Archiving a Creative History: Holography for a future generation
Andrew Pepper
Artist, Nottingham, England (1)
ABSTRACT
Acknowledging the past can stimulate the future. This paper discusses the problems involved with archiving the activities of artists and producers active in creative holography.
A system exists, within the world of science and research, for knowledge to be archived via conferences, symposia and published proceedings. Artists often find verbalising or quantifying their activities both difficult and inadequate. Yet their experience and research is a valuable resource for progression in the field.
How will pioneering events, which have taken place over the last 50 years, be accessible for artists new to the medium of art using holography? What archives exist and in what form? As the interest in creative holography migrates from museums and centres dedicated to the subject, to more diverse venues, is there a chance that we will begin to lose valuable knowledge and experience?
High-speed communication, the Internet and World Wide Web have revolutionised the dissemination of information. Is there still a case for geographically based archives or must we all resort to digital facsimiles?
Keywords: Holography, Art, Artists, Exhibitions, Archiving, Collecting, Internet, Web, WWW, Links
1. INTRODUCTION
There appears to be a resurgence of interest in creative holography. Although it is difficult to accurately assess whether more artists are embracing the medium, it is clear that public and professional interest is increasing. This month alone there are several substantial exhibitions of the medium: Holography 2000, as part of this conference, at the Stadtmuseum St. Pölten, Austria; Colour Holograms, John Kaufman’s retrospective at Gallery 286, London; Holography: The Light Fantastic at the MIT Museum, Boston, USA, and The Royal Photographic Society Holography Group Summer Exhibition 2000, a Selection from the Jonathan Ross Collection in Bath, UK.
These exhibitions continue to create excitement and are appearing in locations primarily associated with art. The recent exhibition held at the Kulturbrauerei , Berlin, Germany, (2) a large arts centre in a section of the city which was previously part of East Berlin, has aroused considerable interest. On June 7th this year the opening attracted around 750 visitors. Being there was a little like travelling back in time. The enthusiasm of the visitors was unbridled. They reacted to the work with excitement and wonder, asking many of the same questions that were being asked 15-20 years ago at similar exhibitions.
On the one hand it is lamentable that no ‘progress’ appears to have been made in the understanding, by a general audience, of the visual medium of holography. On the other hand, the way they reacted and the excitement they displayed for an exhibition in an arts centre is certainly encouraging.
In these situations people are thirsty for more information and other opportunities to view creative holography. Where do they go?
It continues to be difficult to locate information on the creative aspect of holography in general, and on the work of artists in particular. The number of new exhibitions is encouraging, but these are geocentric and rely on you being part of an existing mailing list so that you can be informed that they are taking place. Catalogues are sometimes published, but tend not to be stocked by bookshops or bought by libraries. There is a great deal of information available, but it is difficult to obtain.
When the Museum of Holography existed in New York (3) , its ‘bookstore’ regularly published a mail order catalogue so that books and catalogues could be ordered and distributed world-wide. Because of the pivotal nature of this institution they were able to locate a long list of relevant books and offer an outlet for the many ‘exhibition’ catalogues they produced themselves. Other galleries and ‘holo’ shops stock information on the subject, but few offer a global mail-order service.
Although there are examples of creative holography held in the collections of established galleries and museums, and permanent installations of holography have been included in various buildings around the world, (4) they are distributed widely and therefore difficult to view on a regular basis. Several projects are in preparation for new, permanent, installations, including a gallery dedicated entirely to creative holograms from the German Lauk Collection (5) , to be installed at the Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany (6), and a gallery - “Espace Georges Dyens” - dedicated to the work of Canadian artist Georges Dyens, at the Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada (7), is to include one of his large multi-media sculptures which use holography as an integral part of the work. These are exciting developments, but many individuals will need background information before they will travel to Germany or Canada to view these permanent archives.
2. THE NEED TO KNOW
As the creative aspect of holography continues to develop and mature, there is a desire for more specific information on the activities of artists in the field, particularly from gallery, museum and exhibition curators who need to research the topic and develop their own expertise in the field. These arts professionals need to be able to make their own informed choices. The importance of having accessible information cannot be underestimated.
