Impressions of our 1st ‘Hackfest’ – Feeding and Testing Our New Database

Theatrescapes & Global Theatre Histories Hackathon 16 Jan 2015, (left to right: Mehmet Özbek, Gero Tögl, Gwendolin Lehnerer, Tobi Englmeier, Lisa-Frederike Seidler, Nic Leonhardt, Christopher Balme; photo: Christine Kneifel, twm)

Theatrescapes & Global Theatre Histories Hackathon 16 Jan 2015 (left to right: Mehmet Özbek, Gero Tögl, Gwendolin Lehnerer, Tobi Englmeier, Lisa-Frederike Seidler, Nic Leonhardt, Christopher Balme; photo: Christine Kneifel, twm)

Hackathon 16 Januar 2015On Friday, 16 January, core members of the research projects Global Theatre Histories (PI: Christopher Balme) and Theatrescapes (PI: Nic Leonhardt) gathered for a joint hackathon. The goal of this ‘hack day’ was to employ, test, and also challenge the “Theatrescapes Research Tool”, developed by computational linguist Tobi Englmeier, and to enter data (textual, visual, georeferential) on theatres established worldwide since 1850 – both purpose built and non-purpose built –– into the Theatrescapes database.

The tool will go online shortly and is designed to work as a research tool for mapping theatres of the world since the mid-19th century.