Scart - a website on audiovisual heritage by packed - dca

Entretien avec Bartek Korzeniowski (WRO)

rony — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 08:40:27 +0000

interview_tag:

FARO, Brussels, February 14, 2013

WRO was founded in 1989 as an international festival of media art, which has surpassed its role of being just a cyclical event, and since 1998 has been operating as the WRO Center for Media Art Foundation. It is the first in Poland, and one of the largest surveys of media art in Central and Eastern Europe, taking up issues of contemporary art in the perspective of culture and communication. Since 2008, the Foundation has run the WRO Art Center, a public gallery that offers exhibitions, performances, screenings, lectures and workshops featuring Polish and international art.

Rony Vissers of PACKED vzw (Brussels), the centre of expertise in digital heritage that is coordinating DCA, talked to Bartek Korzeniowski (archivist, WRO) about the WRO collection, the purpose of digitisation, the chain of steps involved in the digitisation process and the dissemination of the project results.

Content:

1. WRO collection

2. Digitisation purpose

3. Copyright clearance

4. Decisions on outsourcing and quality requirements

5. Preparation of the digitisation

6. Actual conversion from analogue to digital

7. Quality control

8. Collection management system and metadata

9. Aggregation and Europeana

10. Digital storage and long-term preservation

11. Online access

12. Dissemination of project results

1. WRO collection

PACKED: Could you tell me something about WRO’s collection?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We can basically divide our collection into three parts. The first consists of audio-visual material created as a co-production between WRO and the Polish Public Television (TVP) that documents media art festivals and art events throughout Europe, including the Multimediale festivals at ZKM – Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (Germany), Ostranenie in Bauhaus, Dessau (Germany) or Ars Electronica in Linz (Austria). It also includes a substantial collection of interviews with artists and theoreticians, as well as original artists’ works commissioned by the TVP and produced by WRO. The audiovisual material was produced between 1990 and 2001 and is stored on analogue Betacam SP videotapes.

The second part consists of the documentation of events organised by WRO itself, in Wrocław and elsewhere. It contains subsequent editions of the WRO Media Art Biennale.

Finally, WRO’s collection contains works of artists with whom we work and a very extensive body of work sent for selection for the WRO Biennale. We keep both the preview copies that were sent for the selection and the high-quality screening copies used during the festival presentation. Most of this audio-visual material is on videocassettes and DVDs. We noticed an technological shift from the analogue carriers prevalent in the first festival editions to the digital ones that we have received for more recent editions. For the WRO 2013 Biennale ‘Pioneering Values’ we received DVDs, but also Blu-ray disks, flash drives and file transfers. This shift is crucial for the way our archive functions both in terms of the technological and sustainability aspects.

PACKED: Has a part of WRO’s collection already been made public in the past?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We have always been very keen to make our archives available through different media and dissemination channels. In 2005, for example, we published ‘From Monument to Market. Video Art and Public Space’ is a multimedia publication with a book of essays and two DVDs containing a selection of Polish works related to the public space.1 This first publication was a result of a conference and a video programme that we curated and presented at the Kunsthalle in Vienna in 2002. Recently, we created an online version of the ‘From Monument to Market’ publication.

The material digitised within the framework of the DCA project will be made available on the same portal: video.wrocenter.pl., which was launched in January 2013. This example shows how working with archives and making them available to the public has changed over the last two decades.

PACKED: How many works or how many tapes do you have in the WRO archive? And are they international or only Polish?

Bartek Korzeniowski: The WRO archive holds approximately 6,000 items. It does not only contain artworks per se, but also a substantial amount of documentation featuring all kinds of artworks, from painting, installation and performance to media and computer art (although the genre boundary between each category is often very fluid). Furthermore, it also contains recordings of interviews and talks. The amount of this last type of material has been growing very fast due to the documentation since 2008 of regular programme activities at the WRO Art Center. There is a lot of material that documents various festivals, as our team traveled extensively for many years, covering art events as part of a Polish TV commission. What is interesting is that this material is often unique to the extent that even the host institutions do not have comparable coverage of their events. This leads to many requests being made to us to make such material available. For WRO the DCA project is one of the opportunities to meet such requests.

At the moment ca. 2,000 of the digitised materials we hold are available locally in our Media Library – to which people can come, sit down, and access the material. However we would very much like to go beyond that solution and make our contents available online.

PACKED: Most of the copies that you have are preview or exhibition ones, not real master tapes. How do you make the distinction between an artwork and its documentation? In a way, even the copies you have are often a kind of documentation.

Bartek Korzeniowski: In terms of the material we receive for the WRO Biennale, most are preview and exhibition copies. However, with the artists with whom we collaborate regularly on exhibitions at WRO and elsewhere, we hold master copies of publications, new productions and the promotion of their artworks.

2. Digitisation purpose

PACKED: What is the purpose of digitising the WRO collection?

Bartek Korzeniowski: The main purpose for digitisation is to make the content publicly available. However, preservation is also an issue for us. We use the digital files for many purposes including the WRO Art Center’s media library, multimedia publications like ’From Monument to Market’, ‘The Hidden Decade. Polish Video Art 1985-1995’, ‘Józef Robakowski. Energetic Images. Bio-mechanical Recordings 1970-2005’ or the ‘WIDOK. WRO Media Art Reader’ series, and most recently for creating new artworks and exhibitions that usesthe WRO collection as source material.

Re-use of archival materials is a concept that we initiated in 2012 with the exhibition ‘A Short History of Video Installations (SHVI)’2 and that we continued with subsequent projects. We call this approach ‘Active Archiving’. It means that we employ materials from the archive to create both new interactive interfaces, for example kinect motion tracking and genuine mobile interfaces, that allow new ways of browsing contents beyond the standard library query schemas. Another strategy that we use is based on creating new artworks, mostly installations, by juxtaposing elements of the archival materials or some ideas and concepts included in them.

PACKED: Can you give some examples of your ‘Active Archiving’ approach?

Bartek Korzeniowski: In ‘Concerto for TV Set and Diode (for Voytek)’ that was presented during the SHVI exhibition, Wojciech Bruszewski’s famous 1973 film ‘YYAA’ was incorporated into an installation that used a photodiode connected to a loudspeaker and a TV screen. The diode mounted on the TV screen read the changing image and sent a signal to the loudspeaker that was dependent on the light intensity level of the screen. In ’YYAA’, Bruszewski’s screaming of opened and closed vowel sounds controlled the shifting lighting of the set. In the installation this mechanism is reversed; the original audio of the video work is muted and what the audience can hear is the sound that depends on content on the screen. On another level, the piece is also reminiscent of Bruszewkski’s 1979 installation ‘TV Chicken’or ‘Telewizyjna kura’.

Another example is ‘On the Silver Globe for Zygmunt Rytka’, in which we used the photograph by Zygmunt Rytka that was taken in the night between 20 and 21 July 1969. It shows the text that says “The transmission from the Moon has ended” that was aired by Polish Television after the broadcast of the first manned moon landing. Next to the photo, there was also a video projection on the Convex cathode ray TV monitor from the late ’60s or early ‘70s that presented a YouTube clip of astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first walk on the moon. That TV transmission was a phenomenal media sensation in 1969, and is now a memo circulating on the Internet.

These are among the installations that to a greater or lesser extent involve WRO’s archival contents of video artworks or photographs to create new objects. This way they attract a new audience that becomes familiar with them.

PACKED: This concerns use in-house: in the media library or in exhibitions. Do you also have an online catalogue?

Bartek Korzeniowski: The online catalogue is just being developed along with the video.wrocenter.pl portal that hosts our audio-visual contents. A first set of forty video works is already available there. A second set will comprise material created within the framework of the DCA project. Subsequently, we will look for new solutions including grants from the national Polish aggregator NINA to include additional material.3 A lot of WRO’s archival material is already digitised and ready for publication.

PACKED: Do you expect any obstacles when publishing the material?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Of course, solving the copyright issues takes a lot of time. The license and co-production agreements that we signed before 1995 do not contain a clause that allows online publication. The situation is especially difficult for the artworks; for the documentary material it is different because we often produced them ourselves or in cooperation with others, and have thus secured the rights. Yet, with some Polish TV co-productions we nonetheless have some issues: for example we can not use the edited broadcast versions because clearing the rights with all staff involved in their creation is impossible. Luckily, we can use the raw footage and edit it anew.

PACKED: Now you have focussed mainly on access and a little bit on re-use. When I look at the list of the carrier formats that you digitise, I guess that preservation is another purpose. I noticed for instance VHS.

Bartek Korzeniowski: The VHS cassettes copies we have are secondary or backup copies. The primary copy was almost always created with more sustainable formats, in most cases Betacam SP. This refers to documentaries, but also the artworks submitted on VHS cassettes for the WRO festival and subsequently the WRO Biennale were transferred to Betacam SP tapes. Which means that currently the threat of losing the material stored on rather quickly degrading VHS has decreased.

Nonetheless, we are planning to digitise this material directly from the original VHS carriers. On the other hand, the status of some of the VHS cassettes with covers originally designed by artists in the 1990s has changed over the years from being just a carrier containing the artwork to becoming an art object in itself.

PACKED: The quality of Betacam SP is better than VHS, but it is still an analogue format and like all other analogue formats is rapidly becoming obsolete. You will soon have to digitise the Betacam SP cassettes in order to preserve their content.

Bartek Korzeniowski: That is correct. What we now really need to do is to look again at how digitalisation was done throughout the years and unify the standards, if necessary by digitising the material again from the original carriers. This will also be a good chance to check on the quality of the original carriers.

I expect that our whole archive will be preserved according to the standards that are used for the material that is digitised within the framework of the DCA project.

PACKED: What is the added value of a project like DCA in this?

Bartek Korzeniowski: DCA is very valuable because it has allowed us to look at the digitisation procedures that we used in the past once again and to rethink them. This is crucial for us because the value of the archive has increased for our institution. At some point we became aware of its importance, and although we archived almost everything from the beginning, we didn’t have the sufficient knowledge, infrastructure and skills to archive in a professional manner. Today we treat the archive as one of the most important assets of our institution. Thanks to our participation in the DCA project, we now also know how to handle it properly and efficiently.

PACKED: Your situation sounds similar to that of Transmediale that also only realised after twenty-five years that they have an important collection and that they better take care of it.

Bartek Korzeniowski: This is a similar case. Nonetheless, we were drawing form our archival resources from the very beginning. The problem was that our archive was not preserved in accordance to standards that are applicable for audiovisual archives. Simply putting the videocassettes in order and registering them is not enough!

PACKED: I read that forty percent of the WRO collection was already digitised. I guess that this was before the DCA project started. What will be the percentage after the DCA project? How many works will be digital by then?

Bartek Korzeniowski: In the perspective of the whole archive, the amount of works that are digitised within the framework of the DCA project is rather small; we decided to provide only forty-nine works. Still, the DCA project is very important because we are working on a major reconfiguration of the archive and the experiences gained during the project are very helpful for this.

Currently we are working on a new archive or storage space. It is a very comfortable situation for us, being able to start from the most fundamental element. I think that by the beginning of 2014 we will be able to start digitising the remaining part of our collection.

PACKED: Do you plan to digitise the whole WRO collection?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Betacam SP is still an analogue tape format. Although it was a good format for archiving because it was sustainable, we need to start using digital file formats for both long-term preservation and access. We also still have some VHS tapes, but as I mentioned earlier these are only a very small portion of our collection. I estimate that within two years our whole collection of videotapes should be digitised.

PACKED: You referred to digitisation as a preservation strategy. Is your preservation policy the same for the artworks and the video documents or is there any difference?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, we treat them in the same way. However, some of the videotapes that contain artworks are also unique artefacts with artists’ imprint or traces of artistic activity. Some tapes are very distinctive.

PACKED: How do you deal with these artefacts? Do you also preserve the material objects after digitisation?

Bartek Korzeniowski:Yes. We keep the object even if the video signal is lost. Often we possess a better quality version that was obtained at some point during the cooperation with an artist. Nonetheless, as an artefact, the tape is still kept in the archive as a contextual material.

PACKED: Does this mean that you also document the artefacts, for instance by digitally photographing them?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Recently we did a series of presentations on our archive and this was a good opportunity to document some of the archival objects that are in one way or another distinctive. We will start doing this in a more systematic way.

3. Copyright clearance

PACKED: How do you deal with copyright clearance?

Bartek Korzeniowski: When an artist submits a work to the WRO Biennale, he or she decides to sign an entry form with a clause, which states that they allow us to use the submitted copy for the WRO archive.

PACKED: That is the current situation but I suppose that the situation was different in the past. Probably you had a different submission form twenty years ago. Also the Internet was not used as we use it today.

Bartek Korzeniowski: It has been our policy since the first edition of the WRO Festival, but certainly not all of the paper documentation has survived. However, In many cases we are still in contact with the artists from those early editions. Generally, after a short or long correspondence we are able to obtain their permission to publish the material online. Sometimes they ask for the presention of an abridged version of the work, sometimes they provide us with a modified version.

For the DCA project we have selected artists with whom we are on good terms. Nonetheless clearing the rights for the on-line use took us much more time than we had expected. Also we had a prolonged discussion with the Polish TV to analyse the specific co-production cases and to clarify how this material can be utilised.

For another digitisation project that we carried out in 2012 that was supported by NINA, the National Audiovisual Institute, we received funding that allowed us to cover license fees for the artists. This provided a good possibility for us to keep up a good relationship with them and to improve our chances of further cooperation.

PACKED: What is your experience with copyright clearance for online access?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Our experience was different in each case. For some artists it is obvious that online publication in a controlled environment is a good thing and obtaining or confirming the initial permission was not very problematic. Others needed further explanation, sending and approving the material.

There are two problematic factors that are hard to overcome: money and stubbornness. Especially when estates, heirs, beneficiaries or other third parties like collections are involved, things usually end up with different levels of financial expectation. On the other hand, some artists are really attached to their point of view.

For the DCA project we used documentations of artworks, not artworks. This made the process a bit easier. However, we still consulted the artists for advice on how to use the documentation that was created, either with their consent or with that of the institution that represented them.

Interestingly, WRO has published a series of multimedia publications, some of which I mentioned earlier. When we were working on them, the copyright for the materials used was obviously cleared. Yet, when we recently contacted the same artists asking them for extending the permission to cover the online publication, some of them said no. They find books and DVDs not only much more prestigious, but also a more controllable form for disseminating their works.

PACKED: Does your current entry form have a clause that covers online access?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, for the last few festival editions there was such a clause. The entry guidelines also indicate that if we want to make further use of the submitted work, we should seek permission.

Our experience is that most artists don’t object to the idea as long as it is for non-commercial archival and educational purposes. Today most of the artists understand that Internet is yet another medium for art presentation.

PACKED: What is the situation with the documentary material? Is it made by regular festival staff, or by people who are subcontracted by the festival?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Both. For the WRO Biennale 2011 ‘Alternative Now’, we had four recording teams. One consisted of students who were doing short, impression-focused interviews with the audience. Then there were WRO staff members systematically covering all events from performances and concerts to exhibitions. A Polish TV team in co-production with WRO produced coverage for the daily broadcast as well as more lengthy interviews, tailored for our needs, with both artists and curators. The fourth team took care of the Internet streaming of the key notes and discussion panels taking place during the event.

PACKED: Did you clear copyright with all of them?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We did with those we subcontracted. We hold the rights. With the WRO staff members there is no formal agreement that deals with the clearance of copyright as this is a part of our regular institutional activity and all materials created are at WRO’s disposition.

PACKED: Is the situation the same for the clearance of the copyright on the metadata. For most metadata there are usually no copyright issues, but for descriptive texts for instance they can pop up. Do you have any experience with this?

Bartek Korzeniowski: When we worked on the online version of ‘From Monument to Market’, not only did we contact artists to obtain the rights for online presentation, but also authors of the essays that were included in the initial book publication.

When we commission someone to write a text for us, we always ask permission for all forms of exploitation, an obvious part of which is online publication. We have a better knowledge about this than ten years ago. Everyone is also more aware of the way texts circulate nowadays. Nonetheless it is hard to predict what forms of distribution and fields of exploitation will be available in the future. You cannot predict new technological developments, but you can at least say that if a new form of technology appears, you want to have the right to use the content with that new technology.

Moreover, there are different types of metadata. What I said relates mostly to the long descriptive texts on artworks or phenomena that contextualise them.

4. Decisions on outsourcing and quality requirements

PACKED: Who actually does the digitisation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: From the beginning it was done by staff members and since September 2011, when I joined the project’s team, also by myself. During the course of the DCA project my colleague decided to become independent and form a one-man-company. He therefore changed his status from staff member to subcontractor. In fact, I did the same in January 2013. So, even if the digitisation process was subcontracted in part, it was still performed by the same people who have the required experience and belong to the WRO team, even if they worked in their own premises.

PACKED: Why did you decide to work like this?

