Overview
Zeega was founded in 2010 by journalist Kara Oehler, media artist Jesse Shapins, and creative technologist James Burns. The team first started working together while developing Mapping Main Street, a collaborative documentary co-created with radio producer Ann Heppermann and funded through the Association of Independents in Radio's MQ2 initiative and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. We built Mapping Main Street from scratch while also producing stories for NPR. But ultimately, to pull it off, Kara had to put her stuff in storage and live out of her car for the summer. Afterwards, we decided people shouldn't have to give up their homes to make collaborative documentaries.A winner of the 2011 Knight News Challenge and a grant recipient of the Harvard Library Lab, Zeega enables anyone to create participatory projects that combine original content with photos, videos, text, audio, data feeds and maps via APIs from across the web. Use cases range from Localore, which expands the reach of public media in local communities, to The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters, a form of "crisis archiving." But Zeega is not just an online documentary toolkit. Integral to the project is the ability to bridge physical and digital worlds through tangible media such as signs, stickers or even networked receipt printers. Zeega is a global community and framework for creative invention, making it possible for people to pioneer new forms of storytelling that have not yet been imagined.
We believe the open web demands a new model for media production that provides makers integrated tools for collection-building, editing, experience design and publishing. Zeega allows anyone to easily explore, visualize and curate collections from public APIs and then use this media to collaboratively create participatory multimedia projects that are accessible online, on mobile devices and in physical spaces.
In an age of open data, access is not enough. Information requires creative context, immersive narrative and surprising design to capture attention and inspire curiosity. Zeega is being developed in partnership with media organizations, libraries, artists, journalists, scholars, filmmakers, students, civic media groups and others with the aim of empowering everyone to participate in shaping public sphere.
Organization
Zeega is an independent, non-profit initiative working at the intersections of software, journalism, media arts and education. From online to installation, broadcast to mobile, our mission is to tell powerful stories, inspire democratic participation, strengthen the public domain and deepen the vitality of local communities through innovative technologies, interactive documentaries and educational programs. Strong adherents of open-source philosophy, we aim to empower artists, journalists, scholars, artists, students, educators and citizens to produce, share, filter and map media in order to increase access to meaningful information, build capacity for civic engagement and transform the way people experience the world around them. Zeega is a project of Media And Place (MAP) Productions, a Massachusetts-based non-profit organization.Zeega is being developed with editorial, design and development partners internationally, including: metaLAB (at) Harvard, a research center for innovation in the arts, media and humanities at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society; Association of Independents in Radio (AIR); Public Radio Exchange (PRX); The Film Study Center; The Sensory Ethnography Lab; UnionDocs and others. Our ultra-early alpha prototype has been tested with Sensate, a journal for experiments in critical media practice, as well in new media documentary courses such as The Mixed-Reality City and Media Archaeology of Place. Zeega is also a project in the Beta Sprint of the Digital Public Library of America.
Core Team
Kara Oehler is Zeega's Editor-in-Chief. She is a Peabody award-winning audio documentarian, and her work has aired on shows such as RadioLab, Hearing Voices, Studio 360, and been exhibited at venues such as MoMA. She is a Radcliffe/Film Study Center Fellow at Harvard University and a Rockefeller Fellow with United States Artists. She is also co-creator of the interactive documentary Capitol of Punk. More at: karaoehler.com.
James Burns is Zeega's Chief Technology Officer. He built the API-driven website Mapping Main Street, constructing a system that automatically interrelates media feeds from across the web into thematic and geographic pathways. He holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. More at www.matroidblues.com.
Jesse Shapins is Zeega's Chief Strategy Architect. He is a documentary artist, media theorist and social entrepreneur whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Metropolis, and Wired, and been exhibited at MoMA, among other venues. He is on the faculty of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and is co-creator of Yellow Arrow, the groundbreaking platform for location-based storytelling, among other projects. More at: www.jesseshapins.net.
Lindsey Wagner is Zeega's Director of Product + Projects. She is an artist who loves working with others to produce inspiring and valuable experiences. Previously, she worked in a Los Angeles woodshop before founding a user experience design division at a leading interactive agency, responsible for projects such as MFA.org. She frequently curates late-night bikes around Boston.
Joseph Bergen is Zeega's Lead Interaction Designer/Developer. He is an engineer and designer whose interests revolve around technology, data, and art in relation to physical place. A self-taught programmer, he enjoys the challenge presented by large, complex, and dynamic data sets and teasing out otherwise hidden relationships with interactive visualizations. His work has been featured on FastCoDesign, the Wall Street Journal blog, and visualizing.org and has received top awards from Google. More at: www.josephbergen.com.
