Tallinn, May 2005, Tallinn: Ministry of Culture

Kim H. Veltman

“Challenges to Digital Culture”, Managing Heritage Collections II: Continuity and Change, An International Conference Organised by the Estonian Ministry of Culture,

Tallinn, May 2005, Tallinn: Ministry of Culture

Abstract

Culture is about how individuals, groups, peoples and nations 1) express themselves, their history and their relation to universal themes in particular, unique ways; 2) how they conserve these expressions and 3) how they communicate these expressions. The medium chosen affects all three aspects of culture. Most discussions of the shift from analog(ue) to digital communication focus uniquely on the third aspect. We shall outline the first two aspects and then focus on this third aspect of new access; explore some of the changes that are occurring, assess the present state and point to a number of possibilities, challenges and dangers. The lecture accompanying this paper will focus on examples of technological developments to illustrate these possibilities.

1. Introduction

The shift from analogue to digital media is something much more profound than just another technical advance. Whereas earlier advances set out to replace their predecessors, digital media introduce, for the first time in history, a potential to move between, and among media and senses. Hence, something that is handwritten as input form can be output as printed text or even, potentially, as oral speech. Something that is spoken as input form can be output orally, in print, as the equivalent of handwriting or, using stereo-lithography, even in cuneiform.

The time-frame of these fundamental shifts is long. Moveable type for printing was introduced in Korea around 805 AD. It then moved to China. Gutenberg in the 1450s did not invent a new technology. His contribution was to use to the technology for sharing knowledge. He went bankrupt. It took another 150 years before the “real” impact of printing became fully clear. This time-frame is instructive when we consider the computer revolution. Early mechanical computers were developed in the 1880s. The first programmable computers was officially developed in Manchester in June 1948.[1]The Internet began in Britain in 1968. During the first 32 years of its existence the Internet grew to 100,000 hosts. In the 1990s with the advent of new markup languages (HTML[2]), protocols (http[3]) and browsers (Mosaic, Netscape, Internet Explorer) the Internet grew to 200 million users. In the past four years there have been 600 million new users.[4]

The past 35 years have seen a transformation in the scope of networked computing from a narrow Internet for specialized communities in high energy physics and astronomy to the vision of a World Wide Web which is accessible and usable by all citizens. Hand in hand with this enormous growth in the use of networks, has been an equal growth in new technological solutions. Processing speed, disk capacity, transmission speed, which once posed seemingly insurmountable hurdles, are not longer primary stumbling blocks. An enormous range of possibilities exist. Technology continues to evolve. Increasingly the real challenges are organizational, psychological and political. Careful and sustained efforts are needed to achieve them. One useful attempt to outline some of these challenges is a Digicult Report on The Future Digital Heritage Space (December 2004).[5] In our view, in the cultural field, these challenges lie in three main areas: expression (especially new creativity), conservation and communication.

2. Expression

Media affect fundamentally what can be expressed. In pre-literate times, the choice to use petroglyphs greatly limited the range and subtlety of images that could be created in terms of expression. In terms of conservation, the method was very efficient although, as the experience of Lascaux has shown, this conservation is threatened severely once there are numerous visitors. In terms of communication, petroglyphs as such mean that only those who are on location can see them.

Subsequent innovations to create expressions as, totems, precious objects, sculptures, icons, paintings, illuminations etc. greatly increased 1) the range of expressions, 2) their portability and 3) their reproducibility. Our histories of art have focussed largely on the aesthetics of expressions. We still need a historical study that explores the role of portability and reproducibility of media in the development and diffusion of culture.We need new models of culture,[6] which avoid the pitfalls of simplistic, monolithic,progress and yet help us to understand the contexts a) whereby one culture fosters diversity and richness of expression while another stifles and b) why and how one culture produces expressions that increase understanding and tolerance of others, while others produce frameworks of intolerance and exclusion. Culture is not just a question of producing and creating cultural artefacts, tangible and non-tangible. It is also about belief and value systems that can either foster humane inter-action or threaten humanity.

In the realm of new expressions there are fairs such as ARCO in Madrid,[7] and there is an important Encyclopaedia of New Media,[8] which offers an overview of some of these new forms of expression. Projects such as Artnouveau[9] set out from the premise that:

advanced information technologies…could not only augment the attraction of cultural heritage, but also provide new tools for the artistic creation process.[10]

In Portugal’s AlbertoSampaioMuseum, visitors experimented with immersive virtual painting. Put together by historical, cultural and computer graphic specialists, the system took people back in time and space to a monastery where the original frescoes were located.