Bartek Korzeniowski:The main reason was that some digitisation had already been done before the WRO joined the DCA project. So we had some experience in the procedure. I think that it is more beneficiary to do the digitisation in-house rather than to transfer it to an external, unknown subcontractor. When one does the digitisation in-house, one is able to improve one’s knowledge and skills. When one outsources it, a large part of that knowledge is not going to stay in the institution. We believe in developing our own solutions. Such experiences are invaluable and can be used in the future. This is especially the case for our archive because it is much more extensive that just the works that are digitised for the DCA project.

PACKED: Are WRO’s quality requirements identical for each work, for instance the file formats, codecs, compression and bit depth?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, but we have different quality standards depending on the use of the material. For the media library access copies, we use lower quality files, similarly for online presentation. All these materials are produced from the high-quality master copies.

PACKED: Do the digitisation quality requirements differ from one carrier format to another, for instance from Betacam SP to VHS?

Bartek Korzeniowski: No, we stick to the same quality standards for the different types of material.

However, this is also very case dependent, especially when one comes across low-quality or heavily degraded material and needs to decide how far one should go in retouching the material.

PACKED: Does that also mean that the quality requirements are the same for the digitisation of the artworks and for the video documentation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, we do not make a distinction in quality between them. Each type of material should be available in the best possible quality.

5. Preparation of the digitisation process

PACKED: How did you prepare the digitisation? Did you, for instance, create different groups depending on the carrier, or did you just take the tapes one by one from the shelves?

Bartek Korzeniowski: No, we took the works that show different artistic strategies and genres like performances, installations and video artworks and were created over the last twenty to twenty-five years. We took such materials so as to show a broad spectrum of our archive.

PACKED: That is the selection process. What I mean is: how do you prepare the actual digitisation once the selection is made? Do you divide the selected works in groups, based on the format of the tapes? Which tape did you decide to digitise first?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Only after a certain time did we start digitising in a meticulous, well-organised way. At the beginning it was more ad-hoc as we digitised something at the moment it was actually needed. The result of this approach was that we had digitised material from different periods, events and formats. It was a very incoherent approach.

The next step was to organise the digitisation in a more coherent way: year-by-year, festival-by-festival and format-by-format. As I already said the majority of our archive is stored on Betacam SP tapes. So technologically it remains a similar process. However, the digitisation itself is not our ultimate aim because in our case where a lot of the material is documentation there is still a lot of effort required, for instance, when mastering, editing and translating once the raw digital files are obtained.

PACKED: How did you approach the preparation for the DCA project?

Bartek Korzeniowski: For the DCA project we had a clear idea of what we wanted to digitise. We first made a list of the works to be digitised. Then we started with the work at the top of the list, took the cassette, digitised it, and continued with the next work on the list until we reached the end. Nonetheless, examining the archive and the physical carriers was still a very time-consuming task.

PACKED: Did this list include sub-categories in order to maximise the efficiency of the digitisation process?

Bartek Korzeniowski: If one cassette contained for example works ‘two’ and ‘eight’ on the list or their parts because some works were spread over multiple tapes, we digitised them during one session. First we digitised all tapes that contained related material and then in step two edited work by work.

PACKED: Did you inspect the material in advance, before digitisation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, a subcontractor did this. An engineer at the Polish Television cleaned the video player and inspected the videocassettes.

PACKED: Did you also have to clean videotapes?

Bartek Korzeniowski:No, they were all fine. However, the video player was cleaned and its heads adjusted.

6. Actual conversion from analogue to digital

PACKED: What kind of equipment did you use for the actual digitisation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We used a Sony BVW-22P player for the Betacam SP and a NV-FS 200 player for VHS. As converters we used the DV Converter ADVC-55^e by Canopus and the HD Express HDMI by MOTU.

PACKED: Did you experience any problems during the digitisation, for instance technical problems?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, our DV Converter ADVC-55 broke down during the process and we had to replace it by the MOTU equipment. We also had to deal with a server failure that resulted in a loss of digitised content and some data recovery.

The DCA digitisation actually includes two different processes: first converting the material from analogue to digital, then with the help of Apple Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro4 mastering and editing the digital material into content that can be published on our website.

PACKED: Did you encounter any other problems during the digitisation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: There was a case in which two works were mixed up. If one read the synopsis of the works, they were almost the same. It turned out that the wrong material was digitised and that for some time the wrong material was used. It was in fact due to the wrong label on the tape. We only discovered this after a group viewing of the material.

PACKED: Did you make any adjustments during the digitisation by using a TBC or noise reduction?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes. Although we were keen to keep the material as close to the original as possible, some adjustments were essential, especially with the sound. In terms of image we paid special attention to its clarity and fluidity. The Betacam SP materials were still in good shape. Sometimes we increased the brightness or adjusted the saturation. More work was required for the sound.

7. Quality control

PACKED: How did you do quality control?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We used Exiftool and VideoSpec to obtain the technical metadata with which to compare digital files. More problematic was comparing the analogue and digital material.

PACKED: Is the quality process influenced by the fact that you do the digitisation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, we know what the digitisation set-up is and how it works. The situation would be different if we had to send a tape to a lab. Then we would have to check the technical metadata that is embedded in the file to find out what actually has been done. This is another reason for doing the digitisation in-house.

PACKED: A quality control check with a validation of the format and the codec is also difficult because it is hard to get the software to do this. Applications like VideoSpec can only extract the technical metadata, but do not perform a real validation.

Bartek Korzeniowski: There is also another thing. There will always be some difference between the original analogue version and the digital one. There is a kind of mismatch between the analogue and the digital signal. For instance in terms of colour accuracy, it is not as easy to compare both signals, even if you use two identical and colour-sync monitors. There are always some small differences. This is a general thing. You cannot assume that digitisation is a kind of one-to-one process, moving from one realm to the other. Both realms are different and to some extent incomparable to each other.

There is also a difference between viewing the material on a TV set with a cathode ray tube and viewing the same material on a computer monitor with a liquid crystal display.

PACKED: Did you end up in situations where you thought that the digital version is worse than the analogue one?

Bartek Korzeniowski: There have been some cases where we thought that we should do the digitisation again to check if something went wrong during the process, or whether the difference has to do with the very characteristics of digital reproduction. One has to compare the analogue input and the digital output on the same screen before doing any adjustments to the latter.

PACKED: Do you discuss this with the artists?

Bartek Korzeniowski: No, rather with my colleague in the digitisation studio. Our digitlisation mostly concerns the video documentation. Here the proximity with the source material is not as critical as with the artworks. This also requires working towards obtaining the best quality of image and sound, but it does not create so many dilemmas, like for instance those related to colour differences.

8. Collection management system and metadata

PACKED: What kind of database system does WRO use?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We use a mySQL database5 that was initially built for our media library. It contains all essential metadata: identifiers, names, abstracts, technical details, and so on. What is missing is the shelf mark or the physical location of the tape. That is important information for the management of the collection and one of the elements that we need to improve in our collection management system. There are a few other elements like checksums, but generally the database proved to be well designed and we just need to add some additional metadata fields.

PACKED: Does the metadata schema that is used in your collection management conform to a metadata standard?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, it is based on Dublin Core.6 We use a reduced version of Dublin Core.

PACKED: Two new interesting metadata standards have been developed for cinematographic works: EN 15907 and EN 15744.7 They do not only allow the description of the works, but also the different versions and their different copies. All of the different versions and copies are linked to the same entity.

Bartek Korzeniowski: We are aware that we need to work a little bit more on our metadata schema.

For us the first step is to rearrange the physical archive, order it again from scratch, and register all information that might still be missing in our collection management system.

PACKED: If WRO holds a certain artwork and also some video documentation about this work, how do you deal with this? Is the artwork and the video documentation described in your database in two separate records that are linked to each other?

Bartek Korzeniowski: No, until now both were described in the same record. The documentation is usually described in the ‘comment’ field.

This is one of the things that we had to deal with in the DCA project. A lot of material that we used is actually documentation. The result is at least two types of descriptive metadata: one that relates to the work, the other to the documentation.

Beside this one also has, for instance, the administrative metadata and the technical metadata.

9. Aggregation and Europeana

PACKED: When you deliver the metadata to Europeana, do you deliver metadata about the artwork or about the documentation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We decided to deliver the metadata about the artwork because in Europeana you have a very limited set of metadata fields, and because of this you cannot provide very precise and detailed information. If Europeana were to develop and implement a new standard, maybe we would change our approach but at this point we just deliver five metadata fields.

PACKED: Why did you make this choice to deliver only information about the artwork and not about the video documentation?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We made this choice because of the final user. In this way he or she gets information that is more useful at the first contact. The documentation is a secondary element to the original work. Nonetheless, on our website we will provide a richer set of metadata that will make a distinction between the artwork itself and the documentation.

PACKED: When the user is looking for an artwork by, or a documentation video about, Zbigniew Rybczyński8, he or she will probably use ‘Rybczyński’ as a search term and not the family name of the lesser-known creator of the documentation video.

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, that is true. However, our system will at some point still give the name of the creator of the documentation video because it will be included in the metadata. Our website also uses tags, so you will be able to look for either documentations or artworks, or both.

This distinction is important to the media art field, and it is unfortunately something that Europeana does not yet fully understand. The GAMA portal9 is far better in this because it has four classes: ‘Person’, ‘Artwork’, ‘Event’ and ‘Resource’. In the ‘Event’ part it can be stated that it concerns, for example, an interview or an exhibition, or even that the material is a hybrid object containing an interview, documentation of an artwork and possibly even some excerpts of the original work. One can have documentation on an exhibition of which, for instance, a part of the material consists of an interview that explains the works. The different types of material are far more precisely shown in GAMA than in Europeana.

PACKED: Will WRO become part of the GAMA consortium?

Bartek Korzeniowski: WRO is already part of GAMA, although only after DCA we will provide them with some content. They are also our aggregator.

PACKED: Did you also have other reasons to become part of GAMA?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We had been thinking about GAMA for quite a while, and the DCA project was a good moment to become part of it. GAMA knows how to aggregate and present information on media art as it is designed for that purpose.

10. Digital storage and long-term preservation

PACKED: What is your digital storage solution?

Bartek Korzeniowski: At the moment we keep three copies: one is on the computer on which the actual digitisation was done, the second is on the server, and third is on an external hard drive disk. This third copy is an archival copy for safety purposes only, stored in a metal drawer. Because the three copies are stored in one building, we need to change this a little. We think that a solution could be cloud storage, or another server that is not in the same building.

Years ago we had a situation during which the server was down and some of our material was lost. We had more material digitised. A part was lost; another part was recovered. It is important to have more than one back-up copy.

PACKED: Do you use checksums to be able to check the integrity of the files?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We started using checksums during the DCA project, and we have them for all material that was created within the framework of the project. This is something completely new for us.

11. Online access

PACKED: How do you plan to make the results of the digitisation accessible on WRO’s website?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We will have three points of entry: Europeana, GAMA and our own website.

Europeana will get a limited set of metadata and a thumbnail that after clicking redirects you to our website. We will not use GAMA as a dark aggregator, but also as an aggregator that publishes richer metadata and 30 second clips; this will also be interlinked with video.wrocenter.pl where we keep the full-length material. Our website will also hold the richest metadata.

PACKED: Once the material is available on the web, it becomes difficult to control re-use. We have already discussed the use of an embedded watermark. Is the provenance information important in case of re-use of the material?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, we are very open and can share all our material online, but require that our material is properly attributed. We decided to use embedded video with WRO Art Center’s logo. Although this is a bold solution, it is also discouraging to see that the provenance information gets lost when the material migrates over the web.

12. Dissemination of project results

PACKED: Sharing the digitisation results online is one thing, sharing the gained knowledge and expertise with your community is another. Can you tell how you plan to do this?

Bartek Korzeniowski: We are arranging a conference with the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Wrocław. They are creating a new faculty of art mediation, and are looking for some new, fresh ideas, not only for creating art but also for popularising, or making art more accessible. We thought that the DCA project is something that is core to the subject, as this is about making art more available, not just keeping it in the archive.

Instead of presenting the digitisation results, the idea is to present some digitisation case studies and as such, how the results were achieved. Different approaches and workflows were followed by the institutions invited. We want people to talk for up to twenty-five minutes about their collections and what they do, but also about how they do it.

We hope to have very different examples of the material being digitised: artist books, large sculptures, videos, photographs, posters and so on. Although digitisation is one word, there are many strategies for the digitisation of different artworks, but also many strategies within the different institutions. It would be interesting to show how different institutions handle this and whether they have similar experiences. Did they change their practices during the DCA project or not? Did DCA manage somehow to standardise the digitisation procedures or not? It will be like an open presentation, maybe with a panel at the end and some discussion.

It will take place on 10 May 2013 in Wroclaw, during the WRO 2013 Biennale.

PACKED: Has WRO already organised any other dissemination activities?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, a workshop and a lecture that I did with students. They also took place at this department of art mediation at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Wrocław. The participants were students who mostly have traditional art backgrounds; they were painters actually. I wanted to introduce them to the different digitisation strategies, and how the processes differ from material to digital-born works.

Of course, I sometimes went into detail, but the whole idea behind those classes was to make students familiar with what digitisation is, that it has many levels, and it can also be a creative strategy. It was not only about storing and preserving things, but also making them available.

Partly as a result of these classes the students started working on a photo archive at an institution for mentally disabled children. They are creating an exhibition in collaboration with them, using that archival material. You never know what will happen and what spark it can initiate.

PACKED: Did the digitisation make it possible to re-use the archival material?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, or at least inspired them to somehow use the material creatively.

We also did some workshop-based classes. We went, for instance, to the archive, took a videotape, and did the whole digitisation process step-by-step; we took the videotape, prepared the metadata, digitised the tape and made the results accessible. So it was not only about how digitisation works in theory, but also from the practical point of view. We discussed the different strategies that can be used for the digitisation of different types of artwork.

PACKED: Do you think that this will also help artists or art students to take care of their own video work?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Possibly. Preservation is one important thing, but this also opens up the possibility for them to use archival material in a more creative way, like found footage in film or video or the photographs found in the archive of the institution for mentally disabled children.

The students who organised the exhibition were painters. For paintings the digitisation strategies are different to, let’s say media art. Digitisation is not a way of preserving the painting as an object, but of documenting it and making it available as a reproduction. We talked about the standards for the creation of digital files, about the importance of technical metadata, about colour correction and colour management procedures. Most of this information was new to them. Yet, I think it might be of use.

PACKED: Do you have the impression that the deliverables that have been created as part of the DCA project are helpful, for instance the deliverable on the digitisation workflow?

Bartek Korzeniowski: Yes, some of the material that I presented during the lectures was taken from the deliverables. I did not force the students to read the deliverables, but as material from which you can digest some elements, it was a good source of knowledge. The deliverables are important, but they only meet the knowledge level of a certain group of people. However, if we digest the information and make it online available in a more accessible language, it can become a good resource for many people.

Notes:

1. For further information, see http://www.wrocenter.pl/en/publikacje/
2. For further information, see http://www.wrocenter.pl/en/strony-wystaw/krotka-historia-instalacji-wideo/
3. WRO obtained its initial financing from NINA to set up the portal video.wrocenter.pl
4. For further information on Final Cut Pro, see http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/ For further information on Adobe Premiere Pro, see http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html
5. MySQL is (as of 2008) the world’s most widely used open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. For further information, see http://www.mysql.com/
6. The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set is a vocabulary of fifteen properties for use in resource description. The name “Dublin” is due to its origin at a 1995 invitational workshop in Dublin, Ohio; “core” because its elements are broad and generic, usable for describing a wide range of resources. The fifteen element “Dublin Core” described in this standard is part of a larger set of metadata vocabularies and technical specifications maintained by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). For further information, see http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/
7. For more information, see http://filmstandards.org/fsc/index.php/EN_15744 and http://filmstandards.org/fsc/index.php/EN_15907
8. Zbigniew Rybczyński (born January 27, 1949) is a Polish filmmaker, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, creator of experimental animated films and multimedia artist.
9. GAMA or ‘Gateway to Archives of Media Art’ is a portal website that provides access to a wealth of information about the works of both well-known and emerging media artists from European collections of media art. It was launched in 2007 and currently holds textual and visual information on more than 10,000 works. The DCA partners argos, NIMK / LIMA, transmediale, Ars Electronica, EMAF, HfG and WRO use GAMA as aggregator and also provide their content to the portal website. For more information, see http://www.gama-gateway.eu/

Rapport d'étude de cas : La numérisation et la restauration du film 'Office Baroque, un projet de Gordon Matta-Clark'

emanuel — Wed, 29 May 2013 15:08:30 +0000

Réalisateurs : Cherica Convents & Roger Steylaerts

Titre : Office Baroque, un projet de Gordon Matta-Clark

Date de création : 1977-78

Type : Film 16mm

Collection : Argos, Centre pour les arts et les médias

Chercheurs : Sofie Ruysseveldt (Argos, Centre pour les arts et les Médias)

Date de publication : 2013

Langue du rapport d'étude de cas : Néerlandais (Cliquez sur NL dans le menu des langues)

[Relecteurs : Emanuel Lorrain (PACKED vzw) en Rony Vissers (PACKED vzw)]

Deze case study behandelt de preservering van de kunsthistorische documentaire Office Baroque, een project van Gordon Matta-Clark van Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts over de realisatie van het gelijknamige werk door de Amerikaanse kunstenaar Gordon Matta-Clark in 1977 te Antwerpen. De originele omkeerfilmmontage en magnetische klankband (16 mm) werden gedigitaliseerd en gerestaureerd door Argos in het kader van het Europese digitaliseringsproject Digitising Contemporary Art.

