Early presentation

A research on MyDesktopLife for Lectoraat Art in Public Space (LAPS)

I have just created a new online tool to help write webpages with a timing, online films composed of with moving texts, flying images, animated pictures, gifs, sounds, and sound layers, ect…

Until now these visual scenarios inside a browser were only possible with Flash, but  with the new development of HTML5 now widely compatible, they can exist inside a browser window. And this goes for online film as well as for the tool to create it.

Made originally to visualize my own narratives and serve my imagination, this tool has been crafted by a very talented programmer in such an easy and elegant way that I immediately wanted to share it, convinced that many creative people would enjoy using it.

https://mydesktoplife.org/news/about/

I envision the possibility to create a Content Management System (CMS) where the users can upload their own content (texts, sound and images) and process it with the same tool as mine.

This is a generous and ambitious idea which I want to research thoroughly. I want to consider the existence of such a software within several years of its shared existence and dissemination, through the support and collaboration of users, and judge how feasible it is.

In this research I will formulate all the possible questions. I will approach the people who can help me find the answers. I will try to find the means to create such a shared software. Or not.

The research will culminate in a conference where the knowledge I have gathered will be shared with a public.

I will identify all the questions, formulate them, modify them, while I will be getting some answers. I will keep a trace of the meetings I had with all the people I approached in relation with this research.

Questions

-Finding finances
It’s not just about what it will cost to make a CMS or who is going to pay for it (obviously several financial partners). When making a complex software running on a network online one has to think of how to keep it in good order for several years, how to fix the bugs as they appear, how to keep the network activated. It needs identifying all the task around the existence of a software for around 2 years (minimum).

-Team
How many people are necessary to run a complex CMS and what would be their interest in doing it? What can be learned from existing models of software collectives?
Example: http://www.domainepublic.net/

-Evaluation
What’s the prototype of MyDesktopLife as a tool to be shared? Won’t that be surperfluous when Adobe comes out with the perfect online tool to replace Flash? Is there still a place in our society for non commercial online tools (or spaces or networks, etc…)?