What can you capture, and not capture, when you digitize something?
Depending on your technology, you may be able to capture physical artifacts quite well. You can video an artifact – something physical like a vase, for example – and capture all angles, possibly even permitting the user to zoom in to really examine the little details, like painted finishes and/or superficial texture. A video may also allow a user to hear what the pages of a book sound like, for instance, when turned.
Photographs and other one-dimensional artifacts have the opportunity of digitizing well, and I emphasize opportunity because it’s not a tried and true method. If an artifact has good color and quality in its physical form, chances are its digitized form will capture nicely. However, if an artifact is physically worn – a photograph’s colors are faded, a book’s pages are borderline translucent – digitization may prove more challenging.
Of course, you can never really capture an artifact in its entirety – you can’t smell via technology nor touch via technology. So while you may be able to share the experience of an artifact to an extent via digitization, one of our readings touched on this idea/fact that there’s no such thing as an original original online artifact – even with the most meticulous digitization, it’s (presently) not the same experience as the original physical artifact, whatever it may be. There’s often a good bit that gets lost in translation during the digitization process, which really boils down to one simple fact: a digital artifact isn’t a physical artifact.
Which forms of digitization make the most sense for different types of items?
Three-dimensional scanning technology provides the greatest means for the user to experience physical artifacts in a virtual reality-type setting, like what the Smithsonian has done with their 3D Program. Users are able to have a semi-realistic interaction with a physical artifact via zooming and rotating capabilities, exploring artifacts more easily than ever before.
Traditional photograph scanning provides a basic digitized version of a physical photograph.
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- Pros: Users can explore thousands upon thousands of photographs from all sorts of historical eras, geographies, cultures, topics – the possibilities are nearly endless. Technology also offers editing techniques that enhance an original photograph in ways never before possible, like reverse polarity where an original negative is a positive, thereby revealing never-before-seen images.
- Cons: A digitized photograph isn’t an exact replica of the original. Whomever scanned the photograph decided the resolution, tone, and color before making the image viewable on a computer screen, so no matter what, liberties were taken with the ultimate digitized representation of a simple photograph. As Paul Conway itemized in his piece, “Building Meaning in Digitized Photographs,” there are four types of digitized photographs:
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- As is, which is the truest to form in capturing the original photograph
- As was, which is when technology is used to restore a photograph to its original glory, so to speak (though this is very much left to the interpretation of the digital humanist digitizing the photo)
- As desired, which is when technology is used to restore a photograph to the photographer’s original intent
- Original scene (as seen), which is when the original scene is rendered
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- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows you to scan printed text into digital text, thereby making it searchable and/or editable. This technique is ideal for digitizing books, for instance.
To what extent does working with digitized representations impact how we understand different kinds of items, and/or our ability to use them for different purposes?
When you’re engaging with a digitized artifact – whatever it may be – you’re immediately looking at a representation of that artifact, not the untouched artifact (to put it plainly). So whomever created this digitized artifact applied their own influences and interpretations to what you’re seeing, watching what you’re watching, hearing what you’re hearing. Paul Conway quotes W.J.T. Mitchell: “Representation is always of something or someone, by something or someone, to someone.”
It’s important that as users/consumers of digitized representations we understand and recognize this innate unoriginality of an original artifact once it’s been digitized. In my opinion, awareness is key when it comes to understanding how to use digitized artifacts – if you’re acutely aware that you’re viewing a close-to-slash-better-than-nothing artifact and not the real thing, then you should be able to execute whatever your purpose, from research to simple curiosity.
I think that the biggest consideration that we need to make as creators of digital humanity projects is that of communicating clearly with our audience because so often that breakdown in communication wreaks havoc via misinterpretation and misunderstanding. It’s really quite critical that we provide thorough searching capabilities and analyses of primary sources so that the audience has all of the tools needed to analyze, compare, and grow their own knowledge in an organic and creative way.