1. Over het project ‘Digitising Contemporary Art’ en de Argos-collectie

Het project Digitising Contemporary Art (DCA)1 wordt ondersteund door het CIP-ICT PSP programma van de Europese Commissie en richt zich op kunst gemaakt na 1945. Het DCA-consortium bestaat uit 25 partners afkomstig uit 12 Europese landen. In een tijdsbestek van 30 maanden (1 januari 2011 t.e.m. 30 juni 2013) worden 26.921 kunstwerken – schilderijen, foto’s, sculpturen, installaties, video’s – en 1.857 contextuele documenten gedigitaliseerd, toegankelijk en doorzoekbaar gemaakt via het Europeana-portaal. De toegeleverde content, die onder meer meesterwerken van belangrijke kunstenaars uit de meeste Europese landen omvat, vult een leemte in de huidige toelevering van content aan Europeana, waarin hedendaagse kunst nog grotendeels afwezig is. Europeana.eu is een portaalsite die ondersteund wordt door de Europese Commissie en die internetgebruikers toegang geeft tot het (digitale) Europese cultureel erfgoed dat zich in musea, archieven, bibliotheken en audiovisuele collecties bevindt. Europeana werd gelanceerd in november 2008 en bevat intussen 26 miljoen items die afkomstig zijn uit meer dan 2.200 Europese cultureel-erfgoedinstellingen.2 Binnen het DCA-project digitaliseert Argos een 700-tal kunstenaarsfilms en –video’s die voorheen alleen bestonden op pellicule en magnetische dragers.

Met meer dan 4.000 kunstenaarsfilms, -video’s en installaties die dateren vanaf de jaren 60 tot heden, beheert Argos de grootste collectie audiovisuele kunst in België. Het gaat om een rijk en gevarieerd patrimonium van artistieke producties die buiten de reguliere bioscoop- en televisiecircuits vallen. Argos hanteert een actief verzamelbeleid. Wat de binnenlandse productie betreft, is het kunstencentrum er de voorbije decennia in geslaagd om een vrij volledig overzicht te verwerven en zo een unieke en representatieve collectie uit te bouwen. Er zijn de voorbije jaren verschillende initiatieven en acties ondernomen om de audiovisuele collectie veilig te stellen voor de toekomst. Werken dreigen verloren te gaan door de chemische samenstelling en vergankelijkheid van hun dragers of omdat de afspeel- en weergaveapparatuur in onbruik raakt.

Een groot deel van de collectie is ondertussen geconserveerd. De eerste conserveringsronde bestond uit het migreren van werken op oudere tapeformaten naar Digital Betacam. Aangezien de huidige technologische evolutie resulteert in tapeless archivering eerder dan in de opslag van analoge en digitale videotapeformaten, is Argos in een tweede conserveringsronde overgeschakeld naar de opslag van ongecomprimeerde digitale bestanden op een server. Momenteel bevindt Argos zich in een overgangsperiode waarin haar preservatiepraktijk evolueert van analoog naar digitaal en van ‘media-dependent’ (tape) naar ‘media-less’ (tapeless). Naast het digitaliseren van bedreigd analoog audiovisueel materiaal, ontwikkelt en implementeert Argos ook bewaarstrategieën op lange termijn voor de preservatie van ‘digital-reborn’ (gedigitaliseerd) en ‘digital-born’ audiovisueel materiaal. Argos voert een proactief preserveringsbeleid door regelmatige migratie naar andere dragers en formaten, de uitbouw en het onderhoud van een infrastructuur voor een compatibele en intacte opslag, een correcte beschrijving van de collectie, kwaliteitsbewaking, enz. Hierbij wordt rekening gehouden met de internationaal geldende standaarden. Dit beleid wordt, anticiperend op de technologische evoluties, voortdurend geëvalueerd en bijgestuurd.

2. Korte biografie van de kunstenaar

Gordon Matta-Clark (1945-1978) is een Amerikaanse kunstenaar die het best gekend is om zijn plaatsgebonden kunstwerken uit de jaren 70. Zoals zijn vader, de Chileense surrealistische schilder Roberto Echaurren Matta, volgde Gordon Matta-Clark architectuurstudies. Alhoewel het nooit zijn beroep is geworden, was in zijn kunstenaarspraktijk architectuur – met haar onlosmakelijke relatie met de private en publieke ruimte, met de stedelijke ontwikkeling en verval – zowel zijn medium als zijn onderwerpsmaterie. Zijn werk wordt gekenmerkt door een versmelting van de kritiek op culturele institutionalisering die eigen was aan de Conceptual Art, van de directe betrokkenheid bij de omgeving die eigen was aan de Land Art en van de voorkeur voor het fysieke die eigen was aan de Performance Art.

Zijn meest befaamde projecten zijn de spectaculaire Cuttings, waarbij hij geometrische vormen uit de muren, vloeren en plafonds van leegstaande en vervallen panden sneed. Met zijn ingrepen transformeerde hij architectuur tot sculptuur en legde hij de ziel van een gebouw bloot. Naast het werk Splitting (1974), waarvoor hij een volledige woning in twee zaagde, is vooral het in Antwerpen gerealiseerde Office Baroque (1977) een van zijn bekendste projecten. De film met de gelijknamige titel is een documentaire van Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts over dit project.

3. Korte omschrijving van het werk

Titel: Office Baroque
Jaar: 1977-78
Land: België
Taal: Engels, Nederlands
Duur: 44 min
Generiek:
Camera: Cherica Convents
Assistent: Dirk Geens
Klank: Roger Steylaerts
Montage: Roger Steylaerts, Cherica Convents
Muziek: André Stordeur (Syntheses)
Realisatie: Cherica Convents
Producent: E.C.F., Roger Steylaerts
Met dank aan: I.C.C., Flor Bex, Marcel Peeters, Varia Film, Luvox, Agfa Gevaert, Mi Huybs, Patricia Hautekeete

Deze documentaire toont het denk- en maakproces omtrent Office Baroque, een in-situ werk dat de Amerikaanse kunstenaar Gordon Matta-Clark in 1977 in een leegstaand pand in het centrum van Antwerpen realiseerde. Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts volgden de kunstenaar en andere betrokkenen aan het project maandenlang, van bij de voorbereidingen van het project tot na de realisatie. Bewust houden de makers zich op de achtergrond: de stijl van de video is registrerend, afstandelijk. Onderstut door de dreigende elektronische soundtrack (Syntheses van André Stordeur), neigt de documentaire haast naar het abstract register. De makers onthouden zich van commentaar. Ze kiezen voor nuchterheid en afstandelijkheid, daarbij ruimte creërend voor hun subjecten: het gebouw, de kunstenaar, de curatoren en de werkers aan Office Baroque.

Doorheen de hele documentaire zien we herhaaldelijk het eindresultaat, zelfs op het moment dat Gordon Matta-Clark nog met de voorbereidingen bezig is. “Bij deze stroming van hedendaagse kunstenaars is het proces even belangrijk als het resultaat – het werk zelf”, licht Flor Bex toe. Het interview met de curator en initiatiefnemer biedt een helder inzicht in het werkproces van de architect-kunstenaar en licht de problemen toe die Gordon Matta-Clark bij het realiseren van zijn concepten ondervindt. In Antwerpen waren die legio. Zo wilde de kunstenaar oorspronkelijk een uitsnijding maken in de gevel van een vrijstaand middelgroot kantoorgebouw van vijf verdiepingen aan de Schelde, gelegen recht tegenover de Antwerpse burcht het Steen. Hij wou een bolvormige uitsnijding maken waarvan het middelpunt buiten het gebouw lag. Dit voorstel werd echter door het stadsbestuur afgewezen. Daarom besloot Matta-Clark in plaats van een extern project een intern ontwerp te maken – een uitzondering in zijn oeuvre. De kunstenaar-architect maakte uiteindelijk uitsnijdingen in de verschillende verdiepingen van het gebouw, een verticale deconstructivistische sculptuur die zich uitstrekt van het dak tot in de kelders. Concreet koos Matta-Clark voor het patroon van twee halve cirkels, waarvan eentje in het centrum van het gebouw lag, en de andere op de afstand van de gulden snede. De intersectie van die twee sferen vormde de belangrijkste opening, een vorm als een traan. Opmerkelijk is dat Matta-Clark het meeste werk zelf uitvoerde, met de kritische blik van de architect en de precisie van de hand van een schilder. De realisatie was evenwel noeste fysieke labeur: we zien de kunstenaar afmeten, tekenen, hameren, snijden, zagen, hakken en boren. “Het is mijn eerste project dat verticaal door het gebouw gaat. De bezoeker loopt in feite doorheen ‘tekeningen’ in plaats van ruimtes”, zegt Matta-Clark. “Het concept is het product van een complexe tekening en geen façadelezing zoals mijn eerdere werk. Er is geen overzichtspunt dat meteen het idee van het werk geeft. De complexiteit en de diepte ervan is haast onmogelijk om te overzien of te documenteren”.

Convents en Steylaerts belichten traag elk detail: hun registrerende camera scant als het ware de architectuur en de ingrepen van de kunstenaar. Niet alleen de soundtrack is bevreemdend, ook de beelden van voorbijgangers en het leven buitenaf – een fanfare, steltlopers en toeristen die naar de camera’s loensen – contrasteren sterk met de denk- en leefwereld van de kunstenaar zelf. De kunstenaar zelf beschouwde Office Baroque, zijn laatste grootschalige werk voor hij in 1978 aan kanker stierf, als het beste werk dat hij ooit maakte “omdat het dermate onzichtbaar was”.

4. Selectiecriteria

De ontsluiting van de documentaire Office Baroque is voor Argos van uitzonderlijk belang om verschillende redenen:

Gordon Matta-Clark en diens oeuvre

- Ondanks zijn kortstondige carrière is Gordon Matta-Clark een van de belangrijkste figuren uit de hedendaagse kunst van de jaren 70. Zijn invloed vindt men terug in het werk van belangrijke jongere kunstenaars die vandaag actief zijn (bv. Rachel Whiteread, Gregor Schneider, Rirkrit Tiravanija, …). Matta-Clark realiseerde Office Baroque in 1977 en overleed in de zomer van 1978. Het is zijn laatste belangrijk werk. De film van Convents en Steylaerts volgt de realisatie van Office Baroque op de voet.
- In tegenstelling tot veel van zijn minimalistische en conceptuele tijdgenoten en vrienden, zoals Daniel Buren, Robert Morris, Dan Graham, Donald Judd, Richard Serra en Robert Smithson, produceerde Gordon Matta-Clark geen kritische essays en teksten. Hij had niet de behoefte om zijn werk discursief te ondersteunen, door reflecties op eigen projecten of door theoretische stellingnames ten opzichte van collega’s. Matta-Clark komt alleen aan het woord in een beperkt aantal interviews. De film Office Baroque is dan ook een bijzonder document, omdat Matta-Clark hierin uitzonderlijk over zijn eigen werk vertelt.
- Alhoewel de film Office Baroque in wezen geen werk is van Gordon Matta-Clark zelf, maar van Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts, is hij van zodanig historisch belang dat hij bijna altijd aanwezig is in programma’s met films van Gordon Matta-Clark zelf.

Geschiedenis van de hedendaagse kunst in Vlaanderen

- Het werk Office Baroque werd door Gordon Matta-Clark in 1977 in Antwerpen gerealiseerd, nadat hij door curator Flor Bex was uitgenodigd voor een tentoonstelling in het I.C.C.. Matta-Clark kreeg de gelegenheid om een leegstaand pand aan de Ernest Van Dijckkaai, vlakbij het Steen, te bewerken. Het werk werd ter ere van de vierhonderdste verjaardag van de Antwerpse barokschilder Rubens Office Baroque genoemd.
- Kort na de dood van Matta-Clark in 1978 stelde Flor Bex voor om als hommage aan de kunstenaar Office Baroque te bewaren en het als kern te integreren in een op de omgevende percelen nieuw te bouwen museum voor hedendaagse kunst. Dit idee werd positief onthaald en de Stichting Gordon Matta-Clark werd opgericht om de nodige fondsen te verwerven. Talrijke kunstenaars uit binnen- en buitenland schonken een werk in een poging Office Baroque veilig te stellen of, indien dat zou mislukken, om als basiscollectie te dienen voor het nieuwe museum voor hedendaagse kunst. Ondanks de vele inspanningen werd Office Baroque, het enige overgebleven architecturaal-sculpturaal werk van Gordon Matta-Clark, uiteindelijk toch gesloopt. Als reactie op de roep om een museum voor hedendaagse kunst in Antwerpen, besliste de Vlaamse Gemeenschap in 1982 om het Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA) op te richten. Het werk van Gordon Matta-Clark heeft dan ook nog altijd een belangrijke plaats in de collectie van het M HKA.
- De klankband van Office Baroque bevat de tapecompositie Syntheses van André Stordeur, één van de Belgische pioniers op het vlak van elektronische muziek en leerling van o.a. Karel Goeyvaerts en Morton Subotnick.

Argos-collectie

Argos verzamelt niet alleen kunstwerken die geproduceerd zijn m.b.v. audiovisuele media. In haar collectie bevinden zich ook een reeks films en video’s die handelen over hedendaagse kunst. Een goed voorbeeld hiervan zijn de werken van Jef Cornelis. In het kader van het DCA-project worden o.a. ook enkele portretfilms van Jan Florizoone gedigitaliseerd over Belgische hedendaagse kunstenaars, zoals Koen Theys, Franky D.C., Gorik Lindemans, enz. Het verwerven en ontsluiten van Office Baroque sluit dus aan bij het collectiebeleid van Argos.

5. Rechtenproblematiek

Vooraleer Argos van start kon gaan met de digitalisering en restauratie van Office Baroque, werd een jarenlang traject doorlopen om de rechtenproblematiek rond dit werk op te lossen. In 2009 verrichtte PACKED vzw in samenwerking met Argos en M HKA een voorbereidend onderzoek.3 Er diende eerst en vooral te worden nagegaan wie welke rechten bezit op de film. Wie had rechten als auteur, en wie als producent? Welke rechten had M HKA als erfgenaam van het toenmalige I.C.C.? En welke rechten hadden de nabestaanden van Gordon Matta-Clark? Het beantwoorden van deze vragen werd bemoeilijkt, omdat het in 1977 nog niet de gewoonte was contracten op te maken bij de realisatie van dit soort films. Bovendien beschouwden kunstenaars als Gordon Matta-Clark vaak documentaire film- en fotobeelden over het creatieproces als een onderdeel van hun oeuvre. De eigenlijke kunstwerken, zoals de ingreep in het kantoorgebouw in Antwerpen, hadden vaak slechts een tijdelijk karakter. Om de rechthebbenden te kunnen bepalen, heeft PACKED vzw getracht de productiegeschiedenis van de film in kaart te brengen. Dit gebeurde door o.a. interviews met de filmmakers en tentoonstellingscurator en via onderzoek van briefwisseling met de kunstenaar. Ook werd een juridisch expert ingeschakeld op het vlak van intellectuele eigendomsrechten. De conclusies van dit onderzoek zijn:
1. Er wordt vermoed dat de personen die als auteur worden vermeld in de generiek de eigenlijke auteurs zijn. In casu gaat het dus om de realisator (Cherica Convents) en de auteur van de muziek (André Stordeur). De generieken bevestigen niet dat Gordon Matta-Clark als auteur zou moeten worden beschouwd.
2. De generieken vermelden E.C.F. en Roger Steylaerts als verantwoordelijke voor de productie. ICC en Gordon Matta-Clark kunnen moeilijk claimen producent te zijn, want ze komen niet in de generiek voor als producent.
3. De erven van Gordon Matta-Clark kunnen zich niet verzetten tegen de reproductie van zijn afbeelding, omdat de afbeeldingsrechten ten einde liepen op 22 augustus 1998, twintig jaar na zijn overlijden. De erven van Gordon Matta-Clark, of andere nabestaanden kunnen zich ook niet verzetten tegen een nieuwe exploitatie van zijn afbeelding op grond van het 'recht op nagedachtenis', die als doel heeft de nagedachtenis van de overledene te beschermen, omdat Gordon Matta-Clark zelf ingestemd heeft met de film en deze geen aantasting vormt van het recht op nagedachtenis. Ook het kunstwerk van Gordon Matta-Clark zelf wordt in de documentaire getoond, klaarblijkelijk met zijn toestemming. Indien de makers van de film aantonen dat Gordon Matta-Clark geen beperking had opgelegd omtrent de exploitatiewijze van de documentaire, zullen de erven zich niet mogen verzetten.

