Florence Declaration
The Florence Declaration - recommendation for the preservation of analogue photo archives is an initiative of the photo library of the Art History Institute in Florence .
Origin and goal
With this declaration, published in German, English, Italian, French, Polish, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic, the Kunsthistorisches Institut would like to promote understanding of the fundamental importance of analogue photos and photo archives for the future of the humanities , social and human sciences . The Florence Declaration was presented on October 31, 2009 as part of the international conference "Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History - Part II" (Institute of Art History in Florence, October 29–31, 2009). Since then, the declaration has been continuously supported by numerous international scientists with their signature.
Content of the declaration
Against the background of the ongoing debates about the complete digitization of photo archives and the step-by-step dissolution of the archives, which is often required, and their conversion into digital forms that can be researched via the Internet , the Florence Declaration takes the view that digitization of the holdings should definitely be aimed at, digital However, photos could only partially replace the original print. Thus, digital archives could not fully take over the task of analog archives. Because every technology not only shapes the way of transmission, preservation and use of documents, but also their content. An analog photo and its digital reproduction are therefore two different, non-interchangeable objects with different characteristics. Since the questions and research fields in the humanities have changed a lot in recent years and analog photography is increasingly becoming the focus of scientists, it is necessary to overcome the traditional equation of analog photographs and their digital reproductions.
Importance of analog photos
In this context, the Florence Declaration attaches particular importance to the object character of analog photos. Accordingly, the analog photos each have their own “biography”, which results from different aspects such as the time of their production, the technology used, the aim of their production, the classification in the context of the respective archive and in its systematics.
Particular emphasis is placed on the tactile features of analog photos , which are indispensable for their scientific processing and which are inevitably lost in the production of a digital reproduction . The digital format is not able to reconstruct the "biography" of the respective photo in all its aspects. A digitized version can only have the character of a detail, whereby the focus is often on the object depicted in the analogue photo. The juxtaposition of visual and material aspects, which distinguish a photo, is lost and its complexity is inevitably reduced. Thus, the idea of complete accessibility in connection with digital formats via databases would also be illusory; where the Internet ideally makes people independent of time and place, it reduces access to a single aspect of the photographic object: the image information. Digitization projects are inevitably associated with a selection of certain aspects of the material, which makes a complete digitized recording of the objects with all their properties impossible.
Furthermore, it is recalled that so far little secured information about the reliability of the long-term archiving of digital information as well as about the long-term maintenance of stable functionalities and structures of the Internet is available.
Archives
Research into photography is thus still indissolubly linked to the context in which it is stored: the archive. This is not only made up of the sum of the photos stored in it, but also represents an autonomous and singular structure. For the humanities, social and human sciences, it has the function of a laboratory in which knowledge is produced and interpreted. The material environment of an analogue photo archive and the possibilities it opens up differ fundamentally from the conditions of a database that can be accessed on the Internet . It is therefore an indispensable prerequisite for the signatories of the Florence Declaration that the photographic archive is preserved as an instrument, but also as an object of research in all its structures and functions, and that permanent access is guaranteed. Because the analog archives are part of our cultural heritage, which in their overall structure could themselves become the subject of scientific research. The signatories call for the digital archives not to replace the analog archives, but to complement them in order not to restrict the scientific work and the interpretative possibilities for the researchers, but rather to expand them.
bibliography
- Erik P. Löffler: De 'Florence Declaration' - Over het belang van het analoge fotoarchief / The 'Florence Declaration' - On the importance of analogue photographic archives . In: RKD Bulletin, 2012/1, pp. 50–54.
- Elizabeth Cropper: Preface . In: Art and the Early Photographic Album , ed. v. di Stephen Bann, New Haven, London 2011, p. VII.
- Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History. International conference organized by Patricia Rubin (Institute of Fine Arts, New York) and Costanza Caraffa (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut), held in London, Courtauld Institute of Art (16-17 June 2009) and in Florence, Kunsthistorisches Institut (29-31 October 2009), review by Elisabetta Cunsolo. In Visual Resources , 26/2010, No. 4, pp. 391-401.
- Jutta Voorhoeve: The materiality of the analog as a source and place of research . In: Rundbrief Fotografie , 17/2010, No. 1, pp. 41–43.
- Kelley Wilder: Positioning and Repositioning Photography in Art History . In: Rundbrief Fotografie , 17/2010, No. 1, pp. 40–41.
- Klaus Nenno: From the picture archive. Florence Declaration - Recommendations for the Preservation of Analog Photo Archives of October 31, 2009 . In: Preservation of monuments in Westphalia-Lippe , 1/2010, pp. 22–23.
- Klaus Pollmeier: The Florence Declaration - Recommendations for the Preservation of Analog Photo Archives (Editorial) . In: Rundbrief Fotografie , 16/2009, No. 4, pp. 2–3.