Interaction with this virtual art exhibition was limited to entering the real exhibition room and viewing the works. In this respect, it mimicked a visit to a traditional gallery, requiring little effort from the person doing the viewing. …we discovered that people do not want digitised replacements of the original works. Technology of this kind will need to be incorporated into exhibitions, so that people can compare both versions.[11]

Theoretically, the advent of digital media offer almost infinite possibilities of introducing new interplay between traditional cultural objects, and the audio-visual realm with forms of expression such as video, television and film. Here several obstacles lie in the way of realizing this potential. First and foremost, fear in the music and media industries that persons might simply create pirate versions of complete pieces of music, and entire films and videos has meant that editing tools have remained largely designed for use by industry rather than by individuals.

In the literary world we have learned to make a basic distinction between a) copying an entire work without permission and acknowledgement, which is plagiarism and bad; and b) making properly acknowledged citations or even subtle allusions to existing works, which is a source of creativity and is good. This ability to use and possibly edit a visual quote from an existing film or other new media source remains one of the most obvious challenges for the decades to come. It requires rethinking our approach to copyright, whereby we continue to enforce banal attempts at piracy and plagiarism, while enabling and encouraging new methods of making visual citations from such works.

In the meantime, we have simple aids such as Microsoft Office Picture Manager within Microsoft Office. There are a number of Paint programs.[12]High level editing software such as Alias’ Maya,[13] which used to cost over $80,000 only a few years ago, has plummeted to just over $6,000, but this is still beyond the reach of everyday users. There is a similar situation in the video editing field. Although some very cheap methods exist,[14] professional systems typically range from $20,000 to $500,000.[15]High level projects such as Virtual Director[16] illustrate technological possibilities. There are various developments in the realm of digital cinema,[17] but these again are largely addressing the needs of industry or the frontiers of research rather than their potential use by the public at large.

If we stand back from the rhetoric of salesmen who are continually trying to persuade us that the latest technology does effectively everything that we might imagine, we are confronted by a very different picture. The 20th century produced far more than 100 million hours of audio-visual material in the form of films, television and video. Yet less than 1 million of those hours are readily accessible even to the industry. Many millions of hours, some pessimists would say many 10s of millions of hours, are threatened with extinction if new methods of conservation are not adopted almost immediately. European projects such as PRESTO[18] are addressing this problem. Ironically, they are working largely with the MPEG1 standard rather than the latest MPEG 4, 7 and 21 standards.

In short, our society is producing new materials much more quickly than it is developing reliable, long term methods a) for their preservation and conservation; b) for systematic documentation of their contents; c) for systematic access not only by industry but by citizens generally. In theory, public television programmes and films publicly supported by national film boards, paid for by taxpayers, should be accessible to the public at large. The challenge is not simply access but also having tools whereby this enormous resource can become a starting point for new creativity. Commissioner Oreja’s vision of a film and television network[19] has not yet become a reality but could be an important ingredient in this process.

3. Conservation

Conservation is fundamental to all domains of culture. Without it there is no collective memory. Without collective memory there is no historical, cumulative sense of cultural heritage. In the past decade there has rightly been a wave of attention to the challenges of conserving newly created “born digital” objects and maintaining access to digital, electronic versions of our cultural heritage. The European Resource Preservation and Access Network (ERPANET)[20] has drawn attention to these challenges. Less attention has been given thus far a) as to how new media could provide important new tools for access to conservation and restoration methods of cultural heritage as a whole and b) how these materials also offer important new resources for research and education.

In the 1980s, there were visions of creating an international network for conservation materials. This led the Getty Conservation Institute to build on the resources of the Canadian Conservation Institute and resulted in an online version of the Abstracts of the International Conservation Institute (AATA)[21]in association with the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. In Europe, there are now over 20 serious conservation resources,[22] including the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA)and the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers' Organizations (ECCO).In France, the Centre de Recherché et Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) provides an excellent example in the direction of a network of conservation laboratories within a given country, especially though their Chimart initiative.[23]

At the level of specific projects there have been extraordinary developments in this domain. The restoration of the frescoes by Piero della Francesca of the Story of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo is a brilliant case in point. This was one of the first projects where the entire fresco was digitized systematically before the restoration and various possible interventions were simulated electronically before they were adopted in the restoration itself. A wonderful archive of materials was developed. To date only a glimmering of these materials is available online.[24] It would be an enormous contribution if a) the complete archive of such materials were made fully accessible to restorers and conservators and b) subsets could be made available to researchers and the public at large.

