Performance capture is one of the lively topics confronting preservation professionals in libraries, archives, and museums right now. My major encounter with this problem was at UCLA Library, where we had a strategic plan that led to an actual performance capture report and the hiring of a real live person to work on the issues it framed. I got to thinking about the issue again over the weekend, after watching two fascinating videos of Keith Haring painting (at Brooklyn Museum) and reading an article about Nicholas Serota’s work at Tate.
I was a musician and occasional actor before I made my retreat into the stacks, though, so performance capture is something I’ve encountered from a variety of angles. There’s a lot to be learned by the preservation profession from the work on historic performance practice in the performing arts. Part of the lesson is theoretical, I’ll even dare to say epistemological. But happily, a more immediate lesson is practical, and I’ll double dare say we can bring lessons from the performing arts to bear on preservation practices in the present time.
Some comments about the New Media and Social Memory Symposium at the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive made by Gunter Waible and Perian Sully are a good indicator of the issues as stake.
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