ShiftSpace
= an open source layer above any website
URL = http://www.shiftspace.org/what-is-shiftspace
Description
"ShiftSpace is an open source layer above any website. It seeks to expand the creative possibilities currently provided through the web. ShiftSpace provides tools for artists, designers, architects, activists, developers, students, researchers, and hobbyists to create online contexts built in and on top of websites.
While the Internet’s design is widely understood to be open and distributed, control over how users interact online has given us largely centralized and closed systems. The web has followed the physical transformation of the city’s social center from the (public) town square to the (private) mall. ShiftSpace attempts to subvert this trend by providing a new public space on the web.
By pressing the [shift] + [space] keys, a ShiftSpace user can invoke a new meta layer above any web page to browse and create additional interpretations, contextualizations and interventions – which we call Shifts. Users can choose between several authoring tools we’re working to develop – which we call Spaces. Some are utilitarian (like Notes and Highlights) and some are more interventionist (like ImageSwap and SourceShift). Users will be invited to map these shifts into Trails. These trails can be used for collaborative research, curating netart exhibitions or as platforms for context-based public debates.
The ShiftSpace Firefox extension is available for free download at ShiftSpace.org. As described above, ShiftSpace is a platform that offers a number of Spaces (tools) to manipulate Shifts (modifications) on a web page.
Notes is a Space that allows a ShiftSpace user to leave post-it annotations on websites. Highlights is one we’re still developing, which would allow a user to highlight text on the page. Some Spaces lead more naturally to an interventionist usage. Two such Spaces that we have implemented are ImageSwap, which allows a user to grab any image on the web and swap it in place of other image, and SourceShift, which allows users to freely edit a page’s HTML code.
When a user visits a modified (’Shifted’) webpage, the small ShiftSpace icon (§) pops up in the bottom left side of the screen. Pressing the [shift] + [space] keys reveals the ShiftSpace console. From the console, the user can browse through existing Shifts, choosing to enable those that might be of interest. Holding down the [shift] key shows a small contextual menu, allowing the user to create Shifts of her own. The user can then choose whether to share her Shifts or to keep them private.
Shifts marked as public are aggregated on ShiftSpace.org which also provides some RSS feeds to follow other ShiftSpace users’ activity. Another such mechanism we’re working on is called Trails. Each shift can be trailed to one or more others, creating a relational map to explore. For example, a Note on an article can be trailed to a Highlight on a blog, trailed to a SourceShift on a corporate site. Trails can be used for collaborative research, curating netart exhibitions or as a platform to facilitate a context-based public debate.
ShiftSpace uses Javascript + PHP + SQLite. During the summer we hope to add social software functionality, implement a P2P architecture and create more spaces." (http://www.shiftspace.org/what-is-shiftspace)