Naast de auteursrechten diende ook de status onderzocht te worden van een gerestaureerde kopie van Office Baroque die in de Verenigde Staten circuleert en of Argos door het bestaan van deze gerestaureerde kopie niet riskeerde dubbel en overbodig werk te doen door zelf de film opnieuw te restaureren. Dit werd onderzocht door PACKED vzw in overleg met de Amerikaanse distributeur Electronic Arts Intermix en de erfgenamen van Gordon Matta-Clark. De conclusie van dit onderzoek is dat de restauratie (en de daaropvolgende exploitatie) in de V.S. plaatsvond zonder toestemming van Cherica Convents. Zij kan zich hiertegen verzetten als auteur van de film (indien de rechten niet aan een producent zijn afgestaan).

In 2002 werd op initiatief van Flor Bex zowel een distributie- als een archiveringsovereenkomst afgesloten door Argos met Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts. Door de onduidelijkheid over de in 2005 in de Verenigde Staten gerestaureerde versie van Office Baroque (afkomstig van Electronic Arts Intermix) werden de plannen om de Belgische versie van de film te restaureren een tijd lang opgeborgen. Eind 2007 diende Argos een subsidieaanvraag in bij de Vlaamse Gemeenschap voor de restauratie van de film. Het filmmateriaal werd in 2008 geblokkeerd bij het labo Color by DeJonghe door Cherica Convents, nadat Argos een prijsofferte vroeg voor restauratie. In 2012 werd een nieuw distributie- en archiveringscontract getekend met de filmmakers. Hierdoor kon gestart worden met de digitalisering en restauratie van de film.

6. Methode

Het eigenlijke digitaliseringsproces van Office Baroque werd opgesplitst in een aantal fases:
1. Bepalen van de doelstellingen en het digitaliseringsbudget
2. Selectiecriteria
3. Klaren van de rechten
4. Materiaalanalyse
5. Bepalen van de kwaliteitscriteria en keuze van een leverancier
6. Materiële voorbereiding
7. Digitalisering
8. Kwaliteitscontrole
9. Beschrijving
10. Opslag en archivering
11. Ontsluiting

De eerste drie stappen werden ondernomen voor de aanvang van het DCA-project. Conservering en toegankelijkheid waren de twee voornaamste redenen om de film Office Baroque te digitaliseren.

Materiaalanalyse

Office Baroque is een 16 mm kleur omkeerfilmmontage (Gevachrome/Kodak Ektachrome) in A/B-band. De documentaire werd gefilmd met een 16 mm camera van het merk Beaulieu. Omkeerfilm (ook wel reversal film genoemd) komt rechtsreeks uit de camera en geeft onmiddellijk een positief beeld dat geprojecteerd kan worden. Bij ‘gewone’ film (negatieffilm) daarentegen is het beeld negatief en dient eerst een positiefkopie te worden gemaakt om het resultaat te kunnen bekijken. Omdat bij omkeerfilm de negatief-positief keten wordt ingekort, is het goedkoper dan negatieffilm.

De drager is samengesteld uit triacetaat. Acetaatfilm wordt ook wel veiligheidsfilm of ‘safety film’ genoemd, omdat het vanaf de jaren 50 wereldwijd de brandbare nitraatfilm als standaard beelddrager verving. Film met een acetaatbasis is stabieler dan nitraatfilm, maar is wel kwetsbaarder voor het azijnsyndroom.

A/B montage (ook wel checkerboard cutting genoemd) is een ‘oude’ methode die werd gebruikt bij het afwerken van negatief of omkeerorigineel (meestal 16 mm film) wanneer er tussen de beeldovergangen fades of overvloeiers (dissolves) moeten worden gemaakt. Dit wordt mogelijk door het creëren van twee aparte rollen, de A-rol en de B-rol. De opbouw is dan als volgt:

- shot 1: A
- shot 2: B
- shot 3: A
- shot 4: B
- shot 5: A
- shot 6: B
- …

Wanneer zich op de ene rol het beeldmateriaal bevindt, wordt op de andere rol een zwarte aanloopstrook (leader) aangebracht. Vroeger was dit enkel mogelijk door het ene negatief/omkeerorigineel met het andere te laten overlappen, soms met wat zwart tussenbeide. Nu gebeurt dit digitaal, maar een A/B montage wordt nog steeds aangeraden voor de netheid van de montage bij het printen. De lassen zijn met name minder zichtbaar bij de overgang van het ene naar het andere shot. De beeldmontage van Office Baroque werd niet uitgevoerd conform de normen (slechte lijmlassen, … ).

De klank voor de film Office Baroque werd simultaan en synchroon opgenomen op een afzonderlijke geperforeerde 16 mm magneetband/sepmag. (Separated magnetic sound) met een draagbare Nagra ¼ inch bandrecorder. Om tegelijk beeld en geluid te krijgen, moet men tegelijkertijd de twee spoelen (één voor beeld en één voor klank) op de projector of visietafel leggen.

Bepalen van de kwaliteitscriteria en keuze van een leverancier

Argos beschikt over een jarenlange expertise op het vlak van videoconservering, maar heeft relatief weinig ervaring met het digitaliseren van film. Voor het bepalen van de kwaliteitseisen was het daarom noodzakelijk om een vooronderzoek te verrichten. Op basis hiervan werden de gewenste eigenschappen van de digitale kopie bepaalt, de technische parameters vastgelegd en de kosten van bepaalde technische keuzes afgewogen t.o.v. de meerwaarde voor het eindresultaat. Daarnaast werd gezocht naar een geschikte leverancier en werden verschillende prijsoffertes opgevraagd. Argos koos voor DeJonghe Film Postproduction in Kortrijk4, omdat dit digitaliseringslaboratorium een jarenlange ervaring heeft op het vlak van film en over de geschikte digitale infrastructuur en analoge apparatuur beschikt voor filmscanning. Om duidelijk te maken waarom bepaalde keuzes werden gemaakt, zullen hieronder een aantal technische aspecten van het digitaliseringsproces verder worden toegelicht.

Digitaliseringsprocedé: telecine vs. scanning

Voor het digitaliseren van film zijn er twee methodes mogelijk: telecine of scanning. Telecine-apparaten werken in real-time (24, 25 of 30 beelden/seconde), m.a.w. het omzetten van een film van één uur duurt één uur. Zij hebben geen data-output, maar een video-output (tape of digitaal videobestand) meestal in Standard Definition Video5 of soms ook in High Definition Video6. Bij telecine-apparaten is het mogelijk om kleurcorrectie en beeldmanipulatie toe te passen tijdens het omzettingsproces. Er zijn twee soorten telecine-machines: flying spot of CCD (Charged Coupled Device). De flying spot machine belicht de film met een door een kathodestraalbuis (A) gegenereerde lichtbundel (B). Het resultaat van die belichting wordt via een systeem van lenzen en dichroïsche spiegels (C & D) gesplitst in rood, groen en blauw en opgenomen door drie fotomultiplicatorbuizen (E, F & G). Deze buizen produceren vervolgens elektrische signalen die gebruikt worden om een videosignaal mee te maken. In een CCD telecine-apparaat wordt het filmvlak (B) daarentegen belicht met een wit licht afkomstig van een Xenon-lamp (A). Het resultaat van die belichting wordt via een prisma (C & D) gesplitst in de drie primaire kleuren rood, groen en blauw. Elke straal van gekleurd licht wordt vervolgens geprojecteerd op drie verschillende CCD’s (E, F & G), één voor elke kleur. Een CCD is een chip die elektromagnetische straling omzet in elektrische lading.

Een moeilijkheid bij telecine is de synchronisatie van de filmsnelheid met de videosnelheid. Film heeft een beeldsnelheid van 24 beelden/seconde, terwijl dit bij video 25 (PAL) of 29,97 (NTSC) beelden/seconde is. Film (24 beelden/seconde) wordt vaak omgezet naar PAL (25 beelden/seconde) door het filmbeeld af te spelen aan 25 beelden per seconde en dus eigenlijk te versnellen met 4%.. Hierdoor wordt de speelduur van de film iets korter. Het verhogen van de beeldsnelheid heeft verder als gevolg dat de toonhoogte van de klank iets hoger ligt, wat gecorrigeerd kan worden met behulp van een pitch shifter. Voor NTSC (29,97 beelden/seconde) is het echter moeilijker om deze techniek toe te passen, omdat het verschil tussen 24 en bijna 30 beelden per seconde te groot is om onopgemerkt te blijven. Hiervoor gebruikt men vaak het zgn. pulldown-procedé, waarbij bepaalde filmbeelden worden verdubbeld.

In tegenstelling tot telecine-apparaten, werken filmscanners niet in real-time (één beeld per twee seconden). Het scannen van één minuut film duurt dan niet één minuut, maar ongeveer één uur. Filmscanners hebben een data-output, maar geen video-output. Het is niet mogelijk om kleurcorrectie of beeldmanipulatie toe te passen tijdens het scannen. De film wordt beeld per beeld gescand in hoge resolutie (2K, 4K, …) en vervolgens als een sequentie bewaard in een digitaal bestand. Een filmscanner bestaat uit een filmtransportsysteem, een lichtbron, een digitale sensor, elektronica die de beelden omzet in bits (die de waarde 0 of 1 aannemen) en een computerwerkstation. Tijdens het scannen wordt de film bewogen langs de lichtbron en de digitale sensor van de scanner. Er zijn twee methoden mogelijk om de film te transporteren tijdens het scannen. Bij sommige scanners gebeurt het transport van de film in een constante beweging (vergelijkbaar met wat bij telecine gebeurt). Het andere type scanners haalt de film met onderbrekingen en met één beeld tegelijk naar beneden. De filmstrook wordt tijdens het scannen op zijn plaats gehouden d.m.v. pinnen (pin registered). Hiervoor gebruikt men de perforaties van de film.

Het voordeel van een scan in vergelijking met telecine is de beeldresolutie en scherpte. Omdat tijdens een scan drie opnames per beeld worden gemaakt, nl. rood, groen en blauw (RGB) en de perforaties worden gebruikt om de stabiliteit te garanderen, is het beeld erg scherp en bevat het alle mogelijke informatie aanwezig in het negatief. In het geval van Office Baroque zou de kwaliteit van een telecine transfer niet toereikend zijn in de verdere postproductie en dan in hoofdzaak voor de grading. Het nadeel van filmscans is echter dat ze een grote opslagcapaciteit vereisen en dat het zeer lang duurt om bv. files te kopiëren van de ene schijf naar de andere. In tegenstelling tot telecine-apparaten, is het bij filmscanners meestal ook niet mogelijk om beeld en geluid tegelijkertijd te digitaliseren. Het geluid wordt gedigitaliseerd als een audiobestand afzonderlijk van de DPX files. Dit betekent dat er in de workflow een synchronisatiefase vereist is.

Digitaliseringsparameters

Digitale beeldformaten voor filmscanning ondersteunen verschillende bitdiepten en kunnen in twee categorieën onderverdeeld worden: lineair en logaritmisch. De meest gangbare formaten zijn TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) en DPX (Digital Picture Exchange). DPX files kunnen zowel lineair als logaritmisch zijn, TIFF files enkel lineair. Een logaritmische scan is een manier om beelddata op te slaan in dezelfde ‘response curve’ als negatieffilm. Film reageert, in tegenstelling tot video, niet lineair op lichtintensiteit en heeft een karakteristieke curve7 die logaritmisch is. Ook de menselijke perceptie van lichtcontrast en detail is logaritmisch. Het menselijk oog kan meer grijsniveaus onderscheiden in zwarten en schaduwen dan in heldere partijen (hooglichten of ‘super whites’). Bij een lineair beeld worden bits gelijkmatig verdeeld tussen zwart en wit. Bij een logaritmisch beeld daarentegen kunnen dezelfde bits gebruikt worden om details te accentueren in de zwarte en witte partijen van het beeld.

Als archiveringsformaat voor Office Baroque werd gekozen voor DPX8, omdat dit formaat de mogelijkheid biedt om logaritmisch te scannen. Het is een ongecomprimeerd formaat en open standaard voor digitale film. Het is een uitbreiding van het Cineon formaat, ontwikkeld door Kodak en is door de Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) als standaard 268M-2003 vastgelegd. Omdat elke frame wordt bewaard als een apart .dpx-bestand, zijn er in tegenstelling tot telecine geen problemen met de beeldsnelheid. DPX is een geschikt archiveringsformaat, omwille van de volgende redenen:
- het is open en gedocumenteerd en niet gebonden aan een bepaalde software of fabrikant;
- het is gestandaardiseerd;
- het is uitwisselbaar;
- er is opslag zonder informatieverlies (ongecomprimeerd);
- het is mogelijk om uitgebreide technische metadata op te nemen in DPX bestanden;
- het bewaart de authenticiteit van het filmorigineel (zie infra).

Het is mogelijk om beeldinformatie lineair of logaritmisch op te slaan met een resolutie van 2K (2048 pixels) tot 8K (8192 pixels – IMAX) en met een kleurdiepte van 8 tot 64 bits per kleurcomponent. Het archiveringsbestand van Office Baroque is een 2K DPX file (2048 x 1556 pixels) met 10 bit logaritmische RGB pixels.

Voor 16 mm film volstaat 2K-resolutie (2048 x 1080 pixels), omdat 16 mm beeld kleiner is dan 35 mm beeld. Scannen naar een hogere resolutie (bv. 4K) heeft in het geval van Office Baroque weinig zin, gezien de kwaliteit van bronmateriaal en het feit dat de film niet voor bioscoopvertoning bestemd is. De meerwaarde van het eindresultaat weegt niet op tegen de hogere digitaliserings- en opslagkosten. Een 2K-scan zal ongeveer 1 terabyte per uur filmmateriaal in beslag nemen, een 4K-scan zelfs 4 terabyte. Het beeldmateriaal van Office Baroque bestaat uit 59.681 DPX bestanden die 816 gigabyte in beslag nemen. Het ongecomprimeerd audiobestand is 662 megabyte groot.

De bitdiepte bepaalt hoeveel kleurinformatie beschikbaar is voor elke pixel in een beeld. Hoe meer bits, hoe meer kleuren en hoe nauwkeuriger de kleurweergave. Een kleurdiepte van 10 bit beschikt over 1.024 mogelijke waarden voor elk van de drie kleurkanalen en dat betekent 1.073.741.824 mogelijke kleurwaarden. Een DPX 10 bit logaritmisch bestand kan vergeleken worden met een TIFF 16 bit lineair bestand. Dit betekent dat 10 bit logaritmisch scannen een aantal voordelen heeft t.o.v. 16 bit lineair scannen:
- er zijn minder bits nodig om ‘banding’9 te voorkomen;
- het volledig dynamisch bereik10 van film kan gedigitaliseerd worden zonder verlies van de ‘super whites’;
- er is minder opslagcapaciteit nodig;
- het biedt de grootste flexibiliteit voor colorimetrie (hoogste latitude).

Nadeel is dat niet iedereen overweg kan met logaritmische files. Om ze te kunnen bewerken (colour grading, …) of te converteren naar andere formaten, moeten ze eerst omgezet worden naar een lineair beeld. Dit gebeurt intern in de software op het moment van de grading. Hiervoor maakt men gebruik van Look-Up Tables (LUT). De omzetting van een logaritmisch naar een lineair beeld wijzigt in se niets aan de kwaliteit van het beeld.

7. Materiële voorbereiding

Onder de materiële voorbereiding verstaan we het transporteren, inspecteren, reinigen en waar nodig fysiek restaureren van het materiaal .

De originele omkeerfilmmontage en magnetische klankband (16 mm) worden bewaard in het depot van het Koninklijk Belgisch Filmarchief en werden daar opgehaald door DeJonghe Film Postproduction na schriftelijke toestemming van de filmmakers Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts.

