[spectre] video preservation: VIDEO ART\e-monitor no. 13
Andreas Broeckmann
abroeck@transmediale.de
Thu, 5 Dec 2002 10:57:30 +0100
From: "Torben Soeborg" <3590379m001@stofanet.dk>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 23:30:51 +0100
VIDEO ART\e-monitor No. 13 - THE DANISH VIDEO ART DATA BANK
December 5, 2002
Content: Preservation of Video Tapes. Part 5
1. What can be done?
2. Professional Help
3. American examples
4. European examples
5. Restoration/conservation: what is done?
6. "Video Conservation: Glossary of Terms"
7. Wanted: A Common Strategy
8 =8A also for the future / new technologies
9. Once again: The Ethical Considerations
10. The Guggenheim Variable Media Questionnaire
11. The artist's intent versus the Archives' intent
Post Script: Preservation - conservation - restoration. A definition of term=
s
Notes
1. What can be done?
You should distinguish between "passive preservation" and "active
preservation/conservation /restoration". We have already dealt with
the passive preservation in <>VIDEO ART\e-monitor No. 11, and in the
same newsletter the basic priority planning: which tapes to save
first if you can't save all at once? When it comes to the active
preservation/conservation /restoration most of us would need
professional help.
2. Professional help
You can find both commercial companies and non-commercial
organisations/institutions with knowledge and equipment to help you.
You might search the Internet for links but it is I think not
surprising that the links are to American companies and organisations.
3. American examples:
The best known commercial companies in America are
- Vidipax Magnetic Media Restoration Company, New York (1)
- Specs Bros Audio and Video Tape Restoration, Boston (2)
- RGB Video Broadcast Service, Philadelphia (3)
You can find the web addresses in the Notes. Some of the companies -
like RGB - are also able to repair most of your old and outdated
video equipment or have a "museum department" with this old equipment
if you need to transfer a tape from an outdated format and you no
longer have the equipment.
The very best non-commercial organisation is without doubt BAVC /
Bay Area Video Coalition in San Francisco (4). They have a long time
expertise in restoring old video tapes. V Tape in Toronto, Canada (5)
is also a non-commercial organisation offering video tape restoration.
4. European examples:
When it comes to other parts of the world it is a bit more difficult
to find examples. I have already mentioned that Montevideo in
Amsterdam has been concerned about the problems (see more about this
in VIDEO ART/e-monitor <>No. 2 and <>No. 3).
Argos in Brussels are also concerned about preservation and
restoration of the Belgian audio-visual art patrimony. On their web
site
<http://argosarts.org/preservation.html>http://argosarts.org/preservation.ht=
ml
they write:
"Whereas preservation and restoration are self-evident, and are given
priority in the field of the visual arts, these aspects do not seem
to touch ground when it comes to the audio-visual arts. With a view
to changing this situation, a preservation project was started up by
argos in 1998. This initiative wants to validate the fragile Belgian
audio-visual art patrimony and safeguard it for the future through
cleaning, re-mastering and transferring deteriorating tapes from
their original formats to more stable formats such as Betacam SP and
Digital Betacam. The preserved tapes are stored in a special
humidity-controlled archive room under secure temperature. =8A. The
first phase of the argos preservation project was completed in 2000.
The results, mainly related to work from the 70s, were presented in
<http://www.argosarts.org/servlet/ARList?what=3D10>rewind, a program
part of the <http://www.argosarts.org/information.html>argos
information days 2000. The second phase of the argos preservation
project got completed in 2002 and consisted of the frame by frame
restoration and digitalisation of the video tapes visual artist Lili
Dujourie made from 1972 to 1982. Further phases will involve the
preservation of video work made in the eighties."
Klaus G. Carstens from the German commercial company KGC Broadcast
Service (6) in Mainz states that they do dubbing of ancient video
formats to modern analogue or digital formats and also if necessary
video tape restoration work. He also refers to another German
company, Wagner GMBH. Die Filmfabrik (7) in Hauenstein, doing that
with both video and film.
5. Restoration / Conservation: What is done?
What is done to an old and obsolete tape that need to be restored and
transferred to a new carrier? Depending on the condition and
detoriation it might be a long and difficult process, complex and
labour intensive - and a process which most companies keep as
"company secret" . In the following I lean on a description from
RGB's web site.
