THE AURA IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL MATERIALITY RETHINKING PRESERVATION IN THE SHADOW OF AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE The project is part of the exhibition LA RI SCOPERTA D I U N CAPOLAVORO 12 March – 28 June 2020 Palazzo Fava, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Bologna A project of: Under the patronage of: A collection of essays assembled by Factum Foundation All projects carried out by the Factum Foundation are collaborative to accompany the exhibition and there are many people to thank. This is not the place to name everyone but some people have done a great deal to make all this The Materiality of the Aura: work possible including: Charlotte Skene Catling, Otto Lowe, New Technologies for Preservation Tarek Waly, Simon Schaffer, Pasquale Gagliardi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini and everyone in ARCHiVe, Bruno Latour, Hartwig Fischer, Palazzo Fava, Bologna Jerry Brotton, Roberto Terra, Cat Warsi, John Tchalenko, Manuela 12 March – 28 June 2020 Mena, Peter Glidewell, The Griffi th Institute, Emma Duncan, Lord Pontificio Consiglio della Cultura Rothschild, Fabia Bromofsky, Ana Botín, Paloma Botín, Lady Helen Hamlyn, Ziyavudin and Olga Magomedov, Rachid Koraïchi, Andrew ‘Factum Arte’ can be translated from the Latin as ‘made with Edmunds, Colin Franklin, Ed Maggs, the Hereford Mappa Mundi skill’. Factum’s practice lies in mediating and transforming material. Trust, Rosemary Firman, Philip Hewat-Jaboor, Helen Dorey, Peter In collaboration with: Its approach has emerged from an ability to record and respond to Glidewell, Purdy Rubin, Fernando Caruncho, Susanne Bickel, the subtle visual information manifest in the physical world around Markus Leitner and everyone at the Swiss Embassy in Cairo, Jim us. Hundreds of decisions are embedded as material evidence in the Moran, Kathelin Gray, Johnny Allen, Bassam Daghestani, Mohammed process of making an object of any kind. Archaeologists are trained Jameel, George Richards, David Coulson and the Trust for African to read this evidence, as are forensic detectives at a crime scene. Rock Art, Jeffrey and Veronica Berman, Ben and Donna Rosen, Chiesa di Bologna Patrick Blackett, an experimental physicist, wrote that his work was Clark Winter, Mauricio Torres Leclerc, Maria Golia, Anthony Sattin, to ‘cultivate an intimacy with the behaviour of the physical world’ – Nicholas Penny, Mark Leithauser, Carole Patey, Michael Snodin, Silvia this is an equally good description of Factum’s aims. Davoli, Bill Sherman, Nico Schwartz, Julian Rothenstein, Ahmed Mater, Larry Keith, Jose Luis Colomer, Richard de Tscharner and With the contribution of: the trustees of the Carène Foundation, William Ewing, Paula and Cre dits Jim Crown, Sir Paul and Jill Ruddock, Jonathan and Jane Ruffer, This book has been assembled and edited by Adam Lowe, Lindsay Stainton, Pippa Shirley, Juan Manuel Albendea, Casilda Ybarra, Elizabeth Mitchell, Nicolas Béliard, Giulia Fornaciari, Jorge Coll, Ana Debenedetti, Gabrielle Finaldi, Stephen Clarke, The Tess Tomassini, Blanca Nieto and Guendalina Damone. Gentle Author, Ali AlJuboori, Hansi Escobar, Ramon Blecua, Annette Warren Gibbons, Michael Jones, Rut Ballesteros, Rebecca Foote, Dinah Casson, Fabio Roversi Monaco, Richard Terra, People’s Palace Projects, Shobita Punja, Sarah Thomas, Daniel Crouch, Fred Hohler, Sir Charles Saumarez Smith, Michael and Sarah Spencer, Aidan Weston Lewis, Nicholas Kugel, Pilar de la Béraudière, Dario Gamboni, Jorge Otero Pailos, Betsy Bolman, Ken Singer, Chiara Casarin, Matteo Lanfranconi, Mario Matthias Wivel, Chance Coughenour, Anna Somers Cocks, Bernardo Tortorici Montaperto, Clare Foster, Clemens Weijkamp and Raymond op het Roodt, Gabriele Finaldi, Jonathan N. Tubb, Phil Harvey, Roberto Grandi, Roger Law, Sarah Thomas, and many others who care about the preservation of the past. And, of course, everyone at Factum Arte who works tirelessly to support the Factum Foundation and turn its vision into a reality. This book is dedicated to Pasquale Gagliardi, who fi rst got the ball rolling. CONTENTS 11 Preface, Fa b i o R ov e r s i Mo n a co 15 Introduction, Adam Lowe CHAPTER 1 RE-THINKING THE FUNCTION OF FACSIMILES 29 Saving the best wine for last, Richard Powers 33 The migration of the aura, or how to explore the original through its facsimiles, Bruno Latour and Adam Lowe 43 ReACH: a collective and global re-think of our approach to copies in the age of digital reproduction, Anaïs Aguerre 49 3D data, public access, freedom of information laws, Cosmo Wenman 53 A Renaissance of the Renaissance, Jonat han Jones 57 Returning to distorted origins, Mari Lending 65 Reviving Walpole’s narratives at Strawberry Hill House, Silvia Davoli CHAPTER 2 PRESERVING, SHARING AND RESPONSIBILITY 77 Collections entail responsibilities: notes on a global institution, Hartwig Fischer 93 Get back. Artifi ces of return and replication, Simon Schaffer 101 Thefts, fakes and facsimiles: preserving the Bakor monoliths of eastern Nigeria, Ferdinand Saumarez Smith 109 The resurrection of the Sacred Cave of Kamukuwaká, Akari Waurá, Shirley Djukurnã