Het inspectie-, reinigings- en fysieke restauratieproces werd toevertrouwd aan DeJonghe Film Postproduction omdat Argos hiervoor zelf niet de nodige expertise en apparatuur in huis heeft. Omdat de lassen scheef, dik en vuil waren, werd besloten om het analoge filmmateriaal niet manueel te reinigen. Voorafgaand aan de scanning werd wel een oppervlakkige reiniging uitgevoerd met een Lipsner-Smith CF9200 ultrasone reinigingsmachine. In dergelijke machine wordt de pellicule door een warm bad met 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluid HFE-8200 gehaald. Deze hydrofluorether-vloeistof is een kleurloos en bijna geurloos oplosmiddel. In het ultrasoon bad zijn elementen (transducers/vibrators) ingebouwd die de vloeistof doen trillen door geluidsgolven door het reservoir te zenden. Hierdoor ontstaan en imploderen oneindig veel kleine gasbellen, wat resulteert in schokgolven die het losse vuil en vet van de pellicule verwijderen. Dit fenomeen wordt ook wel cavitatie genoemd. Vervolgens wordt de film gedroogd d.m.v. hete luchtstralers die het meeste van het solvent wegblazen en de rest verdampen. Daarnaast is de machine ook uitgerust met roterende rolborstels die de meer hardnekkige vuildeeltjes aanpakken en ruiterwisserbladen die vóór het drogen de vloeistof op het oppervlak van de film verwijderen. De resterende stof- en vuildeeltjes kunnen na digitalisering worden verwijderd in het digitale bestand.

Het labo deed vooraf ook een selectie van de te digitaliseren sequenties van de A/B montage. Dit betekent dat alleen de frames met beeld gescand worden en niet de zwarte aanloopstroken. Hierdoor wordt er geen overbodig werk verricht en wordt de duur van het scanproces ingekort. Aangezien er geen EDL-lijsten voor Office Baroque beschikbaar waren, diende deze selectie manueel te gebeuren. Een Edit Decision List of EDL is een geordende lijst met nummers van de spoelen en tijdscodes die aanduiden waar elke bruikbare shot begint. Office Baroque duurt 44 minuten. Dit betekent dat met een scansnelheid van één beeld per twee seconden het scannen normaal gezien ongeveer 44 uur in beslag neemt.

8. Digitalisering

Het beeld en de klank van Office Baroque werden door DeJonghe Film Postproduction apart gedigitaliseerd volgens de vooropgestelde kwaliteitseisen:
1) 2K scan 16 mm omkeerfilmmontage naar DPX 10 bit logaritmisch;
2) digitalisering magnetische klankband d.m.v. telecine naar uncompressed WAV 24 bit.

De digitalisering van het beeldmateriaal gebeurde door middel van scanning en werd uitgevoerd met een Oxberry Cinescan 6400. Deze scanner heeft een CCD sensor en LED lamp en is uitgerust met:
- een wetgate applicatie: bij dit procedé wordt het beeldvenster van de scanner gevuld met heldere vloeistof (perchloorethyleen), waarmee krassen op de drager van de film tijdens het digitaliseren minder zichtbaar worden;
- een optische zoom: doordat de scanner uitgerust is met een soort rail kan de camera fysisch zo dicht mogelijk bij de film geplaatst worden. Hierdoor is het mogelijk om in te zoomen op de frame zonder overbodige zaken mee te scannen (perforaties) die achteraf softwarematig geknipt moeten worden en die het beeld vervormen;
- pinnen die de film fixeren, waardoor men een zeer grote scherpte kan bekomen.

De digitalisering van de magnetische klankband gebeurde door middel van telecine en werd uitgevoerd met een Sondor ‘sepmag follower’ die gebruikt wordt om 16 mm en 35 mm magneetfilm synchroon te laten meespelen met de telecine in real-time.

Postproductie

De A- en B-rollen werden apart ingescand en in de digitale postproductie opnieuw op hun juiste plaats bij elkaar gebracht: 1A, 2B, 3A, 4B, 5A, 6B, enz. Dit gebeurde door de DPX bestanden in te laden in het gradingsysteem Baselight (calibratie Truelight, Filmlight). De referentie voor de conform werd onder andere gedaan via de nummering van de digitale files. Voorbeeld: barok.001510.dpx moet op het 1510e beeldje vallen in de montage. Naast het digitaal samenvoegen van de A/B montage gebeurde er eveneens een automatische en manuele dustbust/dirt removal (PFClean, Pixelfarm). Hiermee worden stofdeeltjes, krassen, … uit de (gedigitaliseerde) filmbeelden verwijderd.

In aanwezigheid van de filmmakers Cherica Convents en Roger Steylaerts gebeurde ook een colour grading met het gradingsysteem Baselight op basis van de geprojecteerde proxy-beelden (JVC 2K-projector). Hierdoor worden de kleuren van de verschillende filmbeelden opnieuw geoptimaliseerd en op elkaar afgestemd. De resultaten van de colour grading zijn:
- het wegwerken van grote verschillen in de belichting;
- het wegwerken van de verschillen tussen Gevachrome en Ektachrome;
- het wegwerken van flikkeringen in het beeld die ontstaan zijn door problemen met de camera;
- het wegwerken van de meeste krassen, stof, zichtbare lassen, stabilisatie (cameraproblemen);
- het inzoomen op sommige shots om de kadrering te verbeteren;
- het optimaliseren van de huidtinten op Gevachrome die vaak te oranje of te rood waren.

Omdat het geluid en het beeld zich op een andere drager bevonden en apart gedigitaliseerd werden, moesten deze na digitalisering in digitale vorm terug worden samengevoegd en gesynchroniseerd.

Output

Om over een archiveringsbestand te kunnen beschikken met beeld en geluid samengevoegd en gesynchroniseerd, werd aan DeJonghe Film Postproduction gevraagd om de moederbestanden te transcoderen naar een Apple QuickTime MOV 10 bit videobestand met 24 bit audio.

Op verzoek van de filmmakers werd als raadplegingsbestand een gewatermerkte versie met het logo van Argos gemaakt door FXProduction in Apple QuickTime MOV ProRes 422. De gewatermerkte versie moet als kopieer- en distributiebeveiliging dienen om ongeoorloofd gebruik van het werk te ontmoedigen (zie supra ‘Rechtenproblematiek’).

Aangezien Office Baroque niet bestemd is voor vertoning in de bioscoop, werd geen DCP (Digital Cinema Package) als distributiekopie aangemaakt. Indien dit in de toekomst toch nodig zou blijken, dan kan Argos deze DCP zelf aanmaken op basis van de postproductiebestanden.

9. Resultaten

Het labo DeJonghe Film Postproduction leverde de volgende digitale bestanden:
– een bewerkt DPX bestand met colour grading, dustbust en dirt removal (DPX lineair 16 bit) voor archivering;
– een uncompressed WAV 24 bit bestand voor archivering;
– een Apple QuickTime MOV uncompressed 10 bit bestand met V210 videocodec en uncompressed 24 bit audio in PCM codec voor archivering;
– een Apple QuickTime MOV lossy 10 bit bestand met Apple ProRes 422 videocodec en 16 bit audio in PCM codec met watermerk voor raadpleging.

Het DPX origineel zonder colour grading, dustbust en dirt removal (virgin clean DPX 10 bit logaritmisch) wordt op LTO-4 tape bewaard bij DeJonghe Film Postproduction. Deze niet bewerkte kopie wordt bij het labo bewaard in geval er in de toekomst beslist zou worden om de colour grading over te doen.

Archiveringsbestand beeld (bewerkt – met colour grading, dustbust and dirt removal)
Beeld
Bestandsformaat	DPX lineair
Codec	Geen
Compressie	Geen
TV-standaard	Niet van toepassing
Beeldgroote	2048 x 1536 pixels
Beeldsnelheid	Geen (beeldsequentie)
Beeld aspect ratio	4:3 (1.33:1)
Pixel aspect ratio	1:1 (vierkant)
Bitdiepte	16 bit
Kleurruimte	RGB
Chroma sub sampling	Niet van toepassing

Archiveringsbestand geluid
Audio
Bestandsformaat	WAVE
Codec	PCM
Compressie	Geen
Bitdiepte	24 bit
Aantal audiokanalen	2 (mono)
Bemonsteringsfrequentie	48 Khz

Archiveringsbestand beeld & geluid
Beeld
Bestandsformaat	Apple QuickTime MOV
Codec	V210
Compressie	Lossless
TV-standaard	PAL
Beeldgroote	2048 x 1536 pixels
Beeldsnelheid	25 beelden/seconde
Beeld aspect ratio	4:3 (1.33:1)
Pixel aspect ratio	1:1 (vierkant)
Bitdiepte	10 bit
Kleurruimte	YUV
Chroma sub sampling	4:2:2
Audio
Bestandsformaat	Apple QuickTime MOV
Codec	PCM
Compressie	Geen
Bitdiepte	24 bit
Aantal audiokanalen	2 (mono)
Bemonsteringsfrequentie	48 Khz

Raadplegingsbestand beeld & geluid (met watermerk)
Beeld
Bestandsformaat	Apple QuickTime MOV
Codec	Apple ProRes 422
Compressie	Lossy
TV-standaard	PAL
Beeldgroote	1920 x 1080 pixels
Beeldsnelheid	25 beelden/seconde
Beeld aspect ratio	16:9
Pixel aspect ratio	1:1 (vierkant)
Bitdiepte	10 bit
Kleurruimte	YUV
Chroma sub sampling	4:2:2
Audio
Bestandsformaat	Apple QuickTime MOV
Codec	PCM
Compressie	Geen
Bitdiepte	16 bit
Aantal audiokanalen	2 (mono)
Bemonsteringsfrequentie	48 Khz

10. Nazorg en beheer

Kwaliteitscontrole

De opgeleverde masterbestanden van Office Baroque werden na digitalisering door Argos gecontroleerd op volledigheid. Voor de visuele controle werd gebruik gemaakt van QuickTime Player 7. Daarnaast werd ook een technische controle uitgevoerd. Om na te gaan of de opgeleverde bestanden gedigitaliseerd werden volgens de vooropgestelde kwaliteitscriteria, werd gebruik gemaakt van de opensourcesoftware MediaInfo. Deze software kan met een grafische gebruiksinterface of via de command line gebruikt worden. Vooraleer de bestanden op de server worden geplaatst, krijgen zij een unieke bestandsnaam die bestaat uit de MD5-checksum en een unieke shelfmark. Bij archivering worden de MD5-checksums van de digitale bestanden berekend en geregistreerd om de integriteit van de gearchiveerde bits en bytes te controleren. Het berekenen van deze checksums gebeurt automatisch en met behulp van de opensourcesoftware BSD MD5. De checksums worden berekend om later fouten in de bitopslag te kunnen opsporen.

Beschrijving

Metadata over de audiovisuele werken uit de collectie worden door Argos bewaard in een PostgreSQL-databank. De collectie van Argos beantwoordt niet aan de museale hypothese van het unieke object. Films en video's zijn 'time based media' en hebben dupliceerbaarheid als tweede natuur. Dit vergt een andere aanpak van beschrijven dan deze van musea, bibliotheken en archieven. Van een film kunnen meerdere kopieën bestaan, op meerdere soorten dragers en in verschillende versies. Omdat er tot voor kort geen metadatastandaard bestond die tegemoet kwam aan de noden van Argos, werd een eigen metadatamodel ontwikkeld voor de beschrijving van de audiovisuele werken. De huidige datastructuur bestaat uit verschillende entiteiten: Works, Copies, Events, Agents en Resources.

Momenteel wordt er gewerkt aan de ontwikkeling van een collectiebeheersysteem voor de audiovisuele werken op basis van de EN 15907 standaard. Deze recent ontwikkelde Europese standaard biedt een schema voor het beschrijven van de inhoudelijke kenmerken van een productie en van de technische kenmerken. In plaats van het object en de inhoud van het object als één geheel te beschouwen, benadert EN 15907 film en video op een meer hiërarchische manier, waarbij verschillende niveaus, van concreet (het fysieke item of digitale object) naar abstract (het werk als intellectuele creatie) worden beschreven. De vier niveaus zijn gebaseerd op de principes van FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records), een bestaand conceptueel model uit de bibliotheekwereld. Er wordt een onderscheid gemaakt tussen werk (het artistieke en intellectuele concept, het idee achter een werk), variant (kleine variaties op een werk die geen essentiële wijzigingen van de intellectuele inhoud betekenen, bv. vertalingen), manifestatie (de uitgavevorm van het werk of de variant, maar nog te onderscheiden van het tastbare item, bv. DVCAM) en item (specifiek exemplaar van een manifestatie, bv. DVD met shelfmark X op het rek in organisatie X). Daarnaast zijn er ook entiteiten voorzien voor contextuele informatie: agenten en events. Deze structuur sluit nauw aan bij het huidige metadatamodel van Argos. EN 15907 is een door CEST (Cultureel ErfgoedStandaarden Toolbox)11 aanbevolen standaard.

Opslag en archivering

De archivering van de digitale bestanden gebeurt onmiddellijk bij creatie/ontvangst. Argos heeft een opslagsysteem dat intern beheerd wordt. Van elke digitale master worden drie back-ups bewaard. Hierbij wordt gebruik gemaakt van twee gangbare back-upmethoden:
– Disk-to-disk back-up (D2D), oftewel het kopiëren van gegevens op de harde schijf van de server naar een andere server door het creëren van een ‘mirror’ (spiegel) of exacte kopie
– Disk-to-tape back-up (D2T), oftewel het kopiëren van gegevens vanaf de harde schijf van de server naar een LTO-5 tape drive (incrementele back-up). De LTO-tapes (Linear Tape Open) worden bewaard op verschillende fysieke locaties:
o on site (Argos)
o off site (banksafe)
De maximale capaciteit van een LTO-5 tape bedraagt 1,5 terabyte. Deze tapes hebben een lange levensduur (± 30 jaar) en zijn niet-producent gebonden, waardoor ze voldoen aan een aantal voorwaarden om geschikt te zijn als drager op lange termijn voor digitale bestanden.

Argos maakt gebruik van een chassis met 16 harde schijven in een RAID 6 configuratie, waarvan twee schijven geconfigureerd zijn als ‘hot spares’ die meteen beginnen met het reconstrueren van gegevens zodra een schijf uitvalt. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is een configuratie waarbij meerdere harde schijven met elkaar worden gecombineerd en waarbij de digitale bestanden en hun pariteitsinformatie voortdurend over meerdere harde schijven worden verspreid. RAID 6 is vergelijkbaar met RAID 5, maar gebruikt twee pariteitsblokken die verdeeld worden over alle schijven. Hierdoor kan RAID 6 het falen van meerdere disks tegelijk aan. Bij RAID 5 daarentegen zou een defect van twee schijven onherroepelijk leiden tot gegevensverlies.

Fouten in de bitopslag worden opgespoord door de checksums te herberekenen en te vergelijken met de oorspronkelijke waarde. Dit is een permanent en systematisch proces.

Ontsluiting

Argos zal de metadata en de stills van Office Baroque online beschikbaar maken via de volgende websites:
– Argos-website:
– Europeana.eu
– GAMA-portaal (Gateway to Archives of Media Art):
Het werk zelf wordt beschikbaar gesteld voor raadpleging in de mediatheek van Argos.12

11. Bronnen

– BOUDREZ, F., VANNESTE, W. & VISSERS, R. Handboek digitaliseren van analoge audiovisuele objecten (beeld en geluid). Brussel: PACKED vzw; Antwerpen: eDAVID vzw, 2011, 145 p.
– CASE, D. Film Technology in Post Production. Oxford: Focal Press, 2001, 221 p..
– DE SMET, T. & TIEMSTRA, H.J. White Paper: Film Scanning Considerations. Hilversum: PrestoCentre, s.d., 18 p.
– KODAK The Essential Reference Guide for Filmmakers. Rochester: Eastman Kodak Company, 2007, 213 p.
– KODAK Basic Photographic Sensitometry Workbook: A Self-Teaching Guide. Rochester: Eastman Kodak Company, 2006, 24 p.
– LANIER, L. Professional Digital Compositing: Essential Tools and Techniques. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing, 2010, 480 p.
– OKUN, J.A. & ZWERMAN, S. The VES Handbook of Visual Effects: Industry Standard VFX Practices and Procedures. Oxford: Elsevier, 2010, 922 p.
– VISSERS, R. Verslag onderzoeksproject Office Baroque. Brussel: PACKED vzw, 2009, 24 p.
– WRIGHT, S. Digital Compositing for Film and Video. Oxford: Focal Press, 2006, 472 p.

