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Authenticity & Ethical Issues Issues
• Issues of evidence and authenticity Howard Besser NYU Moving Image Archiving & Preservation Program • Issues of representation http://besser.nyu.edu/howard http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/
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What is the Conservator trying to do? The Translation Problem
Content translated into new delivery devices changes meaning – A photo vs. a painting – Behaviors – If Info is produced originally in digital form in one encoded format, will it be the same when translated into another format?-
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The Translation Problem Screen Formats Thinking of the Future (1/2) • Screens will be different resolutions and different aspect ratios • CRTs won’t exist • A decade or 2 from now, today’s user interfaces will look like arrow-key navigation looks like today
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Issues with new works- LeWitt: Wall Drawing 340
• What is the work? • Is there an “original” to preserve? • Complexity of rich media • Difficulty of making the work last
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Installing LeWitt LeWitt Install Directions
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LeWitt: What do we save? Born-digital works
• The installation? • Where is the “original”? • Documentation of the Installation? • The directions for the Installation?
• What is the goal of our documentation and preservation?
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Born-digital works are both easier and harder to preserve than ECI - Hole in Space (both) analog works • +With a born-digital work, we don’t have to worry so much about the “original artifact” (there really isn’t one) • -We know that digital works face a whole range of obsolescence problems, so they must be reformatted at least once per decade
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ECI - 84-locations ECI - 84-Community Memory
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ECI - 84-kids ECI - 84-MOCA
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Management & Preservation: Complexity of Rich Media What are we trying to do? • Works often have artistic nature (including video • Show the work the way people saw and games) interacted with it when it was first • Enormous number of elements can, at times, be very important to preserve (pacing, original artifact, created (may be impossible; in the past, the artifact and how one interacted with it didn’t change much, so preservation and documentation were relatively straightforward) elements used to construct the artifact) • Too complex to save every one of these aspects for • Show documentation of the work and every type of material people interacting with it when it was • Importance of saving documentation first created • Reinstall/Recreate/Reinact the work
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Technical & Conceptual Multiple Approaches Approaches to Solutions- • Save the Hardware & Software • Capture the documentation • Emulate • Freeze a final version (eg. PDF of CAD) • Migrate • Capture the full functionality • FRBR Trade-offs • Artist Intentions – risk vs. safety – cheap vs. expensive – full functionality vs. reduced functionality
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InterPARES-Digital Issues Questions
• Who collects what? for whom? and why? How do collections define their • Authenticity collectors? How have museums influenced colonialism, nationalism, and taxonomies (categories) of knowledge? What kinds of interdependence exists between institutions of collecting and certain methodological goals of art history • Reliability and anthropology? How can we learn to read exhibits critically? What is a ërhetoricí or ëpoeticsí of display? Why do people keep personal collections of • Accuracy objects? How do ethnicities and genders appear--or disappear--in museum contexts? How do museums also function to support a local community memory and history? How do artists view museums as social institutions? How can we imagine collecting practices and museums in the future? How can the history of collecting be read as an interdisciplinary intellectual practice? • Why do we need museums? What should they look like? Why do we collect things? What kinds of museums and collections might we have in the future? What role might electronic media play in the rethinking of the museum? Would changes in museum practice necessitate changes in the disciplines of art history and anthropology?
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Questions Questions
• How are moving images and sound part of the larger visual • Who attributes value to a work, and under what culture and ways of looking and seeing? How does our circumstances? How does one deal with the different understanding of visual culture impact our role in moving image archiving and preservation? values that different communities may have towards any particular set of works? • How do reformatting and multiple formats of the same work • Are there ethical considerations in format conversions change how we look at a work? (e.g., are videos the same as (e.g., film colorization, pan-and-scan?) films? Are digital photographs the same as analog photos?) • Is there a social context to viewing an object? (is viewing a video at home the same as viewing a film in a theater? Is viewing a mural on a screen the same as viewing it in-situ?)
