Students in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) Program in the Department of Cinema Studies will present their final capstone projects on March 24-27th. From sports films, video games, punk & metal music, and video art, to models for community archiving, digital forensics, crowd-sourcing metadata, and digitizing 16mm films-- students will present research and talk about the unique aspects of access and preservation of different types of audiovisual materials and collections.
All lectures are free and open to the public.
Questions? Please contact: tisch.preservation@nyu.edu
Complete Schedule & Descriptions
Monday 3/24, 10:30am-11:30am
Emily Nabasny
"Keep the Ball Rolling! A Look into the Archiving and Preserving of Sports Films in Universities"
Most college and universities have accumulated collections (often quite large) of films documenting their institutions sports history, but the majority of these films have never been preserved or digitized, even when they have been deposited in a university archive. This thesis explores the archiving and preservation of athletic films in universities through case studies that focus on the archiving work done with these collections, including an in-depth account of the project undertaken at NYU in 2013-14. Providing a look at what particular problems and issues arise when dealing with college sports films and appraising their archival value.
Tuesday 3/25, 9:30am-10:30am
Athena Holbrook
"From Artist to Archivist: Portrait of the Joan Logue Collection"
Joan Logue is a pioneering New York video artist with a career spanning over 4 decades. Since 1971, she has used video portraiture to document fellow artists, composers, writers, and performers, as well as neighborhoods encountered throughout her life and travels. She is currently the sole caretaker of her collection, which contains 1600+ unique items on professional and consumer formats ranging from 1/2" open reel to MiniDV. For the past year, Holbrook has worked alongside Joan to inventory and catalog her tapes, create a database, begin digital migration, and document the technical and contextual histories of her work. Her thesis presentation will demonstrate the process of transitioning an independent artist collection from impenetrability to archival order, and discuss the important relationship between artist and archivist.
Wednesday 3/26, 9:30am-10:30am
Julia Kim
"Casting a Shadow, Coming out of the Dark: Digital Forensics and Personal Archiving with Legacy Material"
This thesis explores digital forensics applications in cultural archives with the use of several illustrative examples.
Wednesday 3/26, 10:30am-11:30am
Daniel Finn
"Out of the Darkness; Preserving the Digital Output of Independent Punk and Metal Labels"
As digital technology continues to afford greater access to high quality music production, the amount of content has exploded. However it is also the case that producers' conceptions of properly caring for this content have not evolved as quickly as the technology itself. The presentation will report findings from a survey of a number of active recording labels regarding if and how they plan on ensuring long term access to their digital output, and will also offer suggestions to producers on how to introduce digital preservation practices into their workflows in ways that do not overly tax their tight schedules and budgets.
Wednesday 3/26, 6:15pm-7:15pm
Pamela Vizner
"Crowdsourcing Metadata in Cultural Institutions: The Story so far and a look to the future"
Despite the growth in the use of crowdsourcing and Linked Data applications among cultural institutions as a solution for obtaining basic descriptions for digital collections, there is still a lack of general assessment of the projects involving both models. Studying previous projects, crowdsourcing theory and current implementations, this thesis intends to provide an outside view to the use of these models to gather metadata in the form of tags, giving a comprehensive view and delivering general information with the aim of improving future implementations.
Wednesday 3/26, 7:15 pm-8:15pm
Joseph Heinen
"Archiving The Brotherhood: Proposing a Genealogy for Time-Based Works"
The life and work of pioneer artists Steina and Woody Vasulka is as much about their process as their products. In particular, their early experiments in interactive installations involving software, robotics, and variable audio/visuals were on the cutting edge of emerging computer technology, so much so that these hybrid works resist conventional methods of description. Rather than approaching this collection from the perspective of a conservator, Heinen will explore how their art work The Brotherhood(1990-1998) and the remaining software and hardware elements might be processed so as to be useful to scholars in the Digital Humanities, acknowledging that technologies of this nature merit a rigorous attention to their unique historical context.
Thursday 3/27, 9:30am-10:30am
Kelly Haydon
"The Revolution just might be Archived...Practical Approaches to Community and Activist Archives with Audiovisual Collections"
Presented as part of a Capstone Portfolio, Kelly Haydon synthesizes her project work with four different mission-driven archival efforts.
Thursday 3/27, 10:30am-11:30am
Rebecca Hernandez-Gerber
"Gotta Save 'Em All? Video Game Preservation and the Challenge of Variant Forms"
Video games are unique amongst audiovisual forms in that, rather than existing a specific source text from which to determine authenticity, they exist as a multitude of concurrent variant forms. This poses a challenge to archivists and preservationists when determining priorities amongst a number of interrelated objects. This thesis focuses on creating a taxonomy of variant forms endemic to video games and building a framework that guides institutions in determining the relational work of these artifacts and how best to preserve their inherent meanings.