It’s been a while since we posted an update here, largely since we’ve been so busy. You might notice a new design here at the blog, and if you’re interested in how and why we have arrived at this you might be interested in looking at the concept document describing our approach here. We’ve also put up a page introducing you to the members of the Bus-Tops team.

Working with Goldsmiths Design Department we have been busily prototyping various directions and testing screen-types. We will have a public update to the prototyping progress and process soon.

Bus Tops Overview –

Listen to it here: http://hackneypodcast.co.uk/2010/02/edition-17-buses/

(Photo by Felix Carey)

Personally, from the start I’ve (Alfie here) been a bit concerned that we’ve just been creating a platform; a project that is an administratively led one rather than one driven by an overarching conceptual framework. we’ve had lots of thoughts over the last couple of months that try to bridge this gap between the practical and the ephemeral, and the workshop brought all of our thinking together, resulting in something I think is very beautiful.

There are lots of metaphors we came up with that help us in looking at what these Bus Tops will be, the central one is that for 13 months we will have Visitors in London at at least 33 places. That’s how we are seeing the Bus-Tops displays – as individuals visiting London. London is a city of Old and New, made up of citizens and visitors,and they experience the city uniquely through a confluence of senses, emotions and ideas: identity, loneliness, familiar strangers, dissociation, wonder, love, fear, pain… We want the installations to reference these ideas strongly. Like any visitor to London, they will be accreting knowledge of the city all the time – forming impressions and tastes; preferences. They will join the citizens of London during the run up to the Olympics, and through the Olympics itself.

Each installation will be, to some extent, a distinct being. Each will have an artificial intelligence which will let it filter what comes through it’s sensorium (the art people make and send to it) and make it’s own decisions on what it prefers, over time. Let’s extend this organic metaphor to environmental variables. The installations will be subject to  londons elements. Giving the installations sensors that let it reflect their experience of the elements through what it expresses is a beautiful way of translating that thing which affects us all – actually being in the city, through sun and snow, hail and loud boom boxes, smog and traffic jams.

The intelligence which underlies the installations will (potentially) work similarly to starling flocking algorithms: any visitor in the flock uses the relative position of it’s 7 closest neighbours to help determine its own actions and preferences . They will be sharing what they have learned and seen every day (content, environmental variables, noises etc) with these neighbours, kind of like a small online tourist forum. This sharing of tastes and experience will further influence each visitors ultimate preferences, over time tending to display works with specific characteristics.

“Systems composed of a large number of heterogeneous agents that interact exchanging information often display very complex behaviour that cannot deduced in a simple way by studying the behaviour of the single agent.

Sometimes this behaviour corresponds to the movement of the system in an appropriate abstract configuration space (as, for example, in neural networks); in other cases the system takes different shapes in a two- or three-dimensional space, and we can observe the formation and evolution of characteristic and complex patterns.”

Some of the characteristics that each installation express might be driven by the metadata associated with the content that artists send, some might be associated with what they have experienced of their environments, and how that data relates to the content being sent to it. Extremely simplified example:  if it’s cold a lot, and cold has an affinity with the colour blue, then work which is sent to it to be displayed which has a lot of blue, it will prefer to display.

So an artist might create work to be seen on that stop there, but perhaps in fact it rejects it, and it goes back into the network. But *that* installation over there positively loves video with lots of red in it. We are giving the installations themselves a curator role. This idea has implications for how the site will work and what expectations artists might have for their work being seen at specific locations. It follows that it has implications for our feelings about the exploration of location too, but these are variables that we will work out and play-test when we get to the point of creating the software.

The overarching concept is that over the 13 months of installation each installation will build an eclectic and individual sense of ‘taste’ and preference, much like any visitor who spends a year in London would, as well as a relationship with the artists who create content for it. The point, despite any of the specifics, is to create a 13 month snapshot of a life lived in London during the run-up to and experience of the Olympics.

During the periods when, perhaps, either no-one has selected time slots to have work displayed, or there are simply no buses (proximity sensor) they will be in a ’sleep‘ state. Like ours, their ‘dreams’ will be some kind of a reflection of their experiences. What might their dreams *look* like? What might the Vizitərs *look* like ….

