Capturing the past, preserving the future: digitisation of the national review of live art video collection
Primary tabs
Grant Holder:
Prof Simon Jones
The Capturing the Past, Preserving the Future project has the following aims: To preserve for posterity the unique research materials contained in the National Review of Live Art Video Archive by digitising and maintaining the entire collection; To create an interactive and searchable on-line catalogue, including selected copyright-cleared examples of its holdings; To promote the enhanced research facility amongst the UK higher education, national and international performance research and practitioner communities; Readiness for developing curated programmes. We are creating new archival masters to ensure the continuation of content beyond the life of the fragile carrier. Unlike photography, few standards or precedents exist for generating new audio-visual archival masters. Following recent research, we chose to store our data in uncompressed format, without the use of electronic compression algorithms which are often employed to reduce the amount of data storage required. As well as generating uncompressed archival video, the project also produces access copies in the form of DVD-videos. DVD-video is both familiar and economical, making the generation of replacements for damaged copies straightforward. It offers the possibility of adding artists' and programmers' commentaries and incorporating multiple camera angles.
Compressed data undertaken for DVDs and also to put onto the non-networked Viewing Station hard drive
| Project start date: 2006-01 | Project end date: 2009-02 |
Subject domains:
Era(s):
Country/region(s):
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| Accessibility analysis | Strategy and project management |
| Audio interaction (asynchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| Resource sharing | Communication and collaboration |
| Cataloguing and indexing | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Disk publishing | Data publishing and dissemination |
| Coding and standardisation | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Collating | Data analysis |
| Collocating | Data analysis |
| Indexing | Data analysis |
| Moving image capture | Data capture |
| Sound recording | Data capture |
| Documentation | Strategy and project management |
| Graphical interaction (asynchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| Graphical interaction (synchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| Human factors analysis | Strategy and project management |
| Iterative design | Strategy and project management |
| Prototyping | Strategy and project management |
| Risk management | Strategy and project management |
| Searching and querying | Data analysis |
| Sound compression | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Sound editing | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Sound encoding | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Streaming media | Data publishing and dissemination |
| System quality assurance and code testing | Strategy and project management |
| Security planning | Strategy and project management |
| Version control | Strategy and project management |
| Textual interaction (asynchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| Textual interaction (synchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| Usability analysis | Strategy and project management |
| Video editing | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Video post production | Practice-led research |
| Video-based interaction (asynchronous) | Communication and collaboration |
| Video and moving image compression | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Web browser scripting | Data publishing and dissemination |
| Curation | Strategy and project management |
| MPEG-7 | Metadata standards |
| preservation | Strategy and project management |
| Collaborative publishing | Data publishing and dissemination |
| sound | Content types |
| moving image | Content types |
| text | Content types |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data, Moving Image, Sound, Text
Software tools used:
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, Win DV, Adobe Encore 2, Adobe Premier Pro 2, Adobe Photoshop CS, Microsoft Office XP, Auto Exec Backup, Filecheck MD5 (Checksum), Nero Burning ROM 6, Cinema Craft MPEG2 Encoder, Daemon Tools, Morgan M-JPEG 2000 Codec
Source material used:
Source material was the National Review of Live Art Video Archive held at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection.
The National Review of Live Art Video Archive consists of video documents recorded at the National Review of Live Art, an international festival of performance, from 1986 to the present [2006]. The archive consists of 1012 videotapes in these formats: U-matic (high and low band), VHS and Mini DV. In total approximately 929 hours of footage. NB. It is not known what percentage of the Archive is original performance documentation. At various times and for various years – but not consistently – some tapes have been re-edited and compiled into various demonstration or “highlights” tapes (without loss of the original). The project will digitise these tapes. An unknown number of tapes are first-generation copies of the originals. The project will not digitise these copies unless the original has been lost or damaged.
Digital resource created:
A digital archive of the materials contained in the National Review of Live Art (NRLA) Video Archive, including master copies (uncompressed video data) held on LTO tape and external hard drives and access copies (compressed video data) on DVDs, external hard drives and a non-networked Viewing Station, together with a website and interactive catalogue of the collection at http://www.bris.ac.uk/nrla/catalogue/
Enables varied access to footage from the NRLA Video Archive which was previously too fragile/high risk to view and preserves the content for the future.
Access to digital resource:
Open Access
Data Formats created:
Microsoft Audio/Video Interleaved file (AVI), MPEG2, Waveform Audio file (WAV)
Metadata standards employed:
Dublin Core, qualified (DC), MPEG-21, MPEG-7, Other
Publications:
University of Bristol Department of Drama. "National Review of Live Art". University of Bristol. http://www.bris.ac.uk/nrla/
GRAY, S. Conservation and Performance Art: Building the Performance Art Data Structure (PADS), MA diss., Northumbria University, 2008.
http://www.incca.org/files/pdf/resources/2008_gray_stephen._conservation_and_perfomance_art.pdf
GRAY, S. Conservation and Performance Art: Building the Performance Art Data Structure (PADS), MA diss., Northumbria University, 2008.
http://www.incca.org/files/pdf/resources/2008_gray_stephen._conservation_and_perfomance_art.pdf
Institutions affiliated with this project:
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| University of Bristol |
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| New Moves International |
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Prof Simon Jones |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s), Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Simon Jones |
| Title | Capturing the past, preserving the future: digitisation of the national review of live art video collection |
| Record created | 2010-07-16 |
| Record updated | 2010-07-16 15:07 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3582 |
| Citation of record | Simon Jones: Capturing the past, preserving the future: digitisation of the national review of live art video collection. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3582> created: 2010-07-16, last updated 2010-07-16 15:07 |