During a presentation at the International Congress on Art in Holography (8), given by Chris Titterington (9) , then assistant curator of photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, he was asked how a (then) recent exhibition of holography had come about at the V&A. He very openly explained that when the idea of an holography exhibition was considered by the museum, the first thing they did was to go and look in their files under “holography”. Two artists had the thickest, and apparently most interesting, file and they were subsequently asked to exhibit.
The advice which Titterington gave to the assembled gathering of artists was that they should seriously consider keeping curators informed of their activities. There are very few art publications to act as a resource, so self-promotion becomes paramount. Unfortunately it is not something which comes easily to all artists in the field and it can be expensive. Few have the resources to produce their own catalogues, videos or books. They tend to direct whatever funding they have to the production of their work and their own day-to-day survival.
Luckily this situation is improving, helped by technology and a change in the way people search for information.
3. DIGITAL CATALOGUES
Artists working with holography have embraced the Internet and found that it can provide them with an economical venue for their own promotion - one which they can control and which is globally accessible. British art collector Jonathan Ross observed, “What have all the artists I can think of been spending their time on lately? Web sites, that's what. .....to holographers in particular, the web has provided a superb way of promoting their art and communicating with one another. They can produce comprehensive illustrated catalogues of their work at a fraction of the cost of printing. They can use stereoscopy to show 3D and movie clips to show animation. How fantastic to have a portfolio of your work that anyone can access anytime, from anywhere in the world. No wonder no-one is making any new work, they are all too busy documenting their old work.” (10) This will be a temporary situation, but it does indicate how quickly the web is being embraced as a serious method of communication. Artist Eduardo Kac has maintained an extensive web site (11) for several years, which features his own work with holography, telematics and writing. It is possible on sites such as this to locate often hard to find material. A more recent addition to the artist-produced site is that of British artist Margaret Benyon an acknowledged pioneer in the field (12). This site brings together not only many images of work, but key texts and comments which have already become important elements in the history of creative holography. She has also been extremely generous to her visitors by including an extensive and annotated list of links to other sites which might be of interest to creative holography explorers.
But it is not only the individual artists who have identified the potential of digital catalogues and archives. Ross himself has pioneered the use of the Internet as a vehicle to offer access to his collections. He has been collecting all aspects of holography for many years and in 1998 launched a web site to act as an online catalogue and archive (13) . Each year he adds more material, as he works through his extensive collection and acquires more work.
There are several private collections of holography around the world, but this is the first to make details about items it holds available to a wide audience. It not only acts as a framework for Ross to accurately catalogue what he has collected over the years, but allows researchers, curators and artists to ‘browse’ the files and see what one person’s collection consists of, without having to travel to London. Although not a commercial site, the Jonathan Ross Hologram Collection has generated consultancy jobs - directly from clients seeing his online collection - and has also generated invitations for him to exhibit selections from his collection at museums and galleries.
In Germany, at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, a concentration of contemporary art and technology collections and activities in the South of Germany, there is a little publicised collection of around 500 holograms. These pieces, originally part of the Lauk Collection, were sold to the State of Baden-Württemberg in 1990 and passed on to the ZKM, for inclusion in its planned new Contemporary Art Museum, which was being prepared in a huge renovated building in the centre of Karlsruhe. The pieces have been catalogued and stored, but appear not to have been exhibited very often. With such a large collection, which is made up of internationally renowned artists in the field, it is surprising that details about it are not publicly accessible. During the research for this article in June, no reference to holography could be found on the ZKM’s web site (14) . In the States, however, a very different approach has been made.
The MIT Museum, located in Boston, USA, is looking to the Internet to make its holography collection more accessible. Their current holography archiving activities began after purchasing the Museum of Holography’s large collection in 1993. There are currently 1,500 items, 70 of which are on show.
A detailed project was set up, and successfully funded, so that the holography collection could be accurately catalogued and preserved. Professional staff have been employed to develop the project and they are set to achieve their targets by the end of 2000.
