archiving born-digital material: the exhibition as an ... most if not all of the files relating to...

icam 17 Session 1: Archiving Born-Digital Materials / David Stevenson, Emilie Retailleau

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Émilie Retailleau, David Stevenson

Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal

Archiving Born-Digital Material:

The Exhibition as an Investigative Tool

A new set of questions

About a year ago, a dusty computer owned by Bernard Cache arrived at the CCA as

part of the Archaeology of the Digital program. We always try to acquire an “entire

archive” relating to the projects selected in this program, and this dusty computer

held most if not all of the files relating to the wood panels project developed by

Bernard Cache in the 1990s.

What we knew about the computer was that:

- The oldest files were from around 1995

- The machine was from around 2005

What we didn’t know about the computer was:

- The exact contents of the hard drive

- If we could turn it on, considering European voltage, general functioning...

- When was the last time it was turned on

And we learned that the architect didn’t know either.

Project archives can arrive in several other ways, including USB drives, external hard

drives, CD-ROMS and floppy disks. And despite physical size differences and age,

they can contain similar amounts of data.


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And files can arrive in non-physical form as well, such as email or file-transfer web-

based services.

All this digital material needs to be arranged, accessed, and preserved in order to

make it accessible in the long term. The preparation of the exhibition and of the

publications become tools to research the material and test access. The skills that

are required involve a cross-section of the whole institution, including IT,

conservation, exhibition, publication, archiving and cataloguing.


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Preserving and accessing

Albeit to a lesser degree and pace than recently, the CCA has been acquiring digital

material for over a decade, and over time has developed a conceptual basis for

working with digital files, as well as tools and software, and defined possible or

probable workflows.

The knowledge gained on this area originated partly from external sources:

- Open Archives Information System (OAIS): Ideas, guidance, definitions

- Other readings DPC, DCC, universities

- Analyzed Different software options

- Talking to other institutions

- Conferences

And partly by internal sources:

- Communication with the IT department

- Referring to established archival knowledge and practices (re: physical

media)

- Trial and error

We felt reasonably comfortable to implement some of the process—up to “Reception

of files” and “File Processing” —but we are still working on many issues around file

migration; cataloguing and our “Dark Archive”. We have spent much time in a

theoretical world, reviewing options, literature, creating a conceptual basis, and

considering best practices in these areas.


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These are just some of the files that we received from Bernard Cache, on his dusty

computer. Take note of:

- The number of directories

- Folders entitled “Vieux PC disque new” and “Vieux PC Disque old”. These

files indicated that there was at least one “old” computer backed up to this

particular computer.

Due to the quantities of files and directories, it was evident that software designed to

analyze and report on these files would be essential. And we already had some

established processes in this area.


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Tools for analyzing files

In 2007, as we acquired Greg Lynn’s Embryological House Project, we realized we

needed a tool to analyze portable digital media and the files they contain, and

produce reports on this material. These reports would also be preserved long-term

with the files themselves, in support of archiving.

We developed a “harvesting tool” that extracts files from a piece of physical portable

digital media and performs a series of analyses on them:

- ISO copy of the digital media (copying and preserving file structure)

- ID file types

- File quantities

- File sizes

- Checksum

- Junk/ duplicate/ corrupted files

The functionalities of our harvesting tool grew over time:

- It created summary reports

- It extracted metadata and produced reports on this data, including file

extension, perceived file type (such as image, document, video, audio...) and

file qualities.


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These reports can also inform us about the specific kind of software that was used to

create the files, including its version. This was useful in knowing what software is

required to open and work on these files.

But the harvester was imperfect, as it relied on the file format registry “DROID” (of the

National Archives in the UK), which has deficiencies, particularly in the treatment of

CAD files. And we also realized that roughly equivalent FOSS softwares have

emerged, and the community of adoption has grown. To avoid isolating ourselves

with our own software and/or unnecessarily over-investing in developing it, the CCA

is presently in the process of adopting roughly equivalent open-source software.

We analyzed, for adoption, other FOSS tools:

- Bit Curator (forensics)

- DPSP: National Archives of Australia

- RODA: Portugese National Archives

- Archivematica (Artefactual Systems)

Some of these softwares are becoming more widely adopted and interconnected.


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Contextualizing

In order to make files accessible, we decided to make a copy of the original files for

research and selection. They were to be accessible only to the team that was

working on the preparation of the exhibition at the CCA, and strict regulations were

insisted upon: preventing these files being sent outside the CCA or moved outside

the secure folder, or sent internally as an email attachment. These files were

potentially destined for our collection, or were otherwise affected by a contractual

agreement relating to the donor.

