Re: [-empyre-] authenticity was Who decides and what to preserve

[Luciana Duranti <luciana@interchange.ubc.ca>]

At 01:25 PM 08/02/2005 -0600, you wrote:
> On Feb 8, 2005, at 10:14 AM, Luciana Duranti wrote:
> > >3) selection must keep into account authenticity, which is often lost 
> > through >transmission through time and space. Much of what ends up 
> > preserved in digital >form is not the authentic output of the creator, 
> > and does not have identity and >integrity
>
> i am very curious about this issue of authenticity...
>
> are you referring to work that does not originate in a digital form but 
> begins as analog or physical material, is transcoded to digital + thereby 
> loses authenticity, i.e. through this process itself, or unintended 
> results, or cultural uses, or aesthetic shifts, or technical constraints, 
> etc...?

I am referring to born digital material.

> also, how does transmission result in a loss of identity [+/or] undermine 
> integrity?

transmission across space often alters the documentary form of the 
material, which does not look to the recipient the same way as it did to 
the sender. When form is much of the substance, as it usually is in the 
arts, this is a problem because the received object is not what it purports 
to be. Transmission through time--preservation in other words--is a bigger 
problem. Every time we save a digital object we break it down in its 
digital components. Every time we retrieve it, we generate a reproduction 
of the original object that is always slightly different. Now, when the 
software-hardware environment in which the object is generated and or kept 
begins to become obsolete, we upgrade it. This means that we are changing 
the bit-stream of the object, much of its form, and much of the information 
linked to the object. Thus, the object risks losing its integrity (it is no 
longer intact and the changes may have altered its meaning) and its 
identity, as demonstrated by its attributes (which might be expressed in 
elements present in the form of the object or in metadata linked to the 
object) may be lost with the lost elements of form or lost links. Unless 
the creator produces an object according to certain requirements that 
protect it, the risk of loss of authenticity is very high. And, from a 
legal point of view, if anybody is interested in copyright (which, 
remember, is always linked to form), even if the author recognizes 
something as its own, it is not authentic if he or she cannot demonstrate it.

I cannot think now of examples in the arts, but I do have an example in 
government. When the Canadian army in Somalia was accused of abuse, the 
Commission of Inquiry scrutinized the messaging system of the headquarters 
of the Defense. The Commission could not find any evidence from the records 
in the system that abuse had been going on in Somalia, and it did not find 
evidence that the messaging system had been tampered with, but it could not 
find any evidence that the system had not been tampered with, so it was not 
able to clear the accused.

InterPARES has many artists involved in its research because the concern 
about authenticity is a very real one, especially authenticity over the 
long term, and we are developing parameters for each of the disciplines 
involved that help creators to generate things whose authenticity can be 
proven over time, to maintain them, and to provide preservers with the 
documentation that will support the verification of authenticity at any 
given time in the future,

If this is unclear, please, ask again,

Luciana



Luciana Duranti
Chair and Professor, Archival Studies
Director, InterPARES Project
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
The University of British Columbia
Suite 301 -  6190 Agronomy Road
Vancouver, B.C.V6T 1Z3 Canada
Tel. 604/822-2587
FAX 604/822-6006
www.interpares.org
www.slais.ubc.ca/people/faculty/