SZTUKA RUCHOMEGO OBRAZU. OCHRONA, KONSERWACJA I REKONSTRUKCJA W DOBIE MEDIÓW CYFROWYCH

The art of conservation has been forced to face entirely new challenges. The sort of art that so far has kept its distance from official circulation, is being intentionally collected, is entering the domain of museum space, and, as a consequence, is becoming the object of the concern expressed by art conservators. Requirements and problems associated with the conservation of audio-visual and digital objects differ considerably from the needs of traditional archival material and monuments of art. The magnetic tape, in contrast to, e. g. the film tape, does not contain traces of the process, which had produced its information structure. Images recorded on magnetic tape are not directly accessible and remained encoded. The characteristic feature of the digital media is a still smaller 'material quality coefficient'. New dilemmas are also created by the interpretation of new media objects. Another noteworthy fact is the great reduction of the period of the durability of the carriers as technology progresses. A different problem involves the constant outdating caused by the rapid development of audiovisual technologies. At present, the fundamental challenge entails the creation of a conception of long-range protection of the new media, and the storage of resources in a world governed by the harsh rules of the market. A conservator or an archivist will not delay the outdating of audio-visual technologies, and does not have any impact on the trend of their growth. He is also incapable of improving the physico-chemical properties of the carriers. It will become imperative to cooperate closely with specialists representing informatics, physics or electronics. Only by entering these new domains one can guaranteed a chance to protect and preserve the new variety of monuments of culture. Obviously the protection of audiovisual collections calls for research and documentation. In the case of valuable magnetic tapes it is crucial to ensure suitable storage conditions. Successive prevention entails cyclical copying of master tapes onto new carriers, prior to the appearance of the first symptoms of disintegration. Next to the heretofore-used analog formats of the master tapes , archives are gradually selecting digital tape formats or keep valuable video material on hard disks.The development of informatics technologies is accompanied by the possibility of a digital reconstruction of the moving image. The software is addressed primarily to the 'digital intermediate' industry and archival films, but can be also applied for the reconstruction of valuable video material. All these solutions are still in the experimental phase and are not widely applied. It is not surprising that neither conservation theory nor praxis can keep up and we are only beginning to learn how to put them to use. The obliteration of the concept of the original and copyright protection causes further anxiety. The above issues must be resolved rapidly if digital imagery is to become part of conservation praxis and institutions protecting art are to become capable of treating their collections suitably.