[spectre] VS: VIDEO ART\e-monitor 19
Torben Søborg
soeborg at inet.uni2.dk
Fri Aug 15 13:55:09 CEST 2003
[i forward this as i believe the information is interesting and
highly relevant; -a]
VIDEO ART\e-monitor 19 - THE DANISH VIDEO ART DATA BANK
August 14, 2003
Content:
1. Radical Software back again - on the web
2. 404 Object Not Found Congress papers on the web
3. The V2-Organisation conservation project "Capturing Unstable
Media" on the web
4. ISO 15706:2002: ISAN - International Standard Audiovisual Number
1. Radical Software "back" again ... on the web
"Power is no longer measured in land, labour or capital, but by
access to information and the means to disseminate it"
This statement is not from today but from the very first issue of
the video magazine Radical Software - way back in the spring 1970
. and you can say that it is very much in accordance with this
statement that the historic video magazine Radical Software now has
"resurfaced" on the Internet. The purpose has been to make all the
historic issues of Radical Software freely available to everyone.
This purpose is both exciting and relevant and worthwhile because
while you often in works on video art history find references to
Radical Software it has been almost not possible to review its
content because individual copies are rare and few complete
collections exist
But now, thanks to a joint project of the Fondation Daniel Langlois
in Montreal and Davidson Gigliotti and Ira Schneider, one of the
founders of the magazine and the Raindance Collective that published
it.
The original team behind Radical Software was Beryl Korot, Phyllis
Gershuny and Ira Schneider. The first issue appeared in the spring
1970 and eleven issues were published from 1970 to 1974.
Now they are available on the Radical Software Web Site,
<http://www.radicalsoftware.org>www.radicalsoftware.org as PDF
files you can download - and you can not only read the text and view
the graphics but also view the original page layout!
On top of this the web site is supplied with a very good on-site
search engine devised by the Fondation Langlois which allows you -
among other possibilities - to follow keywords through the many
reviews, essays and articles in the eleven issues.
Having been engaged with video since 1967-68 (and tried to edit and
publish a Danish magazine about video, 1978-82/83) it is with a
rather wonderful feeling of recognition that you turn over the pages
of this magazine as an important primary source on the origins of and
the rationale behind many aspects of much early video and video art.
I could go on, but stop and instead appeal to you to go to the web
site and start by reading David Ross' introduction "Radical Software
Redux" and Davidson Gigliotti's "A Brief History of RainDance" before
you turn the pages of Radical Software.
Torben Soeborg
2. 404 Object Not Found Congress papers on the web
In my covering in VIDEO ART\e-monitor no. 17 of the "404 Object Not
Found" - the international congress concerning the production,
presentation and preservation of media arts", organised by the
hARTware group in Dortmund, June 19-22, 2003, I wrote that I would
not try to cover the congress but just give a short account /personal
impressions because a "congress-reader" with all the papers and
statements later on would be published on the Internet.
If you go to <http://www.404project.net>www.404project.net
("congress", "data base", "links") you will now find several texts of
the speakers and several new links. Just now you will find the
following papers:
- PPP: From Point to Point or from Production to presentation to
preservation of media art von Hans Dieter Huber, Lecture, pdf
document (English)
- Translation and Transmission. Ongoing. Anna Oppermann's
non-electronic Media Art (as an Example for Certain Problems of
Documentation and Re-Construction.) by Ute Vorkoeper, Lecture, pdf
document (English)
- No Ego ? Preserving the exchange between artist and audience by
Josephine Bosma, Preliminary text based on her lecture, pdf document
(English)
- Runme.org software art repository by Olga Goriunova, pdf document (English)
- CONSERVIX by Fabian Thommen, pdf document (German)
- Abstracts (from the Congress program), pdf document (German / English)
. and you will also find a review by Wolfgang Neuhaus (Kunst im
digitalen Nirwana, German) at Telepolis, 27.06.2003:
<http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/konf/15071/1.html>http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/konf/15071/1.html
-and a good publication list and an even more extensive and very
useful list of links divided in the following sections: Archives,
Texts, Digital Preservation, Projects and
Institutions/Initiatives/Networks.
