Infoscape - a radical new way of accessing and 
utilising complex information in the arts
Author: David Everitt   Date: 25.10.01
Summary
A proposal for the research and development of a system allowing users to gain valuable insights from complex sets of data. A user-matched 'data landscape' will evoke the navigation and foraging skills inherent in actual human life through a 'landscape' metaphor as a front end to large bodies of data. The aim is to enable satisfactory information retrieval, comparison and evaluation at far shorter times than the traditional 'desktop' computer interface allows.
The development of a generic model will follow a specific application of this idea to the mapping of disability arts activity and audiences in the East midlands region. The region is of specific interest because it has no central city and ,as yet, no comprehensive body of qualitative and/or quantitative data in this special interest area.
The system plans to cover cultural, ethnic, financial, geographical, temporal, or other details as specified by users, such that one or more data sets can be searched, isolated, filtered and compared from multiple perspectives.
1. General information
1.1 Background
Recent Disability Advisory Group (DAG) research identified mapping as one of the action research areas to be tackled in order to formulate a coherent strategy:
'A key area for strategic development would be to create a mapping structure which identifies provision, identifies needs, and identifies where a mismatch between these creates a gap in provision […] the group recommends  that this idea is allowed to continue forward to create a recognisable and comprehensive resource within which future strategic developments can be situated.'
The original DAG idea included a physical public artwork as an interface to data held digitally. After further research by Tân Draig and David Everitt, taking into account the vigorous interest expressed by potential end-users in a computer-based system, the public artwork is now seen as a separate project to be funded separately as an artist's commission once the data system is useable.
Due to the innovative nature of the proposal (via Dave Everitt's role as visiting researcher in art and technology) Loughborough University of Technology Computer-Human Interaction department (LUTCHI; within Computer Science) has expressed an interest in: becoming a formal development partner with EMA; advising on partnership match funding through computer science research sources; and providing a research and development environment and contacts within which the project can be realised. A formal letter is in preparation.
Presentations of a web page with clickable images demonstrating the basic idea behind the system have been made to interested parties including the ACE R&D Directorate:
http://creative.lboro.ac.uk/gof/wip/ifs/
1.2 Timescale
Current plans are for a three-stage project (details of these stages can be provided on demand) with a specific arts and disability remit to the first and part of the second stages:
1.	essential disability arts and audiences data gathering based on user specifications, with special attention to the quality and type of data required. Qualitative, personal data will be gathered as well as statistical data. The result will be an East-Midlands specific disability arts mapping system as a prototype for the more comprehensive and flexible system of the successive stages.
Time: 12-18 months. Funding range: £20-£30,000
2.	Following useability studies, the development of a more extensive version allowing registered users to add new data, with public access to relevant information; testing of other arts mapping data on the system. 
Time: 10-14 months. Funding range: £25-£32,000
3.	The expansion of the existing system into a generic one into which many different kinds of arts (and other) data could be mapped. 
Time: 10-14 months. Funding range: £25-£32,000
1.3 The quality of the data is paramount
Quality control throughout data gathering is essential to the success of the entire project. For instance, information on arts and disability already held by an organisation may not cover details that might emerge in interviews by trained disabled arts workers with a knowledge of the region's activities. For the disability-specific stage, the aim will be to get to the heart of where, how and why disabled people apply for funding, run projects, work as artists and arts workers, and make up audiences. It is essential that this process is perceived as being entirely neutral, and that qualitative data in the form of quotations and personal accounts makes up much of the material.
The other main data-gathering task will be to assess the quality of extant information to identify deficiencies. Interviews with potential users will determine exactly what kinds of data will be most useful. Also, assessing existing data categories used in the arts will:
'ensure that the classifications and categories used in research are consistent with those used across government departments and, where possible, throughout Europe' 5
The outcome will be a basic structure of 'must have' items as core data.
1.4 Potential users in the arts
strategy
 funders
decision-makers
planners
event organisers
voluntary sector
 providers
 artists
arts workers
venues
event hosts 
groups
users
 existing audiences
new audiences
existing participants
new participants
regional visitors

It is envisaged that strategic needs will be to supplement or even underpin disability and other arts strategies, to evaluate provision and need, and to identify areas requiring attention. 'What if' scenarios are also likely. Difficulties the system aims to solve are the sifting of essential information from vast amounts of complex data, and the maintenance of that data by multiple users and interest groups.