European projects such as Artnouveau, mentioned earlier, have simulated the possibilities offered by new media in the conservation field:

Armed with a virtual reality (VR) headset, users moved around the room to observe the monastery’s original paintings and stained glass windows. They also picked up tips about conservation and preservation, ‘renovating’ damaged parts of the fresco with a VR brush and colour palette. For those familiar with computer games, the process was easy and instinctive. [25]

An important project on Molecular aspects of Ageing in Painted Works of Art (MOLART)[26] illustrated potentials of sharing conservation materials among different labs. Lacking and very much needed is a network whereby such new techniques can be linked with the databases of conservators and restorers in various countries and related to databases in memory institutions (libraries, museums and archives) such that they can share materials and experiences concerning individual works and artists within their collections. This would be a very useful practical application of the virtual agora concept proposed with a Distributed European Electronic Resource (DEER, see § 4 below).

The obvious advantages of such a network lie in improving conservation and restoration by sharing cumulative experience, methods and approaches of experts in the field. In addition, these materials potentially have profound implications for our study of art history and cultural history. Beginning with x-rays, conservators and restorers have over the past half century produced a whole range of techniques for examining evidence below the surface of paintings and other cultural artefacts including Ultra-Violet (UV) fluorescence; Infra-Red (IR) photography in pseudo colours; Infra-Red (IR) reflectography and X-radiography. Such techniques, combined with Multi-Spectral Imaging (MSI) and electron microscopy are, for instance, transforming the field of papyrology[27] and as a result more traditional fields such as Classical Studies and Biblical Studies.[28]

These tools reveal a wealth of information about the techniques used in creating the work of art and various stages in composition which could potentially transform our present approach to art history and indeed to the whole of material culture. In short, the knowledge of conservation and restoration is not only vital to keep our heritage “alive”: it offers invaluable knowledge concerning the ways in which this heritage was produced. In cases such as burned papyri and palimpsests, the conservation methods allow us to read and study what was previously invisible. Conservation was once the domain of a handful of experts in a few advanced labs. In terms of memory institutions the history of interventions and accompanying documentation needs to become a regular category in searching for knowledge. In terms of education and learning, the knowledge gained by these experts needs to be shared and integrated into our educational system. The changes brought by interventions for restoration and conservation are essential dimensions for understanding their history. Intimately connected with these changes in restoring extant objects are the reconstructions that have been made of objects that are no longer extant. These too need to be integrated as a clearly identified category within our knowledge structures and become a part of curricula within our educational systems.

4. Communication

During the 1970s, as the Internet became an established mode of communication, first largely through e-mail, there was constant attention to the technological limits of processors, storage, and transmission. As the hype about computers spread in the 1980s, there was a recognition that something more was needed than technology in isolation. The phrase “content is king” became a buzzword. In 1996, Bill Gates made the phrase famous.[29]

Many assumed that this discovery on the part of industry would soon guarantee that the technological hurdles would be resolved. To some extent this attitude was justified. The past decade has certainly brought incredible technological progress and there have been many unsung heroes as networks which were originally designed on an ad hoc basis exploded in their applications to meet the needs of hundreds of millions of persons around the world. In Europe today the cost of hardware for a simple new computer is c. € 300, while the cost of the software (Windows plus Office) is €200+. In the realm of personal computing, software increasingly costs more than hardware. The good news is that software crashes are much less frequent than in the 1980s. The bad news is that after a half century of software we still do not have fully reliable systems. The promise of open source remains but does not as yet have the political support to make it a standard procedure.

Meanwhile, those who assumed that such commercial interests would “sort out” the market potentials in the cultural field, have slowly recognized that the interests of industry, which are understandably focussed on making money, are sometimes or even often at odds with the interests and needs of cultural institutions and the needs of citizens who, as taxpayers, expect access to their heritage. In some sectors, especially the music and publishing industries, there are some forces which are concerned only with financial gain at the expense of both authors and users. Those concerned with grid computing, are working on new levels of middle-ware (which now includes upper-ware and under-ware), that will allow industry to monitor and charge for individual access at will. Thus far the potentials of these tools for helping citizens has been largely ignored.