Jane Pickering, museum director, reports that this project “...will enable the Museum to consider the long-term development of the collection, particularly to make [it] better known and more accessible to a wider audience.” (15) Once the works are physically and accurately stored, the museum will direct its attention towards making the catalogue data available via the Internet. The MIT Museum already uses the web to announce and promote its exhibitions, (16) but is planning to ‘publish’ its database electronically via a web site. There is obviously no substitute for seeing the work in a display environment, but not everyone has the opportunity to travel to the museum, so a detailed web archive can remove physical barriers and at the same time make accurate information available. As this is the largest collection of holography in the world which covers all aspects of the medium, having detailed access to images and data will greatly assist researchers.
One organisation which has already completed its visual art catalogue and included many artists working with holography is the InterCommunication Center (ICC) based in Japan (17) . Their web site offers a searchable database of artists working with art and technology so that information about individuals can be accessed via different media groups, artists’ names, geographic location or image. They currently hold details about 350 artists, 30 of which are involved with holography. Unfortunately much of the information is now out of date, with many entries stopping in 1993. On the positive side, many artist entries have still images, video and audio, so it is possible to obtain a good general view of their work and activities. The entire ICC project, including its museum in Japan, its Internet archive and a CD-Rom, which was distributed in 1993, is funded by the Japanese telecommunication giant NTT.
Academic institutions have also been active in attempting to archive the contemporary visual arts. G.R.A.M, based at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada, has, since the early 90’s, been collecting information for its Electronic Dictionary (18) . They now have 2,000 entries, 500 illustrations, 360 images or work, 710 bibliographic references and 275 text extracts. This massive collection, mainly in French, is searchable via their web site and offers an insight into the work of many contemporary artists utilising art and technology, with a large section on holography. The advantage of this ‘dictionary’ is that not only does it attempt to define the vocabulary used by artists who have embraced many forms of technology, but also all the quoted texts, which have been collected from a very wide selection of sources, have full bibliographic details, so the paper versions can be located if needed. As part of their ongoing project, G.R.A.M. is working on the production of a CD-Rom entitled “Art Holography: The virtual 3D image” , which is in its final stages and will be distributed in the Autumn of 2000. (19)
4. BLENDED COLLECTIONS
American artist Al Razutis has put together a site which is neither entirely a venue for his own work, nor an academic archive, but some blend of these two areas. (20) There are images and movie clips of his work in holography and other media, but also collected texts from other authors, comments from him on the development of holography and an archive for the publication he founded in 1985, Wavefront. From the onset Wavefront was controversial, offering uncompromising observations on creative holography and the individuals who produced and managed it. Some issues sold out, others are difficult to locate, so listing the topics covered in each issue, with text extracts, can offer researchers a taste of what they will find if they order the paper versions, which can be done directly from the site. This site also offers access to video extracts about US West Coast artists working with holography, so you can preview sections of the video before purchasing a copy, as well as an opportunity to order CD-Roms with images and data about artists active in the field.
Razutis’ site is part of Holonet, a web server, founded by Urs Fries, dedicated to collecting and distributing information about holography and related 3-D events. Located in Germany at the Academy of Media Art Cologne (21) , it has grown to not only include sub-sites like the one produced by Razutis and Jonathan Ross, but has a number of other interesting sections. All of these ‘sub-sites’ are produced and edited by the individual artists and groups who maintain them under the technical ‘umbrella’ of HoloNet. There are advantages to this type of symbiotic relationship. Holonet provides space for topic-specific sites which attracts visitors and, while there, they have the opportunity to connect to other information and sub-sites which they might not have come across had they not logged onto this large ‘family’ of independent archives. The site itself has been collecting material on groups and individuals and can be searched for names or topics. This loose grouping of pages connected by their interest in holography and 3-D can provide a valuable focus for the subject. Holonet’s future aim is to begin commissioning editorial material so that it generates and publishes new material rather than collecting what is already available in other forms.
Another very detailed site is Frank DeFreitas’ Holoworld (22) . Here, apart from very valuable educational material and an extensive links page, there is an archive of digitally recorded audio-interviews with a wide range of holography professionals and enthusiasts. Artists and scientists are sometimes interviewed on radio programmes around the world but these recordings can be difficult, or impossible, to locate, after they have been broadcast. Frank DeFreitas’ idea to interview the individuals themselves, often by telephone, broadcast them on his web site and then keep them there for archival access 24 hours a day, is a simple idea executed brilliantly.