Luís Filipe Brandão is Zeega's Lead Database Designer/Developer. He is a software engineer specialized in machine learning. He recently moved to Cambridge from Amsterdam, where he completed his MSc. in Artificial Intelligence. Previously, he has worked as a programmer for Textkernel and the Berkman Center at Harvard through the Google Summer of Code program, among others, as well as developed an interactive installation for Mediamatic, a media arts institute in Amsterdam. More at www.luisbrandao.info.
Zeega Designers + Developers
Catherine D'Ignazio, a.k.a. kanarinka, is an artist, software developer and educator. She founded the Institute for Infinitely Small Things and leads the Experimental Geography Research Cluster at RISD's Digital+Media program. Her artwork has been exhibited at the ICA Boston, Eyebeam, MASSMoCA, and the Western Front among other locations. More at: www.kanarinka.com.
Ari Kardasis is a mathematician, an architect, a computer scientist and a cook. He is currently a design consultant working between New York and Boston on projects at the intersection of architecture, fabrication, interaction and geometry. He has an ScB in Mathematics from Brown, an MArch from Princeton and a research degree in Design and Computation from MIT. With Zeega, Ari is investigating approaches for archiving, curation and exhibition of vast amounts of highly connective and data-rich material.
Zeega Documentary Fellows
Sean Flynn is a producer, director and programmer focused on using documentary media as a focal point for building community and public dialogue. He produced the 2011 Points North Documentary Forum at the Camden International Film Festival, including a panel on the "Interactive Frontier." He is also co-founder of the popular DocYard screening series in Cambridge, MA. Recently, Sean was awarded a Fulbright grant to research film and interactive media projects dealing with urban redevelopment in India.
Design + Research Partners
Kyle Parry Kyle Parry is Digital Commons Researcher at the metaLAB (at) Harvard. He works in information and media design and earns his keep primarily through writing, research and strategy. In his more abstract moments he wonders whether there is room out there for a slightly ornate title like Lead Question Designer. In his less abstract moments, he works on projects that turn scattered information into things like crisis archives and participatory living collections, like the Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters.
Joana Pimenta is a media scholar and artist, with a particular interest in exhibition practices. She works closely with the growing community of experimental media artists and scholars using Zeega, including those participating in Sensate. Her practice-based work on installation and augmeShe directed three short films and worked in film production, and more recently created the database documentary Revere Double Exposure using Zeega.
Robert Gerard Pietrusko is an engineer-designer focusing on the relationship between contemporary technology and spatial products. He is Co-Founder of metaLAB (at) Harvard, where he is Embodied Informatics fellow. He has held visualization research positions at Parsons School of Design and Columbia University's GSAPP, and was a junior architect with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro. He is currently an artist-in-residence at the ZKM Institute for Visual Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Jeffrey Schnapp is Co-Founder and Faculty Director of metaLAB (at) Harvard. In 2000, he founded the Stanford Humanities Lab. His pioneering work in the domain of digitally augmented approaches to cultural programming has been featured internationally, including Trento Tunnels project - a 6000 sq. meter pair of highway tunnels in Northern Italy repurposed as a history museum - which was in the Italian pavilion of the 2010 Venice Biennale. More at: www.jeffreyschnapp.com.
Daniele Ledda is a Co-Founder of metaLAB (at) Harvard, and is one of Italy's leading graphic designers and art directors. He runs the Milan-based studio XY Communications and designed Zeega's graphic identity. Among his clients are Bianchi bicycles, Conde Nast Italia, the IBM Foundation, iGuzzini, Marazzi, Luceplan, Rossi di Albizzate, Samsonite, Samsung Italy, Saporiti Italia, Spalding, Sony CP Laboratories, Stop Rare Diseases, Tiscali, the Triennale di Milano. More at: www.xycomm.it.
Advisory Council
Christopher AllenFounder and Artistic Director, UnionDocs Christopher Bavitz
Assistant Director, Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic
Lukas Biewald
Founder and CEO, Crowdflower Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Director, Sensory Ethnography Lab and Film Study Center Peter Clowney
Director, New Content Development, American Public Media Phil Desenne
Interactive Design and Development, Harvard ATG K. Michael Hays
Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, Harvard Graduate School of Design Ellen Horne
Executive Producer, Radio Lab; Senior Director, National Productions Brian House
Creative Technologist, Research and Development Operations, New York Times Company Ernst Karel
Lecturer on Anthropology; Manager, Sensory Ethnography Lab; Assistant Director, Film Study Center Paul Kiel
Reporter, Pro Publica
Laura Kurgan
Director of Spatial Information Design Lab (SIDL), Columbia University GSAPP Colin Maclay
Managing Director, Berkman Center for Internet and Society Sue Schardt
Executive Director, Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)
Jake Shapiro
CEO, Public Radio Exchange
W. Hugo Van Vuuren
YCombinator; Artscience Labs
Daniel Walmsley
Director of Technology, Purpose
Ann Whiteside
Librarian/Assistant Dean for Information Resources, Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design