12. Contactgegevens

Sofie Ruysseveldt
Collection Manager
Argos, Centrum voor Kunst en Media
T: +32 (0)2 229 00 03
E: sofie@argosarts.org

DeJonghe Film Postproduction
Diksmuidekaai 4
8500 Kortrijk
T: +32 56 35 07 10
E: info@postproduction.be

13. Voetnoten

1. Voor meer informatie over het DCA-project: http://www.digitisingcontemporaryart.eu.
2. Stand van zaken op 18 maart 2013 (bron: Europeana.eu).
3. Voor een uitgebreid verslag van dit voorbereidend onderzoek, kan u de SCART-website raadplegen: https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/case-study-rapport-office-baroque-1977-cherica-convents-en-roger-steylaerts.
4. Voor meer informatie, zie http://www.postproduction.be/
5. Een Standard Definition videobeeld is opgebouwd uit 720 beeldpixels x 576 beeldlijnen (PAL) of 720 beeldpixels x 480 beeldlijnen (NTSC).
6. Een High Definition videobeeld bestaat uit 1920 x 1080 beeldlijnen (1080i of 1080p).
7. De ‘Hurter & Driffield’-curve toont de optische densiteit op de verticale as en de hoeveelheid belichting (exposure) in logaritmische eenheden op de horizontale as. Als de zilverhalide kristallen in de filmlaag in aanraking komen met fotonen (lichtpartikels), worden ze ondoorschijnend. De optische densiteit is de graad van opaciteit van een film. Met de term belichting wordt verwezen naar de interactie tussen de filmlaag en de fotonen. De karakteristieke curve van film bestaat uit drie basisonderdelen: de teen, het rechte stuk en de schouder. De rechte lijn, het middelste stuk, vertegenwoordigt 80% van het beeld. De teen is de weergave van de ‘bijna-zwarte’ tot zwarte partijen van het beeld en de schouder ‘bijna-witte’ tot witte partijen van het beeld. De bocht in de curve aan de schouder en de teen zijn de zones waar detail begint en verdwijnt.
8. Voor meer informatie over het DPX formaat: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000178.shtml.
9. 'Banding’ is het ontstaan van zichtbare helderheidsniveaus/kleurstroken wanneer de beschikbare kleuren beperkt zijn in plaats van een geleidelijke overgang.
10. Het dynamisch bereik is het verschil in helderheid tussen het donkerste punt en het lichtste punt in de gefilmde scene.
11. Voor meer informatie, zie http://www.projectcest.be
12. De mediatheek is toegankelijk van maandag tot vrijdag telkens van 10.00 tot 18.00 uur na afspraak. Een afspraak maken kan via e-mail: medialibrary@argosarts.org of telefonisch op het nummer +32 2 229 00 03. Voor meer info: http://www.argosarts.org.

Rapport d'étude de cas : La numérisation des œuvres d'art médiatiques d'Elsa Stansfield et Madelon Hooykaas

emanuel — Wed, 29 May 2013 14:45:02 +0000

Artistes : Elsa Stansfield & Madelon Hooykaas

Titres et dates de création : Une sélection de vingt-deux œuvres réalisées entre 1972-2005

Types : Vidéo (½‎ EIAJ, 1 inch Type C, U-matic, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam)

Collection : LIMA

Chercheur : Gaby Wijers (LIMA)

Date de publication: 2013

Langue du rapport d'étude de cas : Anglais (Cliquez sur EN dans le menu des langues).

1. Abstract

Within the framework of the DCA project NIMk/LIMA has digitised over 500 artworks made between 1993 and 2005, including additional video artworks from media art pioneers from the Netherlands such as Nan Hoover, Servie Janssen and Stansfield/Hooykaas. Next to this, 1,500 media artworks from the collection have been made accessible online. The main goals for the digitisation of the video artworks are preservation and access. In this case study the digitisation for preservation and online access of video artworks on U-matic by the art collective Stansfield/Hooykaas is highlighted.

LIMA faced two main challenges:

How to make sustainable digital reproductions of the artists’ videos while maintaining their significant properties in the digital form?
How to make the digital reproductions accessible online in order to create an experience that can be considered the digital equivalent of the analogue experience?

This case study describes how the institution dealt with these challenges.

2. Short description of the collection

The Foundation LIMA was established in 2012 by experts from the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk, discontinued as of 1 January 2013) dedicated to providing continued, long-term access to works of media art. With active, online distribution of its own collection, a shared service structure for the storage and conservation of media art collections and a lab devoted to the permanent preservation of such works for producers and museums all over the world, LIMA is striving toward sustainable access to media art.

NIMk/LIMA is an international expertise institute in preservation and digitisation of media art. NIMk and it’s successor, LIMA, provide digitisation and preservation services and permanent digital storage for media artworks by more than five hundred artists, including Marina Abramovic, the Vasulkas, Nan Hoover, Stansfield/Hooykaas, Servaas and Jan Fabre, and for more than fifteen collections, including those of the Kröller-Müller Museum, the Van Abbe Museum, and the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE). NIMk carried out all digitisation in-house.

Over the preceding decades Montevideo, Time Based Arts and the Netherlands Media Art Institute carefully assembled an extensive distribution collection. It ranges from the first experiments in the field of media art from the 1970s to recent productions by famous Dutch and international artists, and rising new talent. The collection provides a rich survey of international video art, media art installations, born-digital art and performances. LIMA has committed itself to the task of maintaining and expanding this collection and the accompanying archive. LIMA currently holds the largest and most complete collection of video artworks by the Scottish-Dutch artist collective Stansfield/Hooykaas.

3. The artists

Madelon Hooykaas and Elsa Stansfield began their collaboration in 1972. Madelon Hooykaas was born in the Netherlands, Elsa Stansfield in Scotland. Both first operated together under the name White Bird, later changed to Stansfield/Hooykaas. Their first film was broadcast on Dutch television in 1973. Under the name Stansfield/Hooykaas the artist collective produced their first video installations from 1975 onwards and acquired fame as European video pioneers. During their 32-year partnership they produced a body of around 150 works. Their work deals with the relation between nature and spirituality, and explores scientific principles and natural forces such as radio waves and magnetic fields. Hooykaas and Stansfield make use of contemporary technology such as film, audio and video in combination with organic materials such as sand, glass and copper. In their work they show that movement and change animate everything that exists.

Work by Stansfield/Hooykaas has been acquired by various international museums, and in the Netherlands it was awarded the Judith Leyster Prize in 1996. The installations and films of Hooykaas/Stansfield have been exhibited in many venues, for instance in Montreal, Sydney (Biennale), Chicago, Madrid, Reykjavik, Kassel (documenta), the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Bremen, Hannover, Berlin, Sheffield, Washington D.C., Lucerne, London (Whitechapel Gallery), Toronto, Hong Kong, Helsinki, Tokyo, Stockholm, Den Haag (Gemeentemuseum), Dundee and Hafnarfjordur. At the Film Festival in Split, Croatia in 1999 they were awarded the Grand Prix for New Media for Person to Person (CD-ROM).

In 2004 Elsa Stansfield died unexpectedly. In the years that followed Madelon Hooykaas produced various video installations and audio works, both under the name Stansfield/Hooykaas and her own name.

4. The artworks

Some time after the death of Elsa Stansfield, Madelon Hooykaas wished to evaluate and sort out all the documents, audiovisual elements and objects in her possession that are connected to the Stansfield/Hooykaas (S/H) oeuvre. The project embraced the evaluation, inventory and indexing of the S/H archive; the entire body of work of the artist collective from 1972 until 2005.

An exhaustive list and report of S/H works and related documents was made.

The S/H archive consists of a variety of audiovisual material including 8 and 16mm films (approximately 40 elements), magnetic audiotapes and videotapes in various carriers and formats (approx. 400 tapes). It also comprises a considerable amount of paper documents such as scripts, project proposals, contracts, drafts, notes, correspondence with galleries, museums and other cultural and funding institutions, budget calculations, circuit drawings, clippings and so on. Next to them stand negatives, contact sheets, photographs and slides that either document exhibitions and short duration presentations, or are actual parts of them. The majority of the paper-based documents and some of the photographic material were stored in folders named after exhibitions and/or geographical places, works, years or themes. The videotapes were located in a cupboard especially reserved for them. They were ordered by carrier – U-matic, VHS, open reel tapes, audiotapes etcetera- and by system: PAL or NTSC. The PAL U-matic tapes were placed in chronological order where the size of the tape and cupboard height permitted it. The films stood next to the tapes or in boxes in the corridor outside Elsa Stansfield’s studio. The majority of the photographic material was placed in a cupboard especially reserved for it. The installation components were either in a storage space in Drenthe or in the basement of the studio of Madelon Hooykaas.

After cataloguing the works, the videotapes that contain copies of the corresponding works were sorted out. The task consisted in gathering all the different carriers that contain copies of each specific work in a list, picking out the Edited Masters, cleaning them at the NIMk conservation department, viewing them and comparing their content to the content of the versions that are part of the NIMk collection. For each viewed title a ‘Viewing Report’ was filled out. Upon completion of this task, a report concerning all the works of each decade was composed. This report served as a verification aid for the NIMk. The Institute could verify which version it has in its collection and whether all the relative information about it is correctly inserted in its database. In addition, the report indicated which works are not in the NIMk collection and which of these should be considered for future acquisition and preservation. This information was used in the DCA project to determine the best quality and correct version of a work to be preserved. Madelon Hooykaas and Elsa Stansfield have produced approximately 90 works of art during their collaboration. The videotapes of Stansfield/Hooykaas can be categorised in 4 groups according to their content:

parts of multiple channel installations or video environments;
single channel video works deriving from multiple channel installations, edited and presented in a one channel version for distribution purposes;
single channel video works made for and presented on one monitor /screen;
registrations of installations and exhibitions.

43 of those 90 works of art were part of the collection of the Netherlands Media Art Institute (referred to as NIMk/LIMA from here on) or other Dutch cultural organisations such as de Appel and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Institute of Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE). The works that are part of the aforementioned collections have been preserved on Digital Betacam. The rest of the Stansfield/Hooykaas videotapes (47) are not part of specific collections in the Netherlands and are not preserved yet. Together with Madelon Hooykaas, NIMk/LIMA made from this list a selection of 22 not yet preserved keyworks; including all of the oldest works and the complete series From the Museum of Memory to be preserved. The works were added to the NIMk/LIMA collection and preservation of these 22 works took place as part of the DCA project. The majority of the tapes were on U-matic format. From 1981 onwards, all the works are in colour.

5. Status

All formal metadata (title, year, length etc.) and most of the technical and contextual metadata is inserted into the NIMk/LIMA Collection Information System, including technical specifications of the master tape or master file. The metadata scheme is inspired by Dublin Core. All 43 video artworks are digitised, resulting in uncompressed AVI files stored on LTO 5 tapes, and lower resolution copies in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats stored on the internal Linux (Ubuntu) Server with an 8 TB storage capacity. Video fragments and stills are made automatically and stored on the same server. Links to all media are made, and the content is published online at LIMA Online Catalogue.

6. Definition of the problem

The main goal for the digitisation of Stansfield/Hooykaas video artworks is to maintain sustainable access to the work. Next to the emphasis on digital sustainability it is now a priority to make the works more widely accessible. The most important motive for this is the potential created by digitisation and the Internet, which offers new models of presentation, distribution and collection alike, and allows the possibility of reaching a worldwide audience.

NIMk/LIMA faced two main challenges

How to make sustainable digital reproductions of the artists’ videos while maintaining their significant properties in the digital form?
How to make the digital reproductions accessible online in order to create an experience that can be considered the digital equivalent of the analogue experience?

7. Method to solve the problem

The digitisation process of the video artworks by Stansfield/Hooykaas was made up of several steps:

Definition of the digitisation goals;
Definition of the digitisation budget;
Copyright clearance;
Definition of the quality requirements and the digitisation task;
Preparation for digitisation;
Digitisation;
Quality control;
Cataloguing the digital files;
Archiving the digital files;
Making the digital reproductions accessible online;
Storing the analogue and digital works;
Planning sustainability.

The first three steps were already taken before the DCA project started in January 2011. NIMk decided that the video artworks would be digitised in accordance with high quality standards for sustainable digital preservation. This would also allow high-quality access and the possibility for the files to be used for diverse purposes. The digitisation budget was also already defined during the preparation phase. Copyright clearance was not a big issue since the NIMk collaborated with Madelon Hooykaas, the heir of the collective. The artist holds the copyrights on the digital reproductions. NIMk stores, publishes and distributes the works.

The first part of the digitisation process begins with the important work of cleaning the tapes themselves. This is done using industry standard RTI machines; in the case of U-matic tapes the RTI VT3100 machine is used. LIMA is one of the few places in the Netherlands operating one of these rare machines. The VT3100 uses a dual-cleaning and error reporting system. It simultaneously cleans both sides of the magnetic tape, and scans it to produce information about any potential defects in the audio, video, and control tracks. In the case of tapes that have been damaged or stored in non-optimised environments, repeated cleaning cycles may be necessary. Ensuring that the tape is of the best possible physical quality before preservation is critical to obtaining a high-quality result, and also protects the U-matic player from the risk of damage or transferring dirt to the head units during playback.

When the tape is ready for playback, it is loaded into one of our U-matic decks. The machine to be used is selected according to the tape format. LIMA has the capability to play all U-matic formats, including Low-Band, High-Band and SP, in both PAL and NTSC standards. A composite video signal is routed from the U-matic player through an AVS EOS video standards converter and time base corrector (TBC). This allows re-calibration of the video signal, including adjustment of video gain and black levels, and chroma retiming. This adjustment is done using both the colour bars at the start of a tape as a reference standard, and from various randomly selected parts of the artwork itself. Calibration is done using industry-standard Tectronic vectorscope and waveform monitors, and an audio peak level meter. The video signal is output from the TBC via a component signal to a Sony BVW-500 Digital Betacam deck, which acts as a high quality A-D (analogue to digital) signal converter. The audio signal from the U-matic deck is handled in a similar way. Analogue stereo signals are sent first to an Eela mixing console to be balanced and routed, before being sent to a Bell audio delay interface. This is an important part of the process, because using the TBC to recalibrate and stabilise the video introduces a latency of one frame into the video signal. This means that the video passing through the TBC is delayed by one frame, and thus the Bell unit is required to delay the audio by one frame in order to resync the audio and video signals from the tape. From the Bell unit, AES/EBU digital audio is fed to the BVW-500, where it is rematched to the video signal. A digital SDI stream containing both audio and video information is then sent from the BVW-500 deck to NIMk/LIMA’s computer capture station, utilising a Blackmagic Multibridge Pro card and Blackmagic Media Express software to capture 10-bit uncompressed AVI files. This workflow represents the main processes involved with digitisation of analogue video material.

LIMA advocates and uses open source software, and understands the importance of open formats and codecs for long-term preservation. Especially in the digitisation of audiovisual material the choice of the format and the codec is always a trade-off. The BlackMagicDesign MultiBridge hardware that we use for digitalisation writes the files in an AVI format with a V210 codec. Although this is a proprietary codec, we have selected it because it is a well-known and current codec, supported by most of the coding- and editing software. We monitor the evolution of the support of the codec, in order to be able to anticipate the possible need of transcoding.

After the capturing, we select random sample files for quality control. These are visually checked at the start, middle, end and/or at length. If the results of this inspection are OK, the files have been successfully captured. When high-quality uncompressed AVI files have been successfully captured, the files are renamed using NIMk/LIMA’s mySQL catalogue database, and any additional metadata relevant to the work is recorded. At this point, MD5 hash files are created for the video files, and they are transferred to our remote server for writing to LTO tape for storage. At each point of transfer, the MD5 files are re-checked to ensure data integrity.

As part of the established workflow at LIMA, the uncompressed AVI master files are then used as the source to create MPEG-2 video files to be used as distribution/exhibition versions. This is done using high-end Snell and Wilcox hardware, which offers unprecedented quality in terms of MPEG-2 encoding. At this stage, noise reduction filters can be implemented as required to improve the aesthetic quality of the video for screening purposes, and if necessary a black border ‘mask’ can also be superimposed over the video signal to obscure the overscan sections of the image around the edge of the frame. This ‘overscan’ - a flickering line along the top and bottom of the image - was never seen on the CRT monitors for which the work was originally produced, but is clearly visible on newer flatscreen monitors. The result can be visually disturbing, which is why we have designed and implemented a masking system to hide the overscan and ensure the work is viewed as originally intended. Naturally, this masking is only implemented on the distribution/exhibition versions of the work, never on the uncompressed AVI master files.

The final stage of the process is creating the MPEG-4 versions of the work for online use. These files are generated automatically from the MPEG-2 files, and generally include a watermark. At this point, still images and 30 seconds fragments of the work are also automatically generated. All derivatives are linked to the database.

Preparation and digitisation of the video artworks on U-matic took around 2.5 times the initial length of the works and was done over a two-month period, together with the Betacam format tapes. The digitisation team consisted of two people, Matt Kemp for digitisation and linking the files to the database and Wiel Seuskens for storage and digital data management. Together with Gaby Wijers and Ivo van Stiphout, the procedure and quality control was set up. Insertion of works into the database including keywords and content descriptions was made during a three-day period. Technical preservation metadata about the digitalisation source, digital artefacts a.o. are also stored in the collection’s information system.

All videos are disclosed through the on-line platform LIMA. The system allows for the metadata to be harvested by OAI-PMH. LIMA uses its own metadata scheme, inspired by Dublin Core and keywords inspired by GAMA. Via GAMA, the works are harvested for Europeana.