For the first time, we started to open the files themselves, including videos, tiff files,

jpgs, Maya, texts, AutoCAD, html, etc. But as Greg Lynn warned us, these projects

and the archives that we received were very tough cases—tough to open, to look at,

to understand.

- Files were complex, often containing dependencies (dependent files)

- They were collaborative projects

- There were custom made programs, or custom made file extensions

- They used non architectural softwares or were even creating a new software.


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But when we tried to open them we sometimes got this message. Even the Harvester

was telling us that there are a lot of “unspecified” file types.

So we knew that we needed as much help as we could get, and that contextualizing

information would be beneficial to help us not only to open files, but also to archive,

catalogue, and research them. We initially conceived of and constructed a

questionnaire addressed to the person that donates the archive and seeking

information on the organization or firm, staff roles, the projects, the files, the

computing environment, softwares used, and design methodology. This

questionnaire was of course a very interesting tool for us but sometimes it was


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difficult to receive responses from the architects or their collaborators. So other

sources of information were necessary.

And the means to obtain this information was through an oral history of the projects.

Since the beginning of the Archaeology of the Digital program it was conceived that

Greg Lynn would conduct interviews with the architects and their collaborators to

provide the big picture, and to allow us to develop a historical and curatorial

perspective on this material. The interviews helped to understand the context and the

chronology of the projects.

Meaning of the files and representation

The oral histories helped to gather information and build precise knowledge on the

projects, but we still needed the help of the architects and their collaborators to go

through the files. So we did subsequent Skype interviews with the architects, asking

them to walk us through the files. They opened the files with us, explained why they

created them, etc. These work sessions on Skype is where we did the fastest

progress in overcoming obstacles and gaining an understanding of the files. This

understanding allowed us to reorganize the files for each project in a way that made

sense for research and later selection.

Even with files that could seem simple at first, if you could understand the way the

architect created them and used them, this would help the curatorial choices.

We would like to end this presentation with examples of how we chose to present

digital materials in the Archaeology of the Digital exhibition and in the electronic

publications—examples that raised many questions related to accessibility,

simulation, the transfer of digital files to analog documents, and the archive of born-

digital material.


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This is the display on one of the walls in the exhibition. It is the room dedicated to the

Hypo Surface project by Mark Goulthorpe. Due to the diversity of the files in terms of

meaning and media we chose a variety of ways to show them in order to understand

how to access and read the file, while reflecting its original use.

From left to right, we see how the display responds to the nature and the meaning of

the files:

1. A TV screen displays a video capture that we did of a 3D AutoCAD model

2. An assemblage that we did of 15 gif files

3. An interactive program custom-made by the IT department for testing the

Hyposuface wall

4. Printed documents, in this case an email attachment

5. Additional printed documents in the yellow folder.

This is a 2D construction drawing done in AutoCAD for Lars Spuybroek’s Water

Pavilion. As you can see there is an information box at the bottom right that implies

that the file was meant to be printed.


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We printed files that were meant to be printed. Decisions to be made included the

colours, the visualization of layers and printer specifications. In other cases, we

created animations when we deduced that that was the original intent of a series of

images in the archive.

And we also printed in 3D. Here’s an example from the CNC panels by Bernard

Cache. The file format was foreign to us, but we were able to open it as a .TXT

document (seen here) and this allowed us to understand the XY co-ordinates for the

creation of a physical panel using a CNC machine.


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The text format is one way to understand the file, but you can also use a viewer

found on the Internet that shows the toolpath of the machine and the pattern of the

panel.

Here is the panel done from the Bernard Cache file for the exhibition in 2014.


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The new products that result from rebuilding elements from the archive illustrate

some of the key outcomes of the exhibition as an investigative tool and as a learning

experience for the CCA.

But as much as these products have enlightened us, they also bring their own

questions:

- What status do these new creations have? Do they even belong in our

collection? Do they support our understanding or augment the material that is

“original”?

- Or, are they just a different output from a digital source?

- What about the problem of file dependencies?

- What about software and hardware obsolescence?

To conclude, there are freedoms and limitations with digital material:

- Freedom to duplicate, relocate, manipulate, and rearrange

- Limitations derived from software obsolescence, hardware availability and risk

information loss. These limitations are not a dead‐end, but require further

investigation. And there is perhaps the biggest risk of all, that of never getting

enough information about the files and the projects, to give either access or

meaning to the files in the long term.

Now is the time to ask questions of the authors and creators. Contextualizing the

information we have is essential for the future.

archiving born-digital material: the exhibition as an ... most if not all of the files relating to...

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