I am sure that the hARTware people will keep adding more Congress
papers to the website.
3. The V2 "Capturing Unstable Media" Conservation Project on the web
At the "404 Object Not Found" Congress mentioned above the work
group ""under construction" presentation of current projects"
presented - among other projects - the research project "Capturing
Unstable Media", starting from March 2003 and initiated by the
V2_Organisation in Rotterdam. It's a very interesting research
project supported by the Dutch Mondriaan Foundation and the Canadian
Fondation Daniel Langlois pour l'art, science et la technologie,
MontrŽal.
The project is on the issue of capturing unstable media art and
preserving it in a medium-independent way. The project "focuses on
preservation of the growing cultural heritage of "digitally born"
artefacts of artistic nature". The V-2 Archives "with documentation
of 20 years of media art events and electronic media art . functions
as a test bed for this research project".
The project is based on two case studies, two electronic art
projects developed at the V2_Lab, and the research tasks are divided
in the following sections:
Inventory of relevant collections and initiatives
Capturing and documenting electronic artworks
Metadata
Interoperability
Implementation and
Dissemination
Part of the project will be to research and develop appropriate
preservation metadata models for the description of unstable media
art from existing standards, indexing- and classification-schemes,
terminology and ontologies, in order to create - if possible - an
interoperability of metadata or a "translation" model for the
metadata systems of the various media archives and an exchange tool
to translate each institution's metadata to an agreed exchange format.
The V2-Organisation has already experience in developing an
object-relation database for the preservation, presentation and
dissemination of their own V2-Archive (1) and has published the paper
"Archive of Living Actualities" as a detailed report on their past,
present and future goals and activities around the archive (2)
It is the goal of V2-Organisation to translate the findings from the
research development to actual software implementations and the
results of the project will be published as a book.
You are now able to see more about the project on the Internet (3).
Anne Nigten is project coordinator and Boudewijn Ridder is project
manager
I hope to come back to the project because it could be interesting
to compare it with the 235Media project MKA / MedienKunstArchive (4)
and also with IMAP FileMaker Template database structure developed by
the American IMAP / Independent Media Arts
Preservation (5)
This template for a catalogue database is created to allow small
institutions and individuals with unique electronic media collections
and no trained staff to catalogue their archives in a standardized
form in order to establish a compatible information system for
independent media archives across broad geographic regions and a wide
range of organizations/institutions (which I feel is pretty much also
the purpose of the V2_Project) - but also with the "end goal" to
enable the creation of "a union catalog . a database containing the
records of a number of collections" (which I feel is also the goal of
the MKA-project).
The IMAP-Template database adheres to the MARC standards. MARC
stands for MAchine Readable Cataloging - a system designed to allow
the computerizing cataloguing of archival materials. It is divided in
the following sections:
Complete Record
Basic Record
Unique Identifiers
Title & Intellectual Description
Physical description
Acquisition, Usage & Restrictions
Intellectual Access
Local Information
MARC Record
Any archival cataloguing system agreed upon should also relate to
the new ISAN / International Standard Audiovisual Number system -
see the next section!
Notes:
(1) <http://archive,v2.nl>http://archive,v2.nl
(2)
<http://lab.v2.nl/home/_docs/v2_archive.pdf>http://lab.v2.nl/home/_docs/v2_archive.pdf
(3)
<http://www.v2.nl/Projects/capturing/index.html>http://www.v2.nl/Projects/capturing/index.html
(4) You can find information about 235Media on
<http://www.235media.com>http://www.235media.com . The pilot
project MKA / MedienKunstArchive will later on be available through
the Internet.
