[-empyre-] A question concerning the electrification of digital objects

[Dennis Moser]

Hello, all,

As someone else who is joining this discussion from the archivist's
perspective, I'm glad to see Kristie's comments (and points for the Duranti
and Thibodeau references).

What they call "reproducibility" I would refer to as "instantiation" simply
because of the semantic baggage that reproduction carries. And in the
software domain, "instantiation" is a well-understood term.

Best,

Dennis

~~
If your first move is brilliant, you’re in trouble. You don’t really know
how to follow it; you’re frightened of ruining it. So, to make a mess is a
good beginning. — Brian Eno

On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Kristie MacDonald <
kristie.l.a.macdonald at gmail.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hello All,
>
> In keeping with Hannah’s line of thought from an "in the wild, on the
> ground” approach I have been considering the questions posed by our
> moderators from the archival perspective, based in a practice of media art
> preservation.
>
> When considering "what is a digital object," I am inevitably always drawn
> to questions of physicality or materiality. How does materiality support/
> enable digital networks, and the digital objects they hold. As an archivist
> I am constantly negotiating the relationship between carrier and signal /
> support and content (ex. a videotape and the signal it holds).
>
> In particular, I am faced with the reality of preserving digital objects,
> which have the capacity to exist independently of *specific* carriers
> (data tape, optical disks, hard drives etc.) yet also rely on them. If the
> hard drive fails the digital object is lost. Preservation necessitates the
> migration of digital objects from carrier to carrier, system to system. How
> do these physical technologies of creation and access affect our definition
> of the digital object?
>
> Amidst their many observations on the practice of preserving digital
> objects (or *documents *as they would call them) Luciana Duranti and
> Kenneth Thibodeau (of the InterPARES project) conclude that preserving
> digital objects consists of preserving the ability to reproduce them.  It
> is the digital objects reproducibility  (a quality which allows us to
> migrate, emulate, and distribute) that seems to be at the centre of its
> existence from a preservation standpoint.
>
> Perhaps at the end of these thoughts my question to the group is - what
> does longevity mean for our definition of digital object. What relationship
> is there between how these entities span time (through constant migration
> and change) and how we perceive them?
>
> -Kristie
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Hannah Turner <hannah.turner at utoronto.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Although with less of a philosophical lens, and at the risk of separating
>> into another corner of the party - I thought I would post some initial
>> thoughts on the last few posts, and raise a few questions that have
>> occupied my mind through my work, and pose more questions.
>>
>> I wanted to offer, alongside the discussion of the definition of the
>> digital as both discretized and the holistic, as the previous post put it,
>> a way to ground or reground this in practice, "in the wild, on the ground”
>> so to speak. Specifically, I want to ask: what does a definition of the
>> "digital" allow us to talk about, or help us to conduct practice in
>> different, new or more productive ways? And what “difference” does this
>> make to users of these computational systems – if any at all?
>>
>> Part of this begs the question - what is an object, and why are these
>> important? One way to describe them, is that digital objects, as many
>> people I work with would say, "just" representations of existing objects,
>> for example, material heritage, and whether it is through a film camera or
>> a computer, serve the same function and therefore are both described in the
>> same way?
>>
>> The first question, I think, is an interesting one. For example, some of
>> my research has been to look at how computers and the Internet have enabled
>> Indigenous communities who are interested in doing research on their
>> cultural heritage located in museums, and who are geographically dispersed
>> from these sites, a practice that has been happening for the better part of
>> 20 years. For many individuals who seek this kind of access, viewing to the
>> "Real" objects is of utmost importance, but images and representations on
>> computer screens seem to be good enough placeholders for communities to
>> identify objects that may or may not belong to them, and begin the process
>> of repatriation or loans, or begin a dialogue with the museum about viewing
>> the collections in situ. In any case, the ultimate goal is to be in
>> presence with the "original" object - and any distinction made between an
>> image taken with film versus one on the computer may not be relevant at all
>> in this context, because as I said, they are talked about as if they are
>> the same.
>>
>> It is my suspicion that defining a digital object is of little
>> consequence in these places - however these same communities are seeking
>> greater control and power over these digital representations and therefore,
>> at least recognize the power (and danger) of the digital object to be
>> endlessly repeated, duplicated (one of Goodman's criteria, I recall). This
>> has potential ramifications, specifically when some individuals who
>> carve/make these objects have relied on the income that comes with making
>> and copying their own works with their hands and tools.
>>
>> Another interest of mine, and which falls in line with the original
>> question concerning the historical or political forces that lie behind this
>> definition of the "digital", is how the there has been some interesting
>> push back to work to realign the histories of Western philosophical
>> discourse of the "digital" and the notational, and situate them in
>> alternative "digital" practices that are not necessarily considered part of
>> the canon as of yet, that very much use the "finger" metaphor to describe
>> digitality. This is just a thought, and a paper called "Wampum as
>> Hypertext" by Angela Haas comes to mind, although I'd be interested to hear
>> if there is anything else from other subscribers to help me think through
>> this point.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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