4 ms·

Do you feel the same way about books? Or paintings?

by tyrust 11y ago

thaumasiotes 11y ago
I'd say this approach is fine for books if you scan them, but not if you OCR them and keep the resulting text. I've seen a lot of OCR errors, and archival copies are often not vetted before being archived. But for paintings... an image of a painting is the painting. The only advantage of the original is that, if you believe that it's the original and that it hasn't changed with the passage of time (e.g. by fading), you can prove that the original really looked like that. As soon as you have trouble with either of those assumptions, the archived copy is at least as good (and in the case of fading over time, better). There's a problem in philosophy asking whether you believe that a molecule-for-molecule copy of a painting is metaphysically equivalent to that painting. Obviously, there's no way for any test to tell them apart, but a lot of people will say that nevertheless the original is metaphysically different. Are you one of those?
- nitrogen 11y ago
  If we expand "image" to include a 3D relief map of the brush strokes, then I might agree. But there is still forensic analysis, spectroscopy, etc. that can only be done with the original.
  - shard 11y ago
    This. You have not seen Van Gogh's paintings until you've seen them in person. He heaps on gops of paint on his canvasses, and the third dimension is an aspect of the paintings that cannot be appreciated fully in 2D reproductions. As a corollary, the lighting of a painting is an important aspect of viewing it, as the angle of light will affect highlights and shadows, especially for some paintings which use glossy paints.
- agsamek 11y ago
  Boy - you are way wrong. If you have printed materials like books then scanning gives you everything needed for reproduction. With paintings there are many more unique elements. Eg. Not all colors are covered by rgb. Even those covered may absorb and reflect light differently. So looking at the image with different lighting or from different angle may create unique impression. There is also texture that cannot be easily scanned. We may get there with scanning and displaying technology someday but at the moment good copies are created by artists and not printed.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  Have you seen a painting in person? They don't look like reproductions.
protomyth 11y ago
Not the OP, but if they are not going to scan and encode those tapes, I hope they keep some players around and some tech to fix them. VHS is just way to prone to decay. If they were film stock, then keep the film stock since it is basically its own archival. Books and paintings last. VHS does not. What are folks using for archival video formats these days?
spullara 11y ago
If something is unique then I generally agree. The vast majority of books are not unique. Paintings are unique works and I think preserving them has value.

Do you feel the same way about books? Or paintings?

by tyrust 11y ago

Do you feel the same way about books? Or paintings?

I'd say this approach is fine for books if you scan them, but not if you OCR them and keep the resulting text. I've seen a lot of OCR errors, and archival copies are often not vetted before being archived. But for paintings... an image of a painting is the painting. The only advantage of the original is that, if you believe that it's the original and that it hasn't changed with the passage of time (e.g. by fading), you can prove that the original really looked like that. As soon as you have trouble with either of those assumptions, the archived copy is at least as good (and in the case of fading over time, better). There's a problem in philosophy asking whether you believe that a molecule-for-molecule copy of a painting is metaphysically equivalent to that painting. Obviously, there's no way for any test to tell them apart, but a lot of people will say that nevertheless the original is metaphysically different. Are you one of those?

nitrogen 11y ago
If we expand "image" to include a 3D relief map of the brush strokes, then I might agree. But there is still forensic analysis, spectroscopy, etc. that can only be done with the original.
- shard 11y ago
  This. You have not seen Van Gogh's paintings until you've seen them in person. He heaps on gops of paint on his canvasses, and the third dimension is an aspect of the paintings that cannot be appreciated fully in 2D reproductions. As a corollary, the lighting of a painting is an important aspect of viewing it, as the angle of light will affect highlights and shadows, especially for some paintings which use glossy paints.
agsamek 11y ago
Boy - you are way wrong. If you have printed materials like books then scanning gives you everything needed for reproduction. With paintings there are many more unique elements. Eg. Not all colors are covered by rgb. Even those covered may absorb and reflect light differently. So looking at the image with different lighting or from different angle may create unique impression. There is also texture that cannot be easily scanned. We may get there with scanning and displaying technology someday but at the moment good copies are created by artists and not printed.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
Have you seen a painting in person? They don't look like reproductions.

protomyth 11y ago

Not the OP, but if they are not going to scan and encode those tapes, I hope they keep some players around and some tech to fix them. VHS is just way to prone to decay. If they were film stock, then keep the film stock since it is basically its own archival. Books and paintings last. VHS does not. What are folks using for archival video formats these days?

spullara 11y ago

If something is unique then I generally agree. The vast majority of books are not unique. Paintings are unique works and I think preserving them has value.