Krenak, Nathaniel Mann, Irene Gaumé, Mafalda Ramos, and Patricia Rodrigues 119 Death and entanglement. Some thoughts about life, love and the aims of art conservation, Alva Noë 127 Discrete objects and complex subjects: from Mosul to London and back again, Nicolas Béliard 131 Shar ing skills and technologies: teaching photogrammetry in AlUla, Ot t o Lowe 135 Digitising the manuscript heritage of Dagestan, Eva Rosent hal 139 The return of an interpretation of Caravaggio’s Nativity, Bernardo Tortorici Montaperto CHAPTER 3 CASE STUDY 1 NEW INFORMATION GENERATING NEW KNOWLEDGE RESURRECTING THE BOLOGNESE RENAISSANCE 151 At elier Canova: a new vision of Antonio Canova, Chi ara Casari n 317 Recording and re-uniting the Pol i t t i co Gr i f f on i , Adam Lowe 159 Restoring the corpus of Archie Creswell, William Owen 323 Beaut y in r elief, Carl os Bayod Luci ni 169 The Raphael Cartoons at the V&A: close-range digitisation at a monumental scale, Carlos Bayod Lucini 331 Historic cartography and digital technologies: Factum Foundation and the virtual restoration 173 Malevich’s Black Square, Eva Rosent hal of the countryside map from the Sala Bologna at the Vatican, Nadja Aksamija and Francesco Ceccarelli 177 Re-SEARCH, Cl are Fost er 339 Publica magnifi centia and architectural palimpsest: the restoration of the façade 181 Rethinking our thinking about thinking: epistemology, architecture, and world, Brian Cantwell Smith of San Petronio, Roberto Terra 193 The hand of the artist: graph analysis and El Greco, Adam Lowe 345 Restoration, replication, resurrection: choosing a future for Amico Aspertini’s Deposition of Christ, 197 Building a Mir ror World for Venice, Frédéric Kaplan and Isabella de Lenardo Elizabet h Mit chell 203 ARCHiVe: Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Venice, Adam Lowe 349 Recording emotion: Niccolò dell’Arca’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ , 209 ARCHiVe case study: exploration of automatic transcription for the index cards from Tess Tomassini and Guendalina Damone the Daniélou collection, Rashmi Gajare CASE STUDY 2 CHAPTER 4 THE THEBAN NECROPOLIS PRESERVATION INITIATIVE CARTOGRAPHY: RECORDING SHAPE, MAPPING SURFACE WORK IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS, EGYPT 221 The work of mapping in an age of digital mediation, Jerry Brot t on 365 Immortality and beyond, Nicholas Reeves 227 The way we see the world, Adam Lowe 369 The Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative, texts by the Theban Necropolis 231 Re-creating the lost silver map of al-Idrisi, Elizabet h Mit chell Preservation team and the University of Basel 235 Recording an Ottoman-Venetian world map, Guendal i na Damone 371 St oppelaër e House: the restoration of the building and the establishment of the 247 The Gough Map. Revealing function through cartography, Catherine Delano-Smith and Damien Bove 3D Scanning, Archiving and Training Centre 373 The recording of the tomb of Seti I 377 The sarcophagus of Seti I: recording and re-materialisation CHAPTER 5 381 Recording fragments in Egypt and in collections around the world ACCESS AND DISPLAY 259 Through the looking glass. Transportive architecture, Charl ot t e Skene Cat l i ng 389 Conclusion, Adam Lowe 269 Verum Factum Arte: Scanning Seti and the afterlife of a pharaonic tomb, Bryan Markovit z 281 Recording and displaying Bernardino Luini, Guendal i na Damone 285 La Casa Natal de Velázquez: re-presenting the Spanish Golden Age, Elizabeth Mitchell 289 Proliferation of opera houses, concert halls, museums & art galleries: are we building sepulchres and mausoleums for the future? Jasper Parrot t 295 Ar t in time, Alexander Nagel BEAUTY IN RELIEF Carlos Bayod Lucini Carlos Bayod Lucini is 15-inch laptop screen may not seem like an ideal window into a painting. The an architect and Project digital image depicts an abstracted version of reality that only bears comparison Director at Factum Foundation, to the original work of art in some ways. Nevertheless, all eyes were on the where he is responsible for A the digitisation of paintings screen during the recording of St Lucy (Francesco del Cossa, c. 1473) at the National and oversaw the recording of Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in October 2015. The object of rapt attention was an the Polittico Griffoni (2012–15). He is Adjunct Professor of image simulating the painting’s relief that was appearing on the screen in real-time. Historic Preservation at As the Lucida 3D Scanner moved over the surface of the painting, the data ma- Columbia University and is terialising on-screen revealed an image that felt strangely familiar: one could quickly a PhD candidate at Madrid’s Universidad Autónoma, where discern the punch marks delineating St Lucy’s golden halo and the radial furrows on he is writing a thesis on the the golden background. It was also possible to distinguish the fi gure of the saint and relief of paintings. her habit from the surrounding areas, as well as the painting’s uneven surface, its subtle Lucida 3D Scanner: Manuel craquelure, the slight curvature of the panel, or even areas of paint loss around the Franquelo conceptualised edges.