Notes from Meeting: SP & GL

Today's meeting at the Proboscis studio addressed the following:

1. Defining requirements for delivery on this phase of the residency
2. Looking towards further developments and applications of the StoryCube Cairn

1(a) Central to our concerns today was the definition of the level of access which users (beyond the core team) could have to generating new StoryCube Cairn PDFs. Under the current convention, each user must sign-up for an API key. As these are limit in number, this restricts possible contributors. Our question is whether to work with this restriction, or to find some other solution. 

- GL suggested that we use one API Key, embedded within the web interface and used to offer universal access to our particular generator. GL will provide a key for this purpose. The consequence of this is that anyone can produce a StoryCube cairn PDF. However, this will remain as a potential only. For this 'proof of concept' phase, we will invite only a very limited number of (known) people to use the system. ACTION: embed the a new API-key into the web interface, (though suggest not making this generally available until any/all coding issues are resolved.) ie. limit use to the core team only. NB. THIS WOULD MARK THE END OF CODING WORK FOR THIS RESIDENCY.

1(b) Under our recent thinking, the route would be defined by us and the cubes distributed to known walkers. GL suggested that  we could print cardboard cubes (see below) to such a number as to make it possible to define up to 6 routes. This led us to discuss the merits of inviting others to define the walks.  Under this new scheme, we would define the destination and the invited-walkers would be asked to define the rest of the route. This route could be defined using any criteria, but preference (SP) is for simple 'everyday' route that the walker would choose, from a start-point, via 4 waypoints,  to the Proboscis studio. 

- our conclusion was that we could use this opportunity to open-up the definition of the route to our 6 known users, (including us). This would shift the emphasis away from us as sole-authors of the walk which would chime well with all of our work. The outcome would be that 6 new walking routes would be defined. The automation of this would, of course, depend on the API being generally available (see 1(a) above). We could, with such a limit number of walkers also generate these cubes ourselves - (thinking ahead to debugging and documentation limitations with the present version.) For the sake of simplicity, suggest that the routes are defined through maps only, with additional images, audio etc reserved for additional phases if necessary.ACTION: identify another 3-4 walkers who could describe/define a route from a unique start-point to the Proboscis studio, plus 4 waypoints. Capture their route-information and translate via map-data-as-QR-code into Storycubes; make these 6 StoryCube PDFs available on the Blogspot site.

1(c) Under (a) and (b) above, we would have a script which produces our StoryCubes and which (although open) would only be used by the team; we would also have 6 routes defined by 6 walkers. Our final event would see the 6 walkers, (us included) walking our route and converging on the studio, (with additional invited guests?)

- from this, we could invite our 3-4 additional walkers to join us in walking the route and converging on the Proboscis studio. Here, we could meet to discuss the further applications of the system (and celebrate this phase and the launch of the 6 new routes.) 

ACTION: invite our 3-4 walkers to participate; invite additional guests. 

2. We soon started to discuss how the project could develop further. Rather than add further requirements to this phase of the project, we recognized that further phases could be possible given funding. A few of the possibilities are listed below

- GL suggested that it would be possible to print 300+ cardboard StoryCubes and that we could to distribute them in the area local to the destination or Cairn-site.  As we could print a minimum of 50 copies of any unique pattern, we could define 6 different routes.
- As these cubes would be more substantial than those used in the 'proof of concept' phases, and greater in number, we discussed the possibility of asking another venue, such as the Museum of London, to host the cairn. The cubes could then be distributed at venues (such as libraries) around this destination. (GL suggested making cardboard vending boxes.)
 - We also discussed adding information to the interior/reverse of the cube to contain information on its author, images, tags, URLs and so on.