This project is a continuation of prior granted SNIC Science Cloud allocation. Per NAISS advising, we are submitting two linked applications, this proposal is for the Cloud part and a second proposal will cover the Compute part. Aesthetics of Logistics: a distance-based collaborative moving image research framework It is a difficult logistical problem, in a sense, to visually convey the complexity of global logistics networks. This research project explores contemporary visual art’s capacity to confront the social and ecological impact of global logistics infrastructures by assembling an international practice network and shared footage database as a research tool to work across geographic points of interest and generate a different visual or aesthetic approach toward storytelling around issues like global logistics and data/it infrastructures which are often not visible to the general public. The project enacts a parallel logistics infrastructure to generate these new visual and perceptual analyses, utilising artistic research methodologies to suggest new relationships to labour, ecology, and collaboration. Beyond the basic technological facilitation of a collaboration, the research hopes to demonstrate viability of a project combining multiple sites to address the social and material conditions of transnational supply chain management, logistics networks, and data and cargo infrastructure. With an emphasis on a proof-of-concept experiment toward the collaborative potential of an video platform it facilitates new public discourses (poetic, experimental, transnational) for understanding the complexity of these overlapping networks. The objective for the NAISS allocations is to experimentally develop a database of that can be collaboratively tagged with metadata and inserted into multiple video projects. No similar database model currently exists for distance-based collaborative team editing on multiple simultaneous projects. Note: the actual editing and primary storage happens outside NAISS resources, we request resources to work on the interface for the platform and in particular use computing resources to support transcription and translation automation. Aims of a broader project based on this prood-of-concept would include: 1. Convene a transnational resource group to develop models for collaboratively-produced media work that juxtaposes relevant sites and contexts, cultivates the trans-disciplinary potential of sound and moving image work, and facilitates encounters between artists, researchers, workers, and community organisations. 2. Draw on expertise of this resource network and commission test footage contributions by partnering local film crews with individuals and groups working or living near sites of logistical interest. 3. Design and implement a multilingual proof-of-concept platform as a research tool for project participants in different sites to collaborate on media project outcomes. NOTE: 1 and 2 are currently underway and at mid-stage progress and we rather urgently request NAISS support for number 3. General purpose for the whole This application proposes to utilize NAISS resources to facilitate a closed internal media database for the project “Ghost Platform” (link). Use of NAISS resources will be twofold: Cloud and Compute. These resources will likely need to be complemented by external storage or commercial streaming video services from the research project’s budget.