5. PASSING THE BATON
It can be seen from this paper that there is a great deal of activity - particularly on the Internet - which now holds a considerable amount of information on all aspects of holography. Because of the wealth of information, it can be difficult to locate specific details. A recent report (23) estimated that 1.5 million pages of information are added to the Internet every day. The web currently contains 800 million pages, which amounts to 6 terabytes of text. Internet search engines do a wonderful job, but can overload the user with references which are not entirely relevant to their research or interests.
Students just beginning their journey into holography can benefit from knowing what has already been achieved. Science and technology students have the benefit of well written textbooks available in most libraries. Art and design students are not so lucky. The reference books are simply not published on a similar scale. Turning to the Internet is a positive alternative for students in this area.
6. A POSITIVE SUGGESTION
It is easy, in papers such as this, to bemoan the fact that material is not archived or accessible, or that it is not possible to locate information accurately. A positive step should be made and two proposals are therefore put forward here, which rely on the fact that an holography community does exist and can, perhaps, support its thirst for the distribution of information.
In 1998, Anait Stephens, a pioneer in the field of creative holography, died. She produced a massive body of work, very little of which has been collected by museums and galleries. We can all benefit from seeing what previous generations have achieved - even if we do not embrace their lifestyle, work ethic or subject matter. It will now be difficult for researchers, students and contemporary artists to gain access to Anait’s work, writing and observations. In an attempt to rectify this situation, a new web site has been launched to coincide with this conference, which will begin to catalogue the work of Anait Stephens. The new site (www.anait.com) has been coordinated by the author of this paper with the sanction of Anait Stephens’ family. Although restricted in nature at the moment - most of the material has been extracted from the artist’s retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Holography, New York, in 1979 - it is hoped that it will grow and become an independent reference for an artist who made a significant impact in the pioneering years of our craft. Members of the holography community are invited to provide material to be included on the site so that it can grow into an accurate digital archive available free of charge to a global audience.
6.1 LINKING
Although almost all holography-related web sites contain a page of links to other sites, which can help direct people to more information, there are now almost half a million pages dedicated to holography, (24) and navigating this mountain can be very difficult.
The second proposal in this paper is to set up a central web site which contains the web addresses of sites dealing with all aspects of holography, collected into groups. It is clear that ‘links’ pages will always reflect the choice of the person who manages the site on which the links are included. Businesses tend not to link to other businesses in fear of losing contracts, artists tend to link to sites they find interesting themselves, and some sites do not want you to leave at all and provide no links.
An experiment has now been set up (www.hololinks.com), to offer a dedicated links site for holography without the distraction of other content. This will be a fully automated site, allowing users to ‘post’ web addresses and place them into a selected category. The site will not allow multiple postings of the same address and will accept web addresses from any area of holography. Members of the holography community are encouraged to include their own web addresses on this site, as well as others which they find of interest.
Once included in the site, all links are active and can be used to visit the associated web site. www.hololinks.com will launch in September and run, experimentally, as a service to the holography community, for three months. After this period it will be assessed and, if proving useful, will continue. Comments from users of the site will help assess its development and usefulness.
7. CONCLUSION
We need access to timely and accurate information in the field of creative holography. We need the opportunity to view what has gone before, so that we can build on that knowledge and help foster the individuality of our own creative work. We will not be around forever, but new artists will follow and they deserve the best base on which to make their leap into creativity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Monika Frost for her editorial advice during the writing of this paper, the artists and institutions who have contributed information and material during its research, and to artshost.net (www.artshost.net) for providing server space and technical infrastructure for the hosting of the two new web sites announced in this paper.
Artist, Nottingham, England (1)
ABSTRACT
Acknowledging the past can stimulate the future. This paper discusses the problems involved with archiving the activities of artists and producers active in creative holography.
A system exists, within the world of science and research, for knowledge to be archived via conferences, symposia and published proceedings. Artists often find verbalising or quantifying their activities both difficult and inadequate. Yet their experience and research is a valuable resource for progression in the field.
