapping up in the last week of July.

Timo doing promotion via events, conferences and publications.

Column view for different strands/rooms/venues.
=> Multi venue events, nested events.