(5) <http://www.imappreserve.org>http://www.imappreserve.org
4. ISAN - International Standard Audiovisual Number - now approved
In VIDEO ART\e-monitor No. 6 (1) I mentioned that the ISO, the
International Organisation fro Standardisation was in the process of
creating a system for audiovisual works equivalent to the ISBN
registration for printed matters This system: ISAN - International
Standard Audiovisual Number has now been approved by 100% of the ISO
members. It is published as ISO 15706:2002 (1) and is now ready for
use - and should be a part of any data cataloguing system of
electronic / unstable media archives.
The ISAN / International Standard Audiovisual Number is a voluntary
numbering system for the identification of audiovisual works. It
provides a unique, internationally recognized and permanent reference
number for each audiovisual work registered in the ISAN system.
An ISAN consists of 16 hexadecimal digits divided into two segments:
a 12-digit root segment followed by a 4-digit segment for the
identification of episodes or parts when applicable. It is not a
"content descriptor", but a "dump" number, meaning that it does not
include any codes or other significant elements. Its purpose is to
identify the work with a unique number, not to provide any type of
descriptive information about the work. This is the same as with the
ISBN-system for printed matter: The ISAN identifies works, and
remains the same for an audiovisual media work regardless of the
various formats in which the work is distributed (e.g. any video
formats, CD, DVD etc.) or the uses to which it is put.
What is the ISAN used for?
An ISAN uniquely distinguishes one audiovisual media work from all
other audiovisual works. Other methods of identifying audiovisual
works, such as by title, can result in confusion about the specific
work being referenced. For example, one title can be very similar to
another. Titles also change when a work is distributed beyond its
country (or countries) of origin and the title is translated into
other languages.
Because each ISAN is a unique number that is permanently assigned to
an audiovisual media work, it can identify that work across national
boundaries and language barriers. As a unique identifier, the ISAN is
useful in a wide range of computerized applications, particularly
those that involve databases or the exchange of information about
audiovisual media works. Some of its possible applications are:
- by collecting societies / archives to assist in the allocation of royalties;
- to track the use of audiovisual works; and,
- for anti-piracy purposes such as verifying title registrations.
Where is the ISAN to be attached?
The ISAN is the unique reference number for an audiovisual media
work and this should be included as a data element in any systems
used to manage and process information about audiovisual works.
Collecting societies / Archives, for example, will use the ISAN when
they exchange and process information about the use of audiovisual
media works.
For audiovisual media works in digital form (e.g. DVD, CD, CD-ROM
etc.), the ISAN should be embedded into the appropriate master copies
of the work and transferred to any subsequent copies made from those
masters. The MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 standards (for the coded
representation of audiovisual and multimedia objects) provide a space
for the ISAN identifier in the MPEG format.
For audiovisual media works in analogue form (e.g. video, film
etc.), the ISAN should be securely affixed to the master and any
other archival copies. For new works, that could involve printing the
ISAN on the master tape/negative. For works already in existence,
that would involve securely linking the work and its ISAN in some
form of permanent record, archive or inventory. It could also involve
physically recording the ISAN on the container of the master version,
whenever possible.
The ISAN should also be included in the documentation and packaging
for an audiovisual work.
The ISAN should be seen as an indispensable and valuable supplement
to any archival cataloguing system agreed upon - see above about the
V_2 project, the IMAP-Template and the MKA-Project.
Notes:
(1)
<http://www.videoart.suite.dk/e-monitor/newsletter-6/newsletter-6.htm>http://www.videoart.suite.dk/e-monitor/newsletter-6/newsletter-6.htm
(2)
<http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/iso/tc46sc9/isan.htm>http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/iso/tc46sc9/isan.htm
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". Both were and are published with irrugular
intervals - "monitor" from 1985-86 up to no. 48 in december 2000 and
"VIDEO ART\e-monitor" since February 2001. Editor: Torben Soeborg
(soeborg at inet-uni2.dk ).
You can find the earlier editions of VIDEO ART\e-monitor on
www.videoart.dk/e-monitor . If you want to receive VIDEO
ART\e-monitor (free) send an e-mail to
<mailto:soeborg at inet.uni2>soeborg at inet.uni2
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tel: +45-56.31.21.21
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