By August 2001 the CIRCUS website will be upgraded to include a new Metadata tool. A further development of the database visualisation tool pioneered for CIRCUS by AudioRom.
The interactive content mapping tool will allow CIRCUS members to create and browse an interactive, visual map of content generated through their research. This map will visualise patterns that emerge and evolve within the content based on user feedback. Accumulations of user micro-decisions will form the basis of this system. The visualisation element reveals underlying connections between content objects, allowing browsing from one content object to the next along these relationships. This will be done using a “bullseye graph” technique, which arrays related content objects according to the strength of the relationships. This is a dynamic approach which maximises interaction. This desktop environment provides an easy way to move within the content space, integrating the graphical visualisation and the textual content.

circus brings together artists, designers, performers, theorists and computer scientists to debate the research issues posed by the next generation of advanced information technology for the creative and performing arts, media and the electronic publishing industry. The project has examined and proposed a wide range of links between creativity and technology and has generated specific practical and experimental works together with theoretical papers which have examined different models and methodologies for the development of these connections. The circus research agenda has been led by the concept of creative pull, a concept which gives priority, even control, to the creative maker or user in the development of technological capability.

The project’s evolution and steadily accumulating output can be explored either through this standard html website or (for those willing to take a few moments to download the Shockwave plug-in) through a tool developed by circus partner Audiorom designed to reconfigure the site’s documents according to the thematic interests of the visitor, tracing the developing patterns and overlapping concepts which have emerged during the lifetime of the project.