Day 1, Group 4

Bruno Bachimont, Université de technologie, Compiègne

Jean-François Blanchette, University of California

The preservation of artistic content does not only involve the material integrity of artworks but also the intelligibility of content significance. Many levels of preservation emerge, notably those that make it possible for the work to be shown once again (exhibition, execution) and to be performed...

* Please note part of this presentation is in French.

...Advances in archives science led to the development of proven principles and methods for conserving content, with the preservation of the medium on which works were created sufficient to assure accessibility to their content. However, since the arrival of technological (audiovisual and sound) and interactive (digital) media, these principles and methods no longer fully apply and can therefore not guarantee the preservation of either the integrity or the intelligibility of a work. As part of the MUSTICA experiments conducted on the contemporary digital and electroacoustic music content developed at the INA Groupe de Recherches musicales (INA/GRM) and IRCAM, we established a methodological and theoretical framework and created a tool to allow the documentation associated with a work to be conserved. Today, this tool is routinely used.

Following his studies in computer engineering, Bruno Bachimont completed a doctorate in artificial intelligence on automatic problem solving and a doctorate in the philosophy of technology and knowledge. Today he is Director of Research at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France, where he teaches logic, philosophy, and knowledge and document engineering. He is also Scientific Manager at the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel in France. Bachimont examines knowledge and content engineering within a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on the philosophy of technology and digitization on the one hand and document engineering and ontology on the other. He has developed an ontology construction methodology and has investigated techniques for document indexation. He is currently testing his theoretic research on digital preservation, notably with respect to artistic and cultural content, which involves exploration of the conditions to enable a digital philology and hermeneutics.

Jean-François Blanchette is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. He received a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the Université de Montréal in 1995 and 1997, and a Ph.D. in Social Studies of Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2002. Between 1999 and 2001, he was an invited researcher at the CNRS in Paris, where he investigated the definition of a new legal framework for recognizing the evidential value of electronic documents, especially those produced by notaries, bailiffs and judges. Between 2002 and 2004, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the InterPARES project at SLAIS, University of British Columbia. Professor Blanchette teaches in the area of electronic records management, digital preservation, and social dimensions of computing. His current research focuses on developing theoretical and practical tools necessary for the long- term preservation of complex digital objects, and investigating the positive function of forgetting and forgetfulness in a world powered by information systems.