The original tapes are stored in the LIMA vaults. Out of research and best practices LIMA divides their data collection into two sections:

The archival preservation master collection on uncompressed AVI files, stored on two duplicate sets of LTO-5 tapes, one kept on location and one kept off-site as backup.
The distribution collection (copies) in MPEG-2 format for exhibitions and screenings, and MPEG-4 for online presentations. The MPEGs are stored on HDD on location with one duplicated off-site backup copy.

LIMA is dedicated to providing continued, long-term access to works of media art, old and new. LIMA controls the authenticity and integrity (for further information, see Guidelines for a Long-term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata) of the files and has a policy and plan to ensure access to its digital repository, not only today but also in the future. In the DCA deliverable D6.2 a NIMk/LIMA case study on sustainable storage is given (for further information, Best practices for a digital storage infrastructure for the long-term preservation of digital files)

8. Results

The result of digitisation was 22 AVI files, 22 MPEG2 files, 22 MPEG4 files, 22 fragments and 44 stills.

The technical characteristics of the uncompressed master files produced through the digitalisation are:

- file size: depending on the length of each video work, approximately 1.5 GB per minute;

- resolution: 720x576 pixels (PAL) 720x486 pixels (NTSC);

- bit depth: 10 bits per primary colour (32 bits per pixel);

- colour space: YUV;

- chroma sub sampling: 422;

- file format: AVI, V210 video codec, PCM audio.

The technical characteristics of the distribution/exhibition files produced through the digitalisation:

- file size: depending on the length of each video artwork, approximately 60 MB per minute;

- resolution: 720x576 pixels (PAL) 720x486 pixels (NTSC);

- bit depth: 8 bits per primary colour (24 bits per pixel);

- colour space: YUV;

- chroma sub sampling: 420;

- bit rate: CBR 8000 kbps video, 384 kbps mp2 audio;

- file format: MPEG-2.

The technical characteristics of the online access copies are:

- file size: depending on the length of each video artwork, approximately 4 MB per minute;

- resolution: 448x336 pixels;

- bit depth: 8 bits per primary colour (24 bits per pixel);

- colour space: YUV;

- chroma sub sampling: 420;

- bit rate: 400 kbps video, 128kbps audio;

- file format: MPEG4, h.264 video codec, aac audio codec.

The technical characteristics of the fragments are:

- resolution : 448x336 pixels;

- bit depth: 8 bits per primary colour (24 bits per pixel )

- colour space : YUV

- chroma sub sampling: 420;

- bit rate : 8000 kbps video, MPEG-2 Layer 3 / 22050Hz 64 kb/s, Joint Stereo audio;

- file format: .flv

The technical characteristics of the stills are:

- file size: approximately 700 KB;

- resolution: 768x576 pixels; (PAL 4:3 aspect) 720x540 pixels (NTSC 4:3);

- bit depth: 8 bits per primary colour ( 24 bits per pixel);

- colour space: sRGB;

- colour profile: RGB;

- file format: TIFF, JPEG.

9. References

- Ramon Coelho (NIMK) and Wiel Seuskens (NIMK), Onderzoek naar duurzame, compressieloze opslag van videokunst, NIMK, 2009, 16 p.
- Paulien'T Hoen (ed.) and Gaby Wijers (ed.), Project Behoud Mediakunst Collectie Nederland, SBMK/NIMk, 33p.
- Sofie Laier Henriksen (NIMk), Wiel Seuskens (NIMk) and Gaby Wijers (NIMk), D6.1 Guidelines for a Long-term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata, DCA, 2012, 76 p.
- Sofie Laier Henriksen (NIMk), Wiel Seuskens (NIMk) and Gaby Wijers (NIMk), D6.2 Best practices for a digital storage infrastructure for the long-term preservation of digital files, DCA, 2013, 51 p.

10. Contact details of the author

Gaby Wijers (gabywijers@li-ma.nl)

11. Hooykaas/Stansfield collection: list of videotapes preserved within the framework of DCA project

1) Journeys, 1976, 3 channel audio-video installation, 5 tapes, 11'14”, 11'14” and 7'28” minutes, b/w. Carriers: ½ inch open reel and U-matic.

2) The Road, 1976, single channel video installation, 15'00”, b/w. Carrier: U-matic.

3) Just Like That, 1977, single channel/2 monitors audio-video installation, 1 tape, 4'20”, b/w. Carrier: ½ inch open reel. There is also a Digital Betacam tape, this tape is preserved by NIMk/LIMA.

4) Memory Window, 1977, 3 channel audio-video installation and a closed circuit, 3 tapes, 20min.each, Carriers: ½ inch open reels. There is also a 31'00” compilation tape, this tape is preserved by NIMk/LIMA.

5) Generations, 1977, single channel audio-video, 1 tape, 22'41”, N.T.S.C., color. Carrier: U-matic.

6) Time-Piece, 1980, single channel audio-video installation, 1 tape, 10'34”, b/w. Carrier: U-matic

7) Two Sides of a Story, 1981, 2 tapes, multiple channel / closed circuit audio-video installation. Carriers: U-matic. There is also a single channel version that is preserved.

8) Shadow Pictures… From the Museum of Memory II, 1986, two channel audiovideo installation, 9'40” each Carriers: U-matic

9) Point of Orientation… From the Museum of Memory III, 1986, two channel audio-video installation. Videotape A and videotape B duration: approximately 15min. Carriers: U-matic. There is also a single channel version that has been preserved 14'41”.

10) From the Museum of Memory IV, 1986, two channel audio-video installation. Videotape A: Blue Book, 6min. / Videotape B: Yellow Book, 6min. Carriers: U-matic.

11) Phosphor…from the Museum of Memory V, 1987, single channel audio-video installation. Videotape duration: 7min. Carrier: U-matic.

12) Boat Piece…From the Museum of Memory VI, 1987, single channel two monitor video installation combined with an audio installation. Videotape duration: approximately 6min. Carrier: U-matic

13) From the Museum of Memory VII, 1988, single channel audio-video installation. Videotape duration: 7min. Carrier: U-matic.

14) Point of Reference, 1990, three channel audio-video installation. Duration of videotapes: unknown. The works are on 1 inch open reels that was not possible to view and their duration is not mentioned on the boxes’ labels. Carriers: 1 inch open reels. There is also a single channel version 12'43”, on Digital Betacam

15) Liquid Crystal, 1991, single channel video sculpture. Videotape duration: 21'37”. Carrier: U-matic.

16) True North, 1991-1992, video sculpture using one video tape. The duration of the videotape is 32'47”. Carrier: U-matic.

17) Table of Orientation, 1994, computer-based (laser disk) installation using one videotape. Carrier: U-matic. Tape duration: 20'38”.There is also a tape that documents the way the sculpture works. This documentation videotape is preserved by the NIMk/LIMA 4'05”

18) As Far as Japan, 1996, single channel video sculpture. Videotape duration: 10'20”. Carrier: U-matic SP.

19) Inside A Portrait, 1997, two channel video installation. Duration of each videotape: approximately 7min. Carriers: Digital Betacam.

20) Re: Location, 1999, single channel video. Videotape duration: 16'00”. Carrier: Betacam SP

21) Deep Looking, 2003, single channel video work, 30'00”. The work is part of the NIMk/LIMA collection but not preserved. Carrier: Digital Betacam.

22) Re:Vision, 2005, single channel video work 30'00. The work in part of the NIMk/LIMA collection but has not been preserved yet. Carrier: Digital Betacam.

Next to these artworks or channels of installations some videotapes are copied as NIMk/LIMA documentation. All the works mentioned in this section are on U-matic and they are Master tapes. Those are:

23) Moving (1975) –work never presented-, 7'19”

24) Radiant… from the Personal Observatory (1988) -alternative version-, 3'28”

Entretien avec Baruch Gottlieb, Ruth Kemper et Susanne Bernstein (transmediale)

emanuel — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 14:19:49 +0000

interview_tag:

dca

packed

transmediale office, Berlin, July 24, 2012

transmediale is a Berlin-based festival and year-round project that reveals new connections between art, culture and technology. The activities of transmediale aim at fostering a critical understanding of contemporary culture and politics as saturated by media technologies. In the course of its twenty-five year history, the annual transmediale festival has turned into an essential event in the calendar of media art professionals, artists, activists and students from all over the world. The broad cultural appeal of the festival is recognised by the German federal government who supports transmediale through its programme for beacons of contemporary culture.

Rony Vissers of the PACKED vzw (Brussels), the centre of expertise in digital heritage that is coordinating DCA, talked to Baruch Gottlieb, Susanne Bernstein and Ruth Kemper (all transmediale) about the project's progress at their organisation.

Content:

1. transmediale and its archival collection

2. Content of transmediale’s archival collection

3. DCA and the digitisation of transmediale’s archival collection

4. Management of transmediale’s participation in DCA

5. transmediale’s technical choices

6. transmediale, online access and GAMA

7. transmediale and Europeana 8. Impact of DCA on transmediale

1. transmediale and its archival collection

PACKED: transmediale is not a collecting institution in the traditional sense, it is mainly known as a media art festival. Still, it has a large archival collection. Could you explain how this collection has been acquired by transmediale?

Ruth Kemper: transmediale’s collection of video and digital art has not been acquired actively for the purpose of collecting art. It contains, amongst others, material sent in by artists over a period of twenty-five years, works that were featured in the festival itself in response to calls for participation, documentation of these works and of their production, documentation of performances, of conferences by artists and on media art.

Susanne Bernstein: Over the years, the festival became more and more prominent because it had awards for artists. Being selected for the festival was really like a promotion for artists.

PACKED: Recently the whole festival concept has changed…

Susanne Bernstein: Yes, we changed the rules a little in 2011. We decided not to have the usual transmediale Award anymore and to extend our event in some kind of way. The festival launched an initiative called reSource transmedial culture berlin, which can be seen as a year-long project, with different touch-downs during the year, as well as the festival in February. In order to be part of this year-long project, artists are expected to submit projects that they develop towards the festival. Everything is more stretched-out. We're trying to get this new concept rolling, but are still at the start. It is currently a kind of experiment. We have to try and find out how it can work. This year-long creation process is where the money that we used to have for the awards goes. We also used to have a Vilém Flusser Theory Award that was granted every year from 2008. We have changed it now into a residency programme. Artists can send in submissions for it. So, currently there are basically two different programmes that artists can submit proposals for: the normal call for works for the festival, including this year-long project, and also the Vilém Flusser Residency.

PACKED: Does this change of approach mean that the archival collection is also slowly changing?

Baruch Gottlieb: Yes, for every annual deadline artists used to send in all kinds of materials: a lot of videotapes and DVDs, but also other materials like portfolios or printed materials. Today we ask artists to submit project proposals. Instead of sending us hard copy material, now they often just send us a link to a website. As such we often don’t receive anything actually physical. For our current selection process we don’t need to receive physical objects anymore.

PACKED: When you decided to participate in the DCA project, you almost had to start from scratch. Before, there was not even a systematic and detailed registration of the archival collection of transmediale, nor of the many different items it contains. What exactly made transmediale decide to start working on its archival collection?

Baruch Gottlieb: At a certain moment we realised that transmediale holds a huge amount of archival material. Unfortunately, we didn’t know when we started the DCA project, what exactly was on the thousands of tapes and disks we had accumulated over the years.

transmediale has existed since 1988, and the period from then until today covers almost the whole history of digital art. We understood that our archival collection contains a history of digital art, as seen particularly from the Berlin perspective of transmediale, although we didn’t know the exact content of the archive.

In fact, transmediale started from a group called MedienOperative. This was a kind of independent video production group that was based in West Berlin before the fall of the Wall. MedienOperative had a very specific Berlin perspective on media, independent media, and the creative use of electronics and electronic media. The first director of the transmediale festival, Micky Kwella, actively explored this more alternative, radical and investigative side of media art.

Of course, there are other archives that deal with the history of media art or digital art. Some important European ones are even part of the DCA project: Argos in Brussels, Belgium, Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, EMAF in Osnabrück, Germany, NIMk in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and WRO is Wroclaw, Poland. All these archives are different and view the history of media art or digital art from their own perspective. While transmediale began in 1988, Ars Electronica began for instance in 1979 when they first organised the festival as a biennial event. If you compare the archives of transmediale and Ars Electronica, you would probably discover that, although both archives overlap in time, they are different in nature.

To uncover the history of digital art that is contained in transmediale’s archival collection, we first had to find out what the actual content of our collection is and to define which material is appropriate for archiving. These are the first steps that are required to make the huge amount of historical material more comprehensible and ultimately also publicly accessible.

2. Content of transmediale’s archival collection

PACKED: Does the transmediale archive only hold documentation on artworks or also on other subjects?

Ruth Kemper: Being a festival for art and digital culture, transmediale does not only archive artworks but to a large extent also holds documentation of all the other events that are held during the festival, such as conferences, panel discussions, and workshops, as well as of transmediale activities that take place all through the year. We consider this part of our collection very valuable as, besides the very interesting content of each year’s conference program, as a whole it mirrors the development of the digital world, its makers and its users.

Baruch Gottlieb: I was just going through the material from the period between 1992 and 1995. We hold amazing stuff from this period, for instance interviews produced here with our visiting artists. At that time the Internet was also just starting, and we have documentation on panels with people from different fields discussing what the Internet actually is. The panels were not only made up of artists, but also business and government people sitting and discussing around a table. transmediale’s approach was very multidisciplinary. So our archive also contains documentation that treats the history of technology with a strong artistic constituent.

In our archive we also have some really interesting material on this group, MedienOperative, that predates the actual transmediale. It shows the media art scene in Berlin before transmediale was even founded.

PACKED: Can you briefly give an overview of the kinds of objects in transmediale’s collection? I expect that you have a lot of videotapes and DVDs, but what else do you hold? Do you also have a lot of paper documents?

Ruth Kemper: We have all kinds of objects. Lately we’ve discovered paper documents that we want to take a closer look at, such as film scripts by Micky Kwella, who was also a videomaker, or his very extensive correspondence with GDR officials that made it possible for some GDR artists to show their artworks in the festival program of 1990. There are a lot of paper documents that we have not even touched, but we’ll get to it eventually and keep on digging out the treasures of transmediale’s history.

Besides our paper documents, we also have all kinds of data carriers that were common during the last twenty-five years of digital art. Whatever carrier you can think of, be audio or video, you can find it on our shelves.

Baruch Gottlieb: In particular, we have a lot of different video formats: VHS, ¾” U-matic, Betacam, MiniDV, … but we have for instance also what are today rather inconvenient media such as Zip disks, floppies and VHS-C tapes.

PACKED: Do you consider the copies of the artworks that you have on videotape as the actual master copies of the artworks or just as documentation on the artworks?

Baruch Gottlieb: We do not have many master copies here, although some copies are very high quality. The artists who send us their works to submit them for selection in the festival do not send us their master copies but access copies. We do, however, have some videotapes here that seem to have been left after the festival and that are very high quality. They’re probably not the real master copies, but copies that were dubbed from a Betacam or ¾” U-Matic tape. Although their quality is very high and close to that of the master copies, they are not master copies themselves. Their status might change through time. Although they are not the original masters, they might have become de facto master copies because the originals might no longer exist.

The situation became more complex at the beginning of the new millennium with software art. Some such software artworks were shown at various places, but every time there would be a different variant of the artwork. Artists created several different versions of their artworks. They went from one festival to another, and each festival had its own version. Although some versions are only slightly different, they are still different. You could say that each version has its own master copy. In those days these master copies were stored on CD-ROM. Many of our CD-ROM copies are therefore probably unique copies.

3. DCA and the digitisation of transmediale’s archival collection

PACKED: What is your exact purpose for the digitisation of your archival collection?

Ruth Kemper: The main reason for digitising our archive is that many of the objects we hold are videotapes that are really old. They have a maximum lifetime of maybe twenty to thirty years. This means that it’s about time to start digitising them. As every playback entails a certain risk of damage or destruction, we decided to catalogue and digitise each tape’s content at the same time. Besides preserving valuable art works and documents we also intend to make all our materials and the history of the VideoFest Berlin and transmediale accessible for a greater audience online. We believe that our contribution to the Europeana portal will be very interesting for people who do serious research on media art and its ‘orbit’, as well as for a curious person just browsing through the portal.

Baruch Gottlieb: Indeed, besides preservation, access is another reason. I’m an artist myself, I’ve also taught media art and I know how difficult it is to get good information about old works of media art. As I’m currently working on the other side of the story, I want to contribute to solving that problem. I want to help researchers, artists and scholars to have access to better information about what was made by media artists. Generating new digital information and making all this publicly available through a documentation centre for media art will be a very important outcome of our digitisation work.

PACKED: Can you say a bit more about how you selected the material for the DCA project?

