The Data Art at BBC Backstage: information visualisation for the people

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This Knowledge Transfer Fellowship brings together researchers from the University of Westminster (UOW), Media Arts and Design department and the BBC in a 22-month project that develops flexible and innovative ways for BBC audiences to use its Internet services. The project draws from over 10 years of research carried out by the Fellow, Tom Corby, and Research Assistant, Gavin Baily, to develop online artworks that map information retrieved from the Internet into visual images that organize and reveal hidden information structures as visual, interactive, animations. The KT project seeks to exploit these research activities to create a new website platform (ARTLAB) providing innovate interactive and accessible ways for BBC audiences to repurpose and relate to online content.The BBC founded its online platform, 'BBC Backstage' in 2005 as part of Learning Development to enable its audiences to recycle its online services and content through user-generated activities, in response to the Graf Report (2004) which stressed the need for the BBC to engage with 'Web 2.0' phenomena, and to develop opportunities for social interactivity. Backstage is tasked to encourage audiences to innovate new information structures using these assets and share the results under open standards remits (i.e. shareable, non-copyrighted material): for example, audiences can dynamically 'tap into' the BBC's 'content feeds' and web-based data streams (e.g. news, weather, financial and geographical data) in order to do this.This project is important in that data visualization of this type has become an important contemporary tool for understanding and communicating the complex nature of interactions between the natural, social and economic worlds. This project presents a timely opportunity for a major public institution to directly engage non-specialist wider publics in understanding its practices in a structured and supportive environment.The collaboration has a number of aims: to promote the idea that technology when used creatively can develop artifacts that delight, intrigue and move in the same way as other creative media; to enable understanding of scientific and technological processes using assessable visual formats, and to widen public engagement with BBC technological resources using art and design methods.The project will be delivered in 3 overlapping phases outlined below with associated outputs: production, mentoring, dissemination.1. A website will be built (The ARTLAB), to act as a public platform for communication with participants and to publish example artworks and tutorial materials supporting audiences in the creation of their own work. Outreach activities to the press and wider communities publicizing the project will occur as an ongoing project initiative. 2. An ongoing mentoring process will be instigated to support and provide feedback for participating audiences. In addition as part of a declared ethos of the project, audiences will be encouraged to share works and expertise via the site using dedicated online forums. The development of an active self-supporting community that engage via the ARTLAB'S forums will enable the sustainability of the project past its official end date. 3. Dissemination of the of project results will occur in a number of ways: THE ARTLAB DIY MANUAL will be published at the end of the project to provide a commentary and describe how to make works, a public blog will track development, a report for BBC managers will reflect upon and capture good practice, a public exhibition of works produced by participants and a conference will be hosted by the University of Westminster, and in-house BBC meetings will share production innovations developed during the collaboration amongst the wider BBC production community.