We’ve been thinking about materials for the installation bodies. One of the beautiful things about wood is that it is really hardy, allowing the installation to weather the rain, snow, sun, dirt, pigeon shit etc. And what happens to you in life? You get dinged up. You get rained on, occasionally you get shat on. And you are changed because of it. So that becomes part of who they are after their visit. The installation will age into becoming the finished work.

Bus-Tops is an installation work that happens in parallel at at least 33 places, resulting in 33 unique beings. Every piece of art they ever displayed, every dream they ever had, adds to the finished artwork which then lives on, constantly telling it’s story of the year it experienced in London.

We wanted to share this online so that you can hold the ideas in your mind, turn them over, and let us know what you think.

Just a quick update to let you know where we are with things and where we’re up to. Over the next 6 weeks we will be developing a micro-site which will let Londoners choose which shelters they would like Bus Tops displays to be installed on. There are two reasons for this – the first is that it is Londoners who will be seeing these in the main and so we think they should get to choose where they are! The second reason is that we of course will need to work closely with TFL/Clearchannel/Local boroughs planning departments/JCDecaux and the GLA in gaining overall permission as well as applying for planning permission, and so that process needs to start sooner rather than later.

The micro-site will use Google maps street view to display the locations of bus shelters across London, giving Londoners an easy and rich way of seeing where shelters are and their surroundings. As well as the project being focused on viewing from London’s buses, we are also very interested in selecting locations which are visible through the windows of local and especially public buildings. We’re starting work on the site next week and anticipate a 4 to 6 week build schedule.

The other thing we’re doing is figuring out the team members and location for starting the prototyping of the displays, which includes industrial design of the display housings to minimise environmental and other effects upon installation – remember, these displays need to weather the elements and stay ticking over for 13 months!

One thing to note for those of you who are looking forward to creating work for the canvases – the physical prototyping stage is going to be our focus for the next 12 months, so we will not start building the tools for artists to create/use for putting work on the canvases until early 2011.

That’s about it for now, we’ll keep you updated with news as it happens.

• December 2009 – August 2010: Hardware prototyping and testing
• September 2010 – February 2011: Manufacturing and testing
• December 2010 – March 2011: Web and mobile software development and testing
• April 2011- June 2011: Closed software beta to artists and developers (we will do our first run of curating during this period)
• July 2011: Launch: Curated work and work created by artists during the beta phase to form the first ‘run’ of work to be displayed
• July 2011 – August 2012: from launch onwards all the tools to create and view content for/from the canvases will be live and public

Please keep in mind these are rough estimates of timings to give you a working guide to when you can expect to be able to participate. As we go through each of the processes we will be updating our progress here on the blog so you can see where we are with things.

We won!!

Mostly we had put the project out of our minds whilst the judging panel made it’s decision. This was mainly so that we didn’t go completely bonkers with anticipation. But here we are: we are actually going to make Bus-Tops a reality!

The other finalists in the London arc of the Artists Taking The Lead project were all inspiring, and we wish them the best of luck in making their ideas a reality. That’s one of the best things about how the project was run in our opinion: by giving the finalists a small budget and time to develop the ideas we all ended up with projects that are near ‘Go’ status, so I really hope we get to see some of the other ideas made real too.

We want to say a big thank you to the ‘Art Public’ – everyone who has engaged with our idea and added their voice and ideas both here on the site and elsewhere on the web. From the very outset we have been pretty clear (we hope) in demonstrating that the Bus-Tops project is not about *us* it is about (and for) *you*.

Over the next few months we will be doing all the contractual stuff with the Arts Council and beginning early next year (if not sooner) we will be starting both prototyping and the public consultation which will help us define exactly what form(s) the project will eventually take.

For us, this project means many things: It means connecting Londoners to Londoners through a shared space for art. It means connecting London to the rest of the world through this shared creative space. A playground for creativity is going to spring into place across London’s Bus Shelter roof’s, giving artists, designers, developers, game creators and creatives of all shapes and sizes a space to express themselves. We are drop-dead-excited. This post is just a short one to say hello, we will be following up very soon with something a bit more in depth.

Everything that we created during the proposal phase of the project is here on the site so please do feel free to take a look around and have a think about what the project entails, adding your comments where you would like.

London from Arts Council England on Vimeo.