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Context: Questions Duck and Cover Sponsor: U.S. Federal Civil Defense Administration, 1951 • Does this evidential value change when materials are Downloaded 2002 from Prelinger Archive http://www.archive.org/ reformatted?What are the advantages and disadvantages of keeping different versions of materials? • How do digital objects challenge traditional archival notions of evidence? Can ways be found to authenticate digital works, and track provenance and versioning?
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Film Restoration Issues Viewing Context (images like in Dayton-Hudson)
• Lost Horizon example
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Is this ok? Nitrate onto Safety Film?
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Colorizing if Director wanted it? Metropolis
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Silent Film (with piano?) Silent Film (with orchestra?)
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Anamorphic (wikipedia) How do we save widescreen?
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Commercial Reformatting Issues: But most people didn’t know that 70mm widescreen is different shape than 35mm PR at 1967 re-issue of GWTW normal • “Spherical Blow-Up” • “In the Splendor of 70mm. Wide screen and full stereophonic sound!” • “For the thousands who remember its unparalleled drama, action and romance! For the new thousands to whom the wonders will be revealed for the first time! Breathtaking spectacle, inspired acting by the greatest cast ever assembled! The screen's most exciting love story! The most-talked about picture ever made!” • http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/taglines
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Change in Aspect Ratio forces cutting Pan and Scan example
• 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, Stanley Donen, MGM, 1954 from http:/ /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan
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This meant eliminating part of Eliminating even in famous scenes the frame
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But the re-release wasn’t Star Wars “restoration” governed by artistic concerns • Intellectual Property is owned by MGM, not • "The new technologies give Lucas the freedom to by Fleming or Selznick make the movie the way he wanted it," he added. • MGM is motivated maximizing profit, not in • The new scenes, he said, did change the movie. maintaining artistic integrity • In one of the new scenes in Star Wars: Special • Bigger is always better Edition, Greedo, the bounty hunter, fires first before Solo kills him. • "Han Solo's character is definitely changed by the • Not radically different than another blow to new scenes. In the original, Solo is seen as a dark artistic integrity/originality in Atlanta 20 years character, when he shoots the bounty hunter without later… provocation, he doesn't seem like such a nice guy," Trimble said. Besser-Authenticity 17/11/09 2 Besser-AuthenticityMichael Miller, “New17/11/09 scenes, restoration draw more people to theaters to explore the Force of2 Star Wars”, Digital Collegian (Penn State U), Feb 21, 1997
Star Wars “restoration” Star Wars “restoration” The Empire Strikes Back Return of Jedi
• 1980, Emperor voice by Clive • In Darth Vader's final scene, when he is not wearing his helmet, Revill the eyebrows of actor Sebastian Shaw have been digitally • 2004, Emperor voice by Ian removed, indicating what happens to Anakin's eyebrows when McDiarmid he gets burned on Mustafar (shortly after a duel with Obi-Wan) in Revenge of the Sith. His eyes have also been changed to • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki blue and minor cosmetic alterations have been made to his /List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re -releasess face to better resemble the Anakin portrayed by Hayden Christensen in the prequel trilogy. • In the final scene where the spirits of Anakin Skywalker, Obi -Wan Kenobi, and Yoda appear to Luke, Anakin is now played by Hayden Christensen rather than Sebastian Shaw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releasess
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Sometimes even the Director wants to go Star Wars 1977 vs 2004 back and change their original film
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Someone needs to maintain Churchill Speeches the integrity of artistic works • This means preserving original versions • http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/ – even when commercial interests want to churchill-hour.htm replace the older version with something • Norman Shelley new and fancy – http://sul-server-2.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/amia-l/2006/04/ msg00148.html – even when the “artist” wants to use more recent technological developments to “improve” their work
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1917 The stars and stripes forever march / J. P. Sousa ; [performed by] Imperial Marimba Band (Edison)
• http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/edrs/ 504661.wav
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