Documenting Born Digital Creative and Scholarly Works for Access and Preservation
by Dene Grigar, Nicholas Schiller, and Vanessa Rhodes, WSUV

This course focuses on the theory and practice of preserving born digital such as electronic literature, digital essays and blog posts, video games, mobile apps, and virtual worlds. It is built on the foundation of humanities and art-based curatorial practices and involves hands-on experience with documenting through photography, videography, sound recording, and ekphratic and critical writing. Participants will learn how to organize archival materials for presentation at library archival exhibits and for publication on platforms like Scalar. Read more

Monday, June 11: Obsolescence, Memory, and Material/Digital Culture

10:15 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Focus: Introduction challenges to documenting multimedia, interactive works; modes of preservation

Experience:

• Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse’s Whispering Galleries, on desktop with Leap Motion Controller
  Work (Needs Chrome): https://www.whisperinggalleries.com/app/index.html
  Project Site (no access to the work): http://www.whisperinggalleries.com
• Tiger & Squid’s Beyond Eyes, on Steam
  Tiger and Squid’s Project Site: http://www.tiger-squid.com

Discuss:

• Christiane Paul’s “The Myth of Immateriality” in Oliver Grau’s MediaArtHistories, 251-274.
• Nick Montfort and Noah Waldrip-Fruin’s Acid Free Bits. https://eliterature.org/pad/afb.html.
• Alan Liu, David Durand, et al’s Born Again Bits. https://eliterature.org/pad/bab.html

Do:

• Documenting Yourself Activity

 

1:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m.

Focus: Obsolescence and the challenges of preserving works

Do:

Presenting Your Research Topic
Directions: In no more than 5 minutes explain to the participants in this class the research you are currently pursuing. Include the following information:

• What it entails (e.g. 30-second elevator speech)
• How it pertains to the class
• What gaps you have encountered with which participants in the course may be able to help you

 

Experience:

• Assorted works of Flash narratives and poetry, on laptop
  Alan Bigelow, “When I Was President”
  Sasha West, “Zoology”
  Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries, “Samsung“

Discuss:

• Abby Smith Rumsey’s When We Are No More, 1 (3-14 pp.) and Ch. 10 (157-177 pp.)
• Francisco Varela et al’s The Embodied Mind, Ch. 4, 59-81.
• Annet Dekker’s “On Re-Collection: New Media, Art, and Social Media.” In Dekker’s Speculative Scenarios, 88-93.
• Hans Ulrich Obrist’s The Future Is a Dog.” Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Curating. 21-28.

 

Tuesday, June 12: Documentation Modes & Methods for Access & Study

9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. 

Focus: Affordances and constraints of various modes of documentation

Experience:

• Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl, on CD-ROM
• trAce Online Writing Centre’s archives
• Wikipedia
• Databases (ELMCIP Knowledge Base, ELD)
• Catalogues (ELL Catalog)
• Projects (Project Gutenberg, Perseus Digital Library)
• Books (Assortment of art and exhibit catalogues)

Discuss:

• Abigail De Kosnik’s Rogue Archives, Introduction (1-20 pp.); Break 0 (25-35 pp.), Ch. 2 (41-61 pp.)
• Robert Coover’s “The End of Books.” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html

Do:

• Skype meeting with ELD Editor, Dani Spinosa at 10 a.m. PDT

 

1:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m.

Focus: A method for documenting multimedia, interactive works

Experience:

• Pathfinders Methodology and the Traversal Process

Discuss:

• Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop’s Pathfinders: Documenting the Experience of Early Digital Literature, http://scalar.usc.edu/works/pathfinders/index
• PDF of Slide Show: http://dtc-wsuv.org/dhsi2017/pathfinders-traversal–DHSI-session1.pdf
• Check List of Documentation: http://dtc-wsuv.org/dhsi2017/check-list-documentation.docx

Do:

• Inventory assets to document
• Develop assets for documentation
• Organize work group for tomorrow’s documentation activity

 

Wednesday, June 13: Doing Documentation

Focus: All day hands-on workshop for documenting works of participants’ choice

Experience:

• Videotaping
• Photographing
• Describing

 

Thursday, June 14: Publishing Practices for Presenting Preserved Works

Focus: All day hands-on workshop for creating an open-source, online documentation book

Experience:

• Creating a Scalar documentation book

 

Friday, June 15: Curatorial Practices for Presenting Documentation

Focus: Theory and practice of curating; final presentation of documentation project

Experience:

• “Pathfinders: 25 Years of Experimental Literary Art,” curated by Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop, the Modern Language Association Annual Convention, 9-11 January 2014, http://dtc-wsuv.org/wp/pathfinders/exhibit/
• Turbulence.org archives, http://turbulence.org, and http://archive.turbulence.org

Do:

• Documenting Yourself activity

Discuss:

• Liz Wells’ “Curatorial Strategy as Critical Intervention.” In Judith Rugg and Michele Sedgwick’s Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, 29-43.
• Hans Ulrich Obrist. “The Elephant Trunk in Dubai.” Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Curating, 31-56.

We end at noon today.