The first thing to do is put the tape in the appropriate video player
and sample at least two minutes from the tape to check its stability
and the content of the tape.
The next procedure is to clean the tape. RGB do not bake or wash the
tapes because these procedures can damage the substrate or binder
that holds the magnetic oxides in place and shrinkage of the
substrate or loss of the oxides will cause serious loss of quality by
increasing dropout.. instead RGB (and I would guess also other
companies) uses their own proprietary cleaning process to retrieve as
much of the original program as possible.
After cleaning the tape it is copied from the original old or
obsolete format to a modern format of the customer's choice. In many
cases this can only be done if the company have the old and now
obsolete video players and equipment to it's disposal in perfect
functional conditions. When copying the process is monitored and
necessary adjustments made: Checks for synchronisation and image
colour quality and image enhancements.
6. "Video Preservation: Glossary of Terms"
Do each of us know what the other talks about when we discuss video
tape preservation and restoration? When someone for example use the
term "cinching" and another one talk about "flagging" or "curvature
error" and do you know what the "vinegar syndrome" is?
To overcome this problem and to assist the BAVC Video preservation
Round Table Working Working Group in 1995-1996 Rebecca Bachman from
Stanford University developed a "Glossary of Terms" which you can
download from
<http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/bavc/bavcterm.html>http://palimpsest.s=
tanford.edu/byorg/bavc/bavcterm.html
.
Rebecca Bachman stress that the glossary "should be considered a
working document" and she expresses the hope that the glossary "can
help take us a step towards the implementation of a system of
centralised information which utilises the terms that describe what
we see (or don't see) when viewing a tape on our video monitor",
=8A and this lead me to my next passage: the question of a common strategy.
7. Wanted: A Common Strategy
Although many video art distribution agncies, art museums, libraries
and archives have video collections there is - unfortunately - no
common strategy for preserving video tapes and - at least in most
cases - no planned and comprehensive effort or strategy to
investigate and develop tape conservation, and no common agreed-upon
procedures for saving video tapes. This means that it is difficult to
pinpoint a systematic, common preservaton process including
conservation and restoration procedures for saving video tapes.
8. =8A also for the future / new technologies
Such a common strategy should also include the future. We should not
only be concerned about the old or older, the already produced
works. We must also foresee and develop strategies for future
challenges with variable media art using new technologies.
9. Once again: the Ethical Considerations
In VIDEO ART\e-monitor <>No. 2 and <>No. 3 I referred to the pilot
project by Montevideo. They asked the moral and copyright question:
Can you at all take the liberty to "change" an art work, produced at
an analogue form by transferring it to a more or less compressed
digital carrier? By definition, digitisation of an analogue video
work means changing both the carrier and the playback equipment of
the video work.
10. The Guggenheim Variable Media Questionnaire
Through the "Variable Media Initiative" I mentioned in some detail
in VIDEO ART\e-monitor No. 5 The Guggenheim Museum in New York tries
to solve the problem with a questionnaire to the artists. The
questionnaire - still only in a beta version (8) - distinguish or
divide the variable media artworks in
1. artworks that can be installed
2. artworks that can be performed
3. artworks that can be interactive
4. artworks that can be reproduced
5. artworks that can be duplicated
6. artworks that can be encoded - and
7. artworks that can be networked
and ask the artist to answer different questions in a multiple choice
questionnaire
If we take no. 4 as an example that refer to video art works the
following issues are put forward and the artist has to answer them
both according to "current state" and how they "can vary" and she/he
has also the possibility to comments on the issues/answers:
a. original audio format
b. original photograph format
c. original film format
d. original video format
e. original print format
f. location of master
g. status of master
h. acceptable submasters
i. fate of submasters
j. permission to create submasters
k. permission to compress/digitise
To d) you have the choice between: u-matic/betacam sp/vhs (Pal,
NTSC or SECAM) or others which you have to specify.
To f) you have the choice between: archive with work's owner,
archived in another location (specify), used for exhibition (explain)
or not applicable.
To g) you have the choice between: still viable, remastered (specify
format of new master), not applicable.
To h) you have the choice between: for exhibition, for research, for
archive, for public distribution, not applicable.
To I) you have the choice between: require the borrower to destroy,
require the borrower to return, distribute freely, other (explain,
not applicable.