How will pioneering events, which have taken place over the last 50 years, be accessible for artists new to the medium of art using holography? What archives exist and in what form? As the interest in creative holography migrates from museums and centres dedicated to the subject, to more diverse venues, is there a chance that we will begin to lose valuable knowledge and experience?
High-speed communication, the Internet and World Wide Web have revolutionised the dissemination of information. Is there still a case for geographically based archives or must we all resort to digital facsimiles?
Keywords: Holography, Art, Artists, Exhibitions, Archiving, Collecting, Internet, Web, WWW, Links
1. INTRODUCTION
There appears to be a resurgence of interest in creative holography. Although it is difficult to accurately assess whether more artists are embracing the medium, it is clear that public and professional interest is increasing. This month alone there are several substantial exhibitions of the medium: Holography 2000, as part of this conference, at the Stadtmuseum St. Pölten, Austria; Colour Holograms, John Kaufman’s retrospective at Gallery 286, London; Holography: The Light Fantastic at the MIT Museum, Boston, USA, and The Royal Photographic Society Holography Group Summer Exhibition 2000, a Selection from the Jonathan Ross Collection in Bath, UK.
These exhibitions continue to create excitement and are appearing in locations primarily associated with art. The recent exhibition held at the Kulturbrauerei , Berlin, Germany, (2) a large arts centre in a section of the city which was previously part of East Berlin, has aroused considerable interest. On June 7th this year the opening attracted around 750 visitors. Being there was a little like travelling back in time. The enthusiasm of the visitors was unbridled. They reacted to the work with excitement and wonder, asking many of the same questions that were being asked 15-20 years ago at similar exhibitions.
On the one hand it is lamentable that no ‘progress’ appears to have been made in the understanding, by a general audience, of the visual medium of holography. On the other hand, the way they reacted and the excitement they displayed for an exhibition in an arts centre is certainly encouraging.
In these situations people are thirsty for more information and other opportunities to view creative holography. Where do they go?
It continues to be difficult to locate information on the creative aspect of holography in general, and on the work of artists in particular. The number of new exhibitions is encouraging, but these are geocentric and rely on you being part of an existing mailing list so that you can be informed that they are taking place. Catalogues are sometimes published, but tend not to be stocked by bookshops or bought by libraries. There is a great deal of information available, but it is difficult to obtain.
When the Museum of Holography existed in New York (3) , its ‘bookstore’ regularly published a mail order catalogue so that books and catalogues could be ordered and distributed world-wide. Because of the pivotal nature of this institution they were able to locate a long list of relevant books and offer an outlet for the many ‘exhibition’ catalogues they produced themselves. Other galleries and ‘holo’ shops stock information on the subject, but few offer a global mail-order service.
Although there are examples of creative holography held in the collections of established galleries and museums, and permanent installations of holography have been included in various buildings around the world, (4) they are distributed widely and therefore difficult to view on a regular basis. Several projects are in preparation for new, permanent, installations, including a gallery dedicated entirely to creative holograms from the German Lauk Collection (5) , to be installed at the Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany (6), and a gallery - “Espace Georges Dyens” - dedicated to the work of Canadian artist Georges Dyens, at the Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada (7), is to include one of his large multi-media sculptures which use holography as an integral part of the work. These are exciting developments, but many individuals will need background information before they will travel to Germany or Canada to view these permanent archives.
2. THE NEED TO KNOW
As the creative aspect of holography continues to develop and mature, there is a desire for more specific information on the activities of artists in the field, particularly from gallery, museum and exhibition curators who need to research the topic and develop their own expertise in the field. These arts professionals need to be able to make their own informed choices. The importance of having accessible information cannot be underestimated.
During a presentation at the International Congress on Art in Holography (8), given by Chris Titterington (9) , then assistant curator of photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, he was asked how a (then) recent exhibition of holography had come about at the V&A. He very openly explained that when the idea of an holography exhibition was considered by the museum, the first thing they did was to go and look in their files under “holography”. Two artists had the thickest, and apparently most interesting, file and they were subsequently asked to exhibit.
