Turning Europe inside out

The beauty of open source technology is that, no matter what it was initially designed to do, it can be reinterpreted, reshaped and turned inside out to better fit emerging needs. That’s what happened when we put Storyteller, Newscoop, Live Blog and Airtime in the hands of our friends at CORNERS, a platform for artists and audiences, designed and driven by cultural organisations at the edges of Europe.

Last July, we helped the CORNERS team to launch Corners Live, the digital extension of their artistic exploration of the ‘corners of Europe’. As the project grew, Corners Live also needed to grow. So we turned the site inside out to better serve as a platform of exchange and exploration. During this three-month process we pushed the boundaries of our own open source tools. They have proven to be versatile enough not only to fit the needs of journalists and media but also artists.

All in one place

The community of CORNERS aims to create opportunities for artists and researchers to collaborate internationally on multidisciplinary artistic and cultural projects. The newly designed Corners Live is a single landing space that is showcasing all projects at a glance. The page, fully responsive also on mobile, is divided in three main sections. Radio features a radio player for the Airtime Radio Corners, Story uses an image carousel to showcase Storyteller articles, and Live Blogs links to their latest live report from events.

Radio Corners streams 24/7 with Airtime and features interviews, sound art, music, field recordings, live broadcasts from CORNERS artists and the people they have met. Media rich events unfolding during longer periods of time such as the Belfast International Arts Festival are captured in the form of live reporting thanks to Live Blog.

But probably the most compelling example of how to use a journalistic storytelling tool as an artistic medium is ‘Put Yourself in My Place’. For one month, the two performance artists - one from Split, Croatia, and one from Umea, Sweden - inhabited each others' lives. The “Freaky Friday” life swap of Ida Hansson and Milijana Babić came to life on computer monitors across the globe with Storyteller. Thanks to the easy integration of different media such as video, images and text, the artists’ exploration became a truly immersive storytelling experience.

Corners Live's layout is fully responsive to give audiences the best experience also on mobile. To this end, we built a flexbox grid system based on the existing theme.

With this relaunch, Corners Live wants to stay continuously exciting and fresh by finding new ways to include audiences in the CORNERS artistic projects. We are excited to see how this growing online community will keep turning Europe - and our tools - inside out.

Corners Live is built in cooperation with artist and curator Dominic Smith of ISIS Arts. ISIS Arts is a visual and media arts organisation based in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Since its launch in 1991, it has been focusing on developing projects physically and virtually crossing barriers while engaging culturally diverse communities. It has also been aiming at reaching audiences that might not otherwise experience contemporary art.

Are you running a project that is in line with our organisation’s mission and could use our help? Send an email to [email protected] and we’ll see what we can do for you.

Want to join this fabulous organisation and build interesting tools not only for journalists? Check out our jobs page to see if there is a position right for you. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, feel free to send us an email.