To j) you have the choice between: not required, required from the
artist or estate, not given, not applicable.
To k) you have the choice between: for low-resolution distribution,
for high-resolution distribution, a combination of above (explain),
not applicable.
For each of the above 7 tapes of variable media types you have to go
into detail about "In later re-creations, this artwork could be =8A
a. stored
b. emulated
c. migrated
d. reinterpreted
You will find an explanation of the meaning of these words in
<>VIDEO Art-monitor 5.
If we again take no 4. as applicable to video art works then you
have to answer the following two options/questions concerning a):
Source: Should an obsolete source master, such as a video tape =8A be
restores as necessary to make exhibition copies?
Access to previous versions: should previous versions of the work be
stored so general public can view them?
To b) you have to answer to the questions:
Source: Should the experimental effect of an obsolete source master,
such as a video tape =8A, be reproduced in an entirely new medium (e.g.
digitising an analogue tape)?
Access to previous versions: Should the remastered source be "marked"
with the effect of previous display technologies?
To c) you have to answer the questions:
Source: Should an obsolete source master, such as a video tape =8A be
migrated to a new medium that has become industrial standard?
Access to previous versions: (There are no migration options for this proble=
m).
To d) you have to answer the questions:
Source: Should an obsolete source master, such as a video tape =8Abe
re-recorded according to the artist's instructions?
Access to previous versions: (There are no reinterpretation options
for this problem
=8A and to each of the options/questions to a, b c and d you have the
choice between: preferred, acceptable, discouraged, inaccessible and
not applicable.
11. The artist's intent versus the Archives' intent
You can read some of the critical remarks from RHIZOME DIGEST: April
13, 2001 to the idea of the questionnaire and the comments in RHIZOME
DIGEST: April 20, 2001 from Jon Ippoliti, Guggenheim, in our VIDEO
ART\e-monitor 5.
Anyway you might say that just because a museum or archive has
acquired a video art work or the artist has deposited it with the
museum/archive it does not imply that the museum/archive can do
whatever it likes with it. There has to be a mutual agreement between
the artist and the museum/archive clearly stating the intent of the
artist concerning how and if the museum/archive may or may not
maintain and preserve the work.
Torben Soeborg
Post Script: Preservation - conservation - restoration. A definition of te=
rms
The three terms: preservation, conservation and restoration are often
used interchangeable - also I have to admit in these newsletters. It
is of course because they are related but on the other hand we should
try to make a distinction and try to use the terms related to their
specific meanings.
Preservation covers all the activities and functions which help to
make a suitable and safe environment for the video tapes - the
comprehensive programs and activities to safeguard the tapes, both
old and new and both now and for the future. This also includes
conservation and restoration.
Conservation should stabilise and prevent further deterioration and
damage to the video tapes and may include cleaning tapes and
maintaining equipment and providing proper storage and handling
procedures.
Restoration covers both the restoration of the physical media and of
the recorded information and may include actions to repair damaged
tapes and equipment and to stop further deterioration in order to be
able to access and playback the recorded information.
TS
Notes
(1) <http://www.vidipax.com/>http://www.vidipax.com
(2) <http://www.specsbros..com/>http://www.specsbros..com
(3) <http://www.rgbvideo.com/>http://www.rgbvideo.com
(4) <http://www.bavc.org/>http://www.bavc.org
(5) <http://www.vtape.org/>http://www.vtape.org
(6) <http://www.kgc.de/>http://www.kgc.de
(7) <http://www.wagner-filmfabrik.de/>http://www.wagner-filmfabrik.de
(8) You may find the beta version of the Guggenheim Variable Media
Questionnaire at <http://three.org/ippolito>http://three.org/ippolito
Next VIDEO ART\e-monitor:
Preservation of Video tapes, Part 6: Catalogues - among other things
Need - also help for preservation/conservation
Importance of compatible cataloguing
European and American examples
THE DANISH VIDEO ART DATA BANK is a non-profit agency for promoting
Danish video art outside Denmark
The VIDEO ART\e-monitor is an e-mail edition of the former printed
newsletter "monitor". It is published with irregular intervals.
Editor: Torben Soeborg
(<mailto:soeborg@inet-uni2.dk>soeborg@inet-uni2.dk ).
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