Software and data innovations are routinely present in projects that examine culture. Magic will showcase these advances and the process, design, and implementation by which they are created. Specifically, Magic is comprised of three core intents:
— To provide a platform for discussion of innovations in interactive media. Through interviews, annotated code, descriptions, and video demos, the magical space between database and front-end design, where programming turns flat data into objects, will be revealed.
— To create a resource for culturally-sensitive interactive media projects, as this project genre often requires a rethinking of approaches in both content and software.
— To act as documentation for open source projects. With many projects hoping to open up their code for reuse by others, but whose development team lacks the resources to document their code and tactics, Magic will be the documentation.
Consider a new media project linking Indigenous cultural protocols and media content. The project would require presentation and media delivery software. In addition, it would also need to create logic based on the cultural protocols. This isn’t a task written up in how-to books by major software houses in America, but rather is the domain of humanities groups and individuals interested in advancing knowledge and community. Creating a resource hub for sharing between these groups—and new teams venturing out—will benefit similarly-minded practitioners and educate others on the efforts required to create such projects.
Resources presented in Magic could be technically-oriented and cross-disciplinary: how team A mapped migration routes; how team B overcame relational data limitations to create mind maps; how team C created an innovative way to represent a culture’s sharing protocols with a MySQL database.
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