The advice which Titterington gave to the assembled gathering of artists was that they should seriously consider keeping curators informed of their activities. There are very few art publications to act as a resource, so self-promotion becomes paramount. Unfortunately it is not something which comes easily to all artists in the field and it can be expensive. Few have the resources to produce their own catalogues, videos or books. They tend to direct whatever funding they have to the production of their work and their own day-to-day survival.
Luckily this situation is improving, helped by technology and a change in the way people search for information.
3. DIGITAL CATALOGUES
Artists working with holography have embraced the Internet and found that it can provide them with an economical venue for their own promotion - one which they can control and which is globally accessible. British art collector Jonathan Ross observed, “What have all the artists I can think of been spending their time on lately? Web sites, that's what. .....to holographers in particular, the web has provided a superb way of promoting their art and communicating with one another. They can produce comprehensive illustrated catalogues of their work at a fraction of the cost of printing. They can use stereoscopy to show 3D and movie clips to show animation. How fantastic to have a portfolio of your work that anyone can access anytime, from anywhere in the world. No wonder no-one is making any new work, they are all too busy documenting their old work.” (10) This will be a temporary situation, but it does indicate how quickly the web is being embraced as a serious method of communication. Artist Eduardo Kac has maintained an extensive web site (11) for several years, which features his own work with holography, telematics and writing. It is possible on sites such as this to locate often hard to find material. A more recent addition to the artist-produced site is that of British artist Margaret Benyon an acknowledged pioneer in the field (12). This site brings together not only many images of work, but key texts and comments which have already become important elements in the history of creative holography. She has also been extremely generous to her visitors by including an extensive and annotated list of links to other sites which might be of interest to creative holography explorers.
But it is not only the individual artists who have identified the potential of digital catalogues and archives. Ross himself has pioneered the use of the Internet as a vehicle to offer access to his collections. He has been collecting all aspects of holography for many years and in 1998 launched a web site to act as an online catalogue and archive (13) . Each year he adds more material, as he works through his extensive collection and acquires more work.
There are several private collections of holography around the world, but this is the first to make details about items it holds available to a wide audience. It not only acts as a framework for Ross to accurately catalogue what he has collected over the years, but allows researchers, curators and artists to ‘browse’ the files and see what one person’s collection consists of, without having to travel to London. Although not a commercial site, the Jonathan Ross Hologram Collection has generated consultancy jobs - directly from clients seeing his online collection - and has also generated invitations for him to exhibit selections from his collection at museums and galleries.
In Germany, at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, a concentration of contemporary art and technology collections and activities in the South of Germany, there is a little publicised collection of around 500 holograms. These pieces, originally part of the Lauk Collection, were sold to the State of Baden-Württemberg in 1990 and passed on to the ZKM, for inclusion in its planned new Contemporary Art Museum, which was being prepared in a huge renovated building in the centre of Karlsruhe. The pieces have been catalogued and stored, but appear not to have been exhibited very often. With such a large collection, which is made up of internationally renowned artists in the field, it is surprising that details about it are not publicly accessible. During the research for this article in June, no reference to holography could be found on the ZKM’s web site (14) . In the States, however, a very different approach has been made.
The MIT Museum, located in Boston, USA, is looking to the Internet to make its holography collection more accessible. Their current holography archiving activities began after purchasing the Museum of Holography’s large collection in 1993. There are currently 1,500 items, 70 of which are on show.
A detailed project was set up, and successfully funded, so that the holography collection could be accurately catalogued and preserved. Professional staff have been employed to develop the project and they are set to achieve their targets by the end of 2000.
Jane Pickering, museum director, reports that this project “...will enable the Museum to consider the long-term development of the collection, particularly to make [it] better known and more accessible to a wider audience.” (15) Once the works are physically and accurately stored, the museum will direct its attention towards making the catalogue data available via the Internet. The MIT Museum already uses the web to announce and promote its exhibitions, (16) but is planning to ‘publish’ its database electronically via a web site. There is obviously no substitute for seeing the work in a display environment, but not everyone has the opportunity to travel to the museum, so a detailed web archive can remove physical barriers and at the same time make accurate information available. As this is the largest collection of holography in the world which covers all aspects of the medium, having detailed access to images and data will greatly assist researchers.