Ruth Kemper: We basically had to start from scratch. The paper documents were selected if they were in some way relevant to researchers on media art, its makers, or the history of the transmediale festival itself. For the video, audio and interactive works, as well as the transmediale conference program, we started off by creating a database that we drew from the twenty-five transmediale catalogues by feeding every single item that was part of the festival into a list. With this at hand we could start going through every single data carrier from our shelves, checking each label against the list, and find out if it had been part of the festival or not. Of course, only the actual digitisation could tell us if the info on the label was right, and if the tape itself was still intact. Even though we could not fill in all the gaps in the list, we still managed to get an interesting selection together.

Baruch Gottlieb: Ruth’s list is our guideline, but it may be bigger than the actual number of objects that we have in transmediale’s archive. For the digitisation we start with the physical objects that we find in our archive.

We also have a lot of other objects, for instance submissions that were not selected for the festival. We have more material than was actually shown in our festival. We will keep it for another digitisation project. The reason we've always kept such material (that was not selected for inclusion in the festival), is that some of it is actually good work. Non-selection was often not based on the quality of the works, but on other criteria: the material didn’t fit the theme of that year’s festival, other work by the same artists had already been shown the year before, etc. There is a lot of good work in our archival collection that was never shown at the transmediale festival.

PACKED: Is DCA your first digitisation project?

Susanne Bernstein: Yes, DCA is our first digitisation project. However, our plan to make an inventory of our archival collection, to digitise all archive material, to preserve it digitally and to make it publicly accessible has existed for a long time.

The first step was that we first became aware of our own history when transmediale celebrated the 20th anniversary of its festival in 2007. On this occasion we started a catalogue; we collected the names of the people who had worked for transmediale since its start and of the artists who had participated in the different festival sections. This was, for transmediale, the start of thinking about it in terms of archiving. The register resulted in a book publication. Although the book might look boring at first sight, it actually is an amazing work. If you are interested in media art and flip through the book pages, you get an enormous amount of information. The next step was to think about what we could do with the huge amount of material in our archive and how to make it available for researchers and scholars. These two steps were the start of our thinking about archiving and digitising. It's what got the whole thing rolling.

PACKED: Why did transmediale decide to participate in the DCA project?

Baruch Gottlieb: This kind of digitisation work is easier to do when you do it together in a group. If you do something like this alone, it becomes a large undertaking. It is hard to get everything and everyone motivated. Also the possibility of being able to contribute to Europeana was an important incentive. When we received the invitation to participate in DCA, we saw it as the right moment to start our digitisation activities. Being part of a large consortium like the DCA consortium does have many advantages for transmediale. We do get a lot support from, for instance, PACKED vzw and from Jürgen Enge at HfG in Karlsruhe, but also from other members of the DCA consortium. We get a lot of assistance that we could not have generated by ourselves, or it would have taken much more time.

4. Management of transmediale’s participation in DCA

PACKED: How is the participation of transmediale in the DCA project managed internally?

Susanne Bernstein: The internal project management has changed through the lifetime of the project. We started mainly with three people: Kristoffer Gansing who is the artistic director of transmediale, Markus Huber who is programme manager and I. I take care of the general administration of the DCA project at transmediale. Soon we realised that none of us actually had enough time to do the job, to really get the whole project going. The three of us didn't have enough time to start the inventory of the archive, nor the cataloguing, the digitisation and so on. It didn’t take us long to discover that we needed staff that could really dedicate their time to the DCA project. It is a challenging project for us because we want to digitise a large amount of material. After a while Ruth and Baruch came along and joined our team. They agreed to work on the different work packages and stages of the project. So, currently our DCA team mainly consists us Ruth, Baruch and myself. In addition, Marieke Eilers just joined us as an intern.

Baruch Gottlieb: We also have staff who take care of the website for the transmediale festival. They will become more involved in the DCA project towards its end. They will also take care of the provision of our content to Europeana. With the assistance of Joris Janssens from PACKED vzw, we are currently still working on the construction of an online database system.

PACKED: Does transmediale work with subcontractors within the framework of the DCA project?

Susanne Bernstein: Yes, for the digitisation we have subcontractors. They take care of the transfer of the VHS tapes, but also of other tape formats like, for instance, MiniDVs and Betacam, to file-based formats. This is the actual digitisation. Ruth and Baruch take care of the work before and afterwards.

Ruth Kemper: Before we started, I went through all the stuff that was sitting on the shelves. I gave all videotapes identification numbers, registered the numbers with some extra info in a list and put the videotapes in boxes. Next we sent these boxes to the subcontractor and they digitised everything. After digitisation they send us back all the tapes and hard drives with the digital files. Then Baruch and I take over again. We go through all digital files and check what was transferred from the videotapes. Before digitisation we were not sure what was on the tapes. Some videotapes were labelled, others not. Some videotapes were also wrongly labelled. We can never rely on what is written on the videotapes or on the packaging. The checking process is very time-consuming work that we do and manage ourselves. It is an important activity if we want to find out what material is actually in our archival collection. We will never know how many works we actually have until we have finished the whole project. Only at the end we will know exactly what we have in our archive.

5. transmediale’s technical choices

PACKED: When preparing the digitisation, you had to set some quality parameters. You had to choose formats, codecs, etc. Many best practice digitisation guidelines are developed for the digitisation of the high-quality masters. You have to start from a lot of low-quality videotapes like VHS, and on the whole you do not have master copies but access copies. How do you deal with this?

Baruch Gottlieb: We decided not to aim for uncompressed video, but for compressed video. After consulting some other DCA partners, we decided to use the H.264 codec. The choice is based on the fact that we are mostly digitising VHS tapes that have a rather low quality and are mostly not masters but access copies. We are also mainly dealing with standard definition formats and it doesn’t make sense to blow these up to more current high definition formats. H.264 offers a high quality.

Besides the video material we also digitise some printed material and for this we follow the DCA guidelines.

PACKED: You talked about the importance of the preservation of your archival collection. Did you take into account the importance of open formats and codecs for preservation purposes when you selected your file formats and codecs?

Baruch Gottlieb: Yes, we did as much as possible. For the printed material we use TIFF. For the video material we use MP4 with the H.264 codec. For the still images that will be available online we use PNG. We checked this with Juergen Enge at HfG to be sure that we were making the right choices for transmediale.

With Juergen we also discussed other preservation aspects, for instance the preservation of CD-ROMs. He has a project at HfG in Karlsruhe on the preservation of CD-ROMs. We have sent him some of our CD-ROMs to check if he can find a preservation solution for us. The preservation of CD-ROMs is really complicated because of the changing operating systems.

PACKED: Before the DCA project transmediale did not even have a systematic and detailed registration of its archival collection, nor of the many different items it contains. How do you create your collection database?

Baruch Gottlieb: The first step was Ruth putting all information from our festival catalogues and from our register book into an Excel file. This basically resulted in a list of participants and works. It was a kind of reference list. Whenever we find a work in our archive, we check the list to see whether it's included or not, and whether we should add it or not.

After the very time-consuming processes of creating a database and putting together a selection, as we mentioned before, the next step was the development, in collaboration with Joris Janssens of PACKED vzw, of an online database. For this, we are using Collective Access, an open source collections management and cataloguing system. It is made for museums and archives. Since it is open source and supported by a community, it is likely to be sustainable for a long time. Collective Access is a flexible system. The database can also be linked to our own website.

Ultimately, the Collective Access database will enable us to create an XML export than can be ingested in the portal GAMA, Gateway to Archives of Media Art. We will use GAMA also as an aggregator to get our data to Europeana.

6. transmediale, online access and GAMA

PACKED: Could you tell us something about the registration of the metadata?

Baruch Gottlieb: We developed the metadata scheme ourselves, in collaboration with Joris Janssens from PACKED vzw. It contains metadata fields that are very standard: creator, data of production, title of work, … It is based on Dublin Core. Currently we are working on standardising our dataset. Sam Coppens of iMinds, work package leader on metadata, has also been involved.

As keyword vocabulary we use the GAMA keyword list. We didn’t have any keywords. Since we want to be present in the GAMA portal, we decided from the beginning that our own keywords had to be compatible with those used in GAMA. Being compatible with the GAMA keyword list is one of our goals. We're working on this with Eva Kozma of C3 in Budapest, Hungary, who is also involved in GAMA. We are trying to figure out with her how to deal with the GAMA keyword list because we would like to expand it a little bit. One of the keywords that we are missing is, for instance, ‘computer animation’. GAMA only has ‘animation’, but that references to cartoon-like animation and doesn’t fit our purpose.

A year ago we had almost no metadata, except for some scattered information. We’ve built this up from scratch in one year. It also means that there is a ind of limit as to what can be achieved in this timespan. Having a standardised system that can easily exchange content with Europeana is another goal.

PACKED: Can you tell us about your plans for public online access?

Baruch Gottlieb: In general we will try to make everything available that the public might be interested in.

We have not decided yet how the future front-end will look. We are still working on it with our web team. It will take some more time. We’ll probably use something that will look similar to what we already have.

We also still have to decide whether we will make full-length videos available, or only clips. This will probably depend on the videos themselves. At the moment we can only promise to make clips or stills available of everything we hold in our archive. The reason for this is that there are simply too many works to process. There are also copyright issues involved. Luckily, the copyright situation is a lot easier for the materials that transmediale has produced itself.

Our plan is to host the website and the video files ourselves at transmediale.

PACKED: You already mentioned GAMA a couple of times. Can you tell us about transmediale’s relationship with GAMA?

Baruch Gottlieb: We plan to join the GAMA consortium and become a full member. We are already in regular contact with GAMA. For transmediale, it is important to be associated with a group of media art institutions.

The association with GAMA will make our archival collection more relevant and important, more useful to researchers. As a portal GAMA receives a lot of inquiries from researchers who are looking for information on media artists or media art. For this reason it is very important for us to be associated with them. Another reason why we would like to become a member of the GAMA consortium is also to become part of a network in which institutions with a similar profile can consult each other when facing problems related to the cataloguing, preservation or online access of their collections. Our field is changing rapidly. It would be good to obtain, through exchange and collaboration, some idea of how vocabularies and preservation standards will evolve in the next two or three years, for example. A third reason for becoming a GAMA member is that GAMA as an aggregator provides us with the possibility of providing, and of continually updating, our content to Europeana.

PACKED: Do you have any other aggregator options besides GAMA to get your content into Europeana?

Baruch Gottlieb: There is still NTUA’s MINT tool. We didn’t consider the option of trying to find a national aggregator. For us, it is much more important to be within this media art context of GAMA. It is an international domain-specific aggregator through which we can deliver our content to Europeana.

7. transmediale and Europeana

PACKED: What do you expect from the connection to Europeana?

Ruth Kemper: I think that connecting to Europeana is a logical thing to do for transmediale. The VideoFest Berlin/ transmediale festival has been an international network of media artists and their peers. For this reason transmediale archive resembles an international media art ‘conglomerate’. Getting involved in Europeana is just a next step in order to put the transmediale collection in its rightful place within the context of European cultural heritage.

PACKED: What will be the degree of metadata quality that you will provide to Europeana? Will the metadata be the same as on transmediale’s website?

Baruch Gottlieb: We don’t know yet. Probably there will be more and richer material on our own website. We have some interesting projects going on right now that are dealing with our archive. We invite curators to come to transmediale, make a selection from our archive, do in-depth research, add richer descriptions and create links between different items in our archive. This generates a lot of new material. It’s the kind of thing we would also like to present on our website.

PACKED: Does the future display of your archival collection on GAMA and Europeana influence your copyright policy?

Baruch Gottlieb: Yes, our copyright policy has changed. In the past artists just sent us material to get selected for the festival. They filled out an entry form, which gave us the right to use their material for promotional use within the framework of a certain edition of the festival. They did not grant us any rights to use their material outside the framework of that festival edition. This means that if we want to put their material online, we have to contact the artists to get their permission because officially we don’t have the right to do so otherwise. This policy changed last year. Now artists grant us more extensive rights specifically for Europeana, GAMA and others when they submit an entry for the festival.

8. Impact of DCA on transmediale

PACKED: Does transmediale have a digital preservation policy?

Baruch Gottlieb: Digital preservation is also something new for us. We’re currently planning to create a backup for the first time. We never had so much data to back up. As a result of our participation in the DCA project, different kinds of infrastructure issues have come up. Making backups is the first step. We will start using a file server in a month or two. Once we succeed in that, we’ll decide about what to do over the following years. DCA contributes to the development of a digital preservation policy.

PACKED: What has been your experience, in general, with the DCA project until now?

Susanne Bernstein: We really stumbled into the DCA project. At the beginning we didn’t exactly know what the project would entail for us, also in terms of archival practice and what we need to achieve. However, I think that we’re progressing well today.

We had time to set up a good working structure, time-management-wise. I’m also happy with how the database is evolving and how we’re working with it. We can only take these challenges step by step, because we’ve never done such a project before. The same goes for the challenges related to online display and the decisions on how to work with the web team. There are a lot of persons involved, with many different opinions and discussions. The good thing is that the decisions that need to be made will be made.

The DCA project lasts thirty months. Before we were only used to working on a short-term perspective. As a festival we always worked to a perspective of just one year. The festival takes place and ends, and the next year there is another festival. Having this kind of project for a longer term is a good experience for the transmediale team. There are many learning effects and things that we can transfer to the future.

Thanks to the DCA project we encounter many things that we don’t get to know when we work on the festival. This confrontation is a good thing because it forces us to think about it. I take care of the administration of the DCA project at transmediale and the DCA project administration is, for instance, something that is not easy to fit into our way of working. Normally we don’t use calendar years, but festival years. These start in March and end in February. So there is a shift, and the work builds up towards the festivals. The actual organisation of the festival always means a lot of work for us. This is where the planning of the DCA affects my work as an administrator for example.

PACKED: The administration is also very specific for European projects, and sometimes a little complex. Is coping with this also a learning experience for you?

Susanne Bernstein: I knew from the beginning that we would have to do all of these financial reports and so on. The reporting was something new for me. By writing my contributions for the reports I'm starting to understand more what the European Commission actually wants to know and which information I have to collect. Since PACKED vzw is the project leader, all communication with the European Commission goes through you. I’m only permanently in contact with Christine Sauter of PACKED vzw, not directly with the European Commission.

PACKED: Did a European collaboration like the DCA project broaden transmediale’s horizon?

Baruch Gottlieb: Through DCA we got to know what the network is in Europe. Until now transmediale was only focussed on doing its own thing. Through DCA we got involved in a network of media art festivals and organisations, with argos, NIMk, EMAF, Ars Electronica, WRO and, of course, GAMA as an aggregating platform. Simultaneously we also got involved in a network of contemporary art institutions.

Now transmediale can finally look at itself as an art institution with its own collection and archive, and start to find out how approaches that are common among art institutions can apply to its own situation. We can find out whether we are preserving our archival collection in a similar way to art museums, what makes us different from them and whether we need to follow their example. Here in the archive I see some kind of institutionalisation taking place, for instance with the change of our copyright policy.

PACKED: Is this kind of institutionalisation important for the preservation of media art archives?

Baruch Gottlieb: Yes, it is. Already in the early beginnings of transmediale, in Micky Kwella’s time when the festival was still called VideoFest, we were collecting material. We always sensed that what we were showing in our festival was a vital testimony of the time. We never threw away material after we had shown it. When we started this project, we already had a lot of stuff from a long time ago but we did not yet have a strategy for making our archival collection comprehensible and accessible. I guess that you could say that, in order to accomplish this, we needed to go through some kind of a standardisation or institutionalisation.

For us, DCA is an important encounter with the broad range of standards applicable to our archival work. The work that is produced in the different DCA work packages on standards and is ultimately recorded in the project deliverables is an important intellectual activity. It contributes to what we try to do with Europe, as a cultural concept. However, I think that the standards for digital art still need to be discussed more. The preservation of artworks on CD-ROM alone might, for instance, already require a new project… As for digital-born work, there is still a gap somewhere. The existence of this gap is interesting because it does articulate a certain cultural change in the transition from analogue to digital.

PACKED: Unfortunately, there is currently not much support from policy-makers for the preservation of digital art.

Baruch Gottlieb: They don’t understand what artists actually are. Marshall McLuhan called artists ‘distant early warnings’. This expression dates from the era of the Cold War. It is the radar line that was supposed to warn you when the missile was coming your direction. Artists are the distant early warning system of our culture. They point us to the problems that we will encounter in the digital age with preservation, archiving and memory in general. If you study media art carefully, you will notice that media art is pushing the standards and formats. These artists are trying to innovate. They face the problems that the whole society will face ten years on. In my opinion it is very short-sighted of policy-makers to consider media art as a unimportant niche.

PACKED: Hopefully the presence of the media art institutions in the DCA project will contribute to a change of this short-sighted vision.

Baruch Gottlieb: Yes, I’m glad that we are allowed to be part of it. The more we’re allowed to, the more we can contribute our knowledge and our experience.

Digitising Contemporary Art

emanuel — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:10:38 +0000

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