Arts providers are likely to use the system to discover where (as arts creators) hubs and voids of activity exist. As arts hosts they may want to focus new developments and encourage new audience participation where cultural or geographical attendance gaps exist, or to maximise on existing 'constellations' of activity. The avoidance of clashing schedules, and the sharing of information concerning the programming of events is also a likely use.

Arts users and audiences may see the system as a kind of 'what's on' resource (a public-access version could become a satellite project). One immediate use would be to provide access to the kind of information people need to intelligently develop arts participation in their own area, or to invite contributions to the map from smaller 'home-grown' arts activities. The inclusion of rural areas and smaller towns alongside other regional information has obvious benefits.
2 Technical details
2.1 3D information mapping (see web page for illustrations)
'Information visualisation can be defined as the visualisation and navigation of abstract data structures.' 1
3D information visualisation allows the user to intuitively navigate, grasp and clarify threads in complex data through spatial metaphors. These emerging systems handle the increasing complexity of data, taking over where conventional databases fail 2. They are a current 'hot' area in computer interface research. The web page illustrations are provided as a simple guide to one possible appearance of the system, but final appearance will depend on user requirements. The rapidly-dominant XML for information handling, linked to VRML for display, are the technologies most suitable at present.
2.2 Dynamic updateablity
The intention is to make the system dynamically updateable. Contributors may enter new data remotely via standard text-based forms on a website and quickly see the result 3. This updating could be:
1. local: on the user's machine - i.e. they would be able to update the data and change how it is displayed without uploading new data via the web. This might be useful for experimenting with 'what if' scenarios, and would be faster than the web at present;
2. remote: via the web or an organisation's intranet. Updates to the data would either need to be uploaded to a server or communicated directly between online users so that one data set is common to all. For security a password system would be used for data entry and modification.
2.3 Audio-navigation
The incorporation of sound as a navigation device will also be investigated, since the primacy of vision should never be assumed. Besides, sound can be a more intuitive and perhaps subtler guide to complex information. For instance, density of activity could be represented by a similar sonic density, either in the speed of separate notes representing connections to each node, or in pitch, or in a number of other ways. Visually impaired users will be inform useability tests and specific user feedback processes.
3. Project development
3.1 Proposed team (incomplete)
Dave Everitt: project co-manager, software design (co-author of this document)
Laura Guthrie: (with appointed assistance) data gathering (approached, willing)
Mike Quantrill: computer programmer (approached, willing)
Obi Cheijina: EMA disability arts officer
Hugh Huddy: sonic digital artist (to be approached)
Tân Draig: advisor.
Prof. Ernest Edmonds: Loughborough University

Apart from the obvious requirement to connect with current ACE and EMA initiatives, it would be advisable to approach existing arts/regional organisations as development and financial partners, since the project may well aid their own remit to monitor arts and disability activity. With support from the ACE R&D Directorate, these organisations might form part of a creative consultancy, evaluating the effectiveness of this kind of data gathering/dissemination.
3.2 Priorities
Once funding is in place, the initial order of priorities will be:
1.	determine exactly what kind of information is required;
2.	design an intermediate 'holding' database for the incoming data;
3.	assess the quality of any data held by participating parties;
4.	gather detailed data and commence software design.
References
(1)	'Although many fundamental papers on information visualisation appeared more than 10 years ago, it is only in the past few years that the field began to emerge as a separate discipline.' - I. Herman, G. Melançon, M. S. Marshall, Graph Visualisation and Navigation in Information Visualisation (1998): http://www.cwi.nl/InfoVisu/Survey/StarGraphVisuInInfoVis.html
(2)	Illustrated examples can be seen at: Peter Young, 3D Information Visualisation:
http://www.dsi.unive.it/~smm/docs/iv/iv-survey.html
For a recent history of information visualisation over the last decade see: S.K. Card, J.D. Mackinlay, and B. Shneiderman (eds), Readings in Information Visualization. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, (1999).
(3)	For example, internet games use a method whereby minimal co-ordinates are transferred over the web to be drawn directly by the user's machine and not over the network. The image is updated from a stream of incoming data arriving from a central server as the shared game proceeds.
(4)	'A research strategy for the Arts Council of England: summary' (2001)