Art Beat API | Tokyo Art Beat

ArtBeat API: Tokyo

Mash up Tokyo Art Beat and base your Web application on the best Art and Design information for your city of choice.

The ArtBeat API is available free of charge for non-commercial applications which do not cause unreasonable traffic.

Your applications based on this API should follow these simple rules

• The apps should mention that they are “Powered by Tokyo Art Beat”, with a link to www.tokyoartbeat.com
• (if applicable) any link for “more information” on events or venues should point to www.tokyoartbeat.com
• whenever possible, data retrieved from the API should be cached by your application for at least one hour and no more than one day

Please leave a message on our Art Beat API Google Group if:

• you have issues with the API
• you want to share your progress
• it's time to announce your new application built using the API

Please contact us if:

• you are developing, or have developed, a commercial application based on the API
• your application is likely to cause heavy traffic on the API

Note: The ArtBeat API also includes data for New York Art Beat. Check the New York Art Beat API page for more details.

ArtBeat API XML Output

The ArtBeat API uses a consistent XML format for all the lists and methods returning a list of events.

The XML output formats lists <Events> (as root element) with children as described below:

Element	Children	Value, Notes
Event	Name, Venue, Description, Image, Karma, Price, DateStart, DateEnd, PermanentEvent, Distance, Datum, Latitude, Longitude	Holds all the info for a single event
Venue	Name, Type	Holds all the info for an event's venue
Name		Name of event/venue, in the chosen/default language
Type		Type of venue (Museum, etc)
Media		Note: an Event can have several Media
Description		escaped as CDATA
Image		embed the poster / image of the event. May have a width attribute, in pixels. Note: an Event can have several Images (several sizes)
Karma		Popularity of the events decided by the MyTAB users
Price		price of entry. Has a "free" attribute equal to 1 if the event is free, 0 otherwise
DateStart		YYYY-MM-DD
DateEnd		YYYY-MM-DD
PermanentEvent		1 = permanent event; 0 = non-permanent event
Distance	Distance from the searched location. Not returned in non-search lists.	in meters
Datum		Datum of latitude/longitude coordinates. world for the worldwide standard WGS84 geolocation datum, or tokyo for Tokyo Datum used by a number of services in Japan
Latitude		decimal coordinates
Longitude		decimal coordinates

Changelog

As of August 2008, the ArtBeat API uses the version 0.1 (beta) of its XML result format. This is the first version of the format.

Sample Output

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Events>
 <Event xml:lang="en" id="2008/D38F" href="http://dev.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2008/D38F">
  <Name>Hugues Reip &quot;Parallel Worlds&quot;</Name>
  <Venue href="http://dev.tokyoartbeat.com/venue/2008/D38F">
    <Name>Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo</Name>
    <Type>Museum</Type>
  </Venue>
  <Media>Installation</Media>
  <Media>Other</Media>
  <Description><![CDATA[Can fiction become fact? French artist Hugues Reip invites you on a “fantastic voyage” to parallel worlds. 
Reip will construct worlds of the imagination by ...]]></Description>
  <Image src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/media/event/2008/32B2-30" width="30" />
  <Image src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/media/event/2008/32B2-80" width="80" />
  <Image src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/media/event/2008/32B2-170" width="170" />
  <Karma>11.693</Karma>
  <Price free="0">Adults 짜1500, Students 짜1000</Price>
  <DateStart>2008-07-26</DateStart>
  <DateEnd>2008-09-28</DateEnd>
  <DaysBeforeEnd>63</DaysBeforeEnd>
  <PermanentEvent>0</PermanentEvent>
  <Distance>5.127138362401</Distance>
  <Datum>tokyo</Datum>
  <Latitude>35.676344</Latitude>
  <Longitude>139.810483</Longitude>
 </Event>
</Events>

API: events Listing

All of TokyoArtBeat's Events lists are available in the API's XML format.

Note: Replace "en" by "ja" in the URLs to get the Japanese data.

2D

3D

Screen

Misc.

Events' Smart Lists

Events by Area:

API Method: event_searchNear

The event_searchNear method is available at the following URL:

http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear

Requests are made with the GET HTTP method, with REST-style parameters sent in the query string.

Location Search Parameters
Latitude (required)	coordinates in decimal (xxx.xxxxxx) format up to 6 digit precision. Anything beyond that precision is ignored
Longitude (required)	coordinates in decimal (xxx.xxxxxx) format up to 6 digit precision. Anything beyond that precision is ignored
Datum	"world" = WGS84/Google (default) "tokyo" = Yahoo! Japan/Navitime
Data Selection Parameters
Schedule	"current" = currently open events (default) "upcoming" = events opening today or later
SearchRange	500m (default), 1000m, 1500m , 3000m
Description	"" = only events with a description (default) "all" = all events even those without a description
Free	"1" = free events only "0" = all events regarless of price (default)
Result Parameters
Language	"ja" = Japanese (default) "en" = English
ResultDatum	"world" = WGS84/Google "tokyo" = Yahoo! Japan/Navitime Note: By default ResultDatum is equal to the value of the Datum
MaxResults	"5", "10", "20" or "50"
SortOrder	"distance" = nearest events (default) "closingsoon" = events that close the sooner first "mostpopular" = events with the most bookmarks first

Note: All parameters and values are case-INsensitive to be user-friendly.

Samples Queries

http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear?Latitude=35.671208&Longitude=139.76517
(Default output (nearest events) in Japanese)
http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear?Latitude=35.671208&Longitude=139.76517&Language=en
(Default output (nearest events) in English)
http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear?Latitude=35.671208&Longitude=139.76517&MaxResults=5&SortOrder=distance&free=1
(Nearest free events, max 5 results)
http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear?Latitude=35.671208&Longitude=139.76517&Schedule=upcoming&SortOrder=mostpopular
(Most popular upcoming events)
http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear?Latitude=35.671208&Longitude=139.76517&SortOrder=mostpopular&Free=1
(Most popular events, free only)
http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/list/event_searchNear?Latitude=35.671208&Longitude=139.76517&SortOrder=closingsoon
(Events closing soon)

AS3 Wrapper

The AS3 Artbeat API is a handy Actionscript 3.0 wrapper that any flash developer can use to access our Art Beat APIs.
More details and download from Reuben Stanton's AS3 Artbeat API site.

Sites & Applications

A few apps and websites have already surfaced that make use of the TAB API:

Search for nearby events from your keitai: 携帯Art Map
Tokyo Art Island (click on the map)
駅’si VISION
a flyer collection site
a simple and practical iPhone site. And another one!
Binbo Date ("cheap dates") which locates nearby art exhibitions (especially the free ones) and bars etc as cheap date spots.
a Windows Explorer plugin