One organisation which has already completed its visual art catalogue and included many artists working with holography is the InterCommunication Center (ICC) based in Japan (17) . Their web site offers a searchable database of artists working with art and technology so that information about individuals can be accessed via different media groups, artists’ names, geographic location or image. They currently hold details about 350 artists, 30 of which are involved with holography. Unfortunately much of the information is now out of date, with many entries stopping in 1993. On the positive side, many artist entries have still images, video and audio, so it is possible to obtain a good general view of their work and activities. The entire ICC project, including its museum in Japan, its Internet archive and a CD-Rom, which was distributed in 1993, is funded by the Japanese telecommunication giant NTT.
Academic institutions have also been active in attempting to archive the contemporary visual arts. G.R.A.M, based at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada, has, since the early 90’s, been collecting information for its Electronic Dictionary (18) . They now have 2,000 entries, 500 illustrations, 360 images or work, 710 bibliographic references and 275 text extracts. This massive collection, mainly in French, is searchable via their web site and offers an insight into the work of many contemporary artists utilising art and technology, with a large section on holography. The advantage of this ‘dictionary’ is that not only does it attempt to define the vocabulary used by artists who have embraced many forms of technology, but also all the quoted texts, which have been collected from a very wide selection of sources, have full bibliographic details, so the paper versions can be located if needed. As part of their ongoing project, G.R.A.M. is working on the production of a CD-Rom entitled “Art Holography: The virtual 3D image” , which is in its final stages and will be distributed in the Autumn of 2000. (19)
4. BLENDED COLLECTIONS
American artist Al Razutis has put together a site which is neither entirely a venue for his own work, nor an academic archive, but some blend of these two areas. (20) There are images and movie clips of his work in holography and other media, but also collected texts from other authors, comments from him on the development of holography and an archive for the publication he founded in 1985, Wavefront. From the onset Wavefront was controversial, offering uncompromising observations on creative holography and the individuals who produced and managed it. Some issues sold out, others are difficult to locate, so listing the topics covered in each issue, with text extracts, can offer researchers a taste of what they will find if they order the paper versions, which can be done directly from the site. This site also offers access to video extracts about US West Coast artists working with holography, so you can preview sections of the video before purchasing a copy, as well as an opportunity to order CD-Roms with images and data about artists active in the field.
Razutis’ site is part of Holonet, a web server, founded by Urs Fries, dedicated to collecting and distributing information about holography and related 3-D events. Located in Germany at the Academy of Media Art Cologne (21) , it has grown to not only include sub-sites like the one produced by Razutis and Jonathan Ross, but has a number of other interesting sections. All of these ‘sub-sites’ are produced and edited by the individual artists and groups who maintain them under the technical ‘umbrella’ of HoloNet. There are advantages to this type of symbiotic relationship. Holonet provides space for topic-specific sites which attracts visitors and, while there, they have the opportunity to connect to other information and sub-sites which they might not have come across had they not logged onto this large ‘family’ of independent archives. The site itself has been collecting material on groups and individuals and can be searched for names or topics. This loose grouping of pages connected by their interest in holography and 3-D can provide a valuable focus for the subject. Holonet’s future aim is to begin commissioning editorial material so that it generates and publishes new material rather than collecting what is already available in other forms.
Another very detailed site is Frank DeFreitas’ Holoworld (22) . Here, apart from very valuable educational material and an extensive links page, there is an archive of digitally recorded audio-interviews with a wide range of holography professionals and enthusiasts. Artists and scientists are sometimes interviewed on radio programmes around the world but these recordings can be difficult, or impossible, to locate, after they have been broadcast. Frank DeFreitas’ idea to interview the individuals themselves, often by telephone, broadcast them on his web site and then keep them there for archival access 24 hours a day, is a simple idea executed brilliantly.
5. PASSING THE BATON
It can be seen from this paper that there is a great deal of activity - particularly on the Internet - which now holds a considerable amount of information on all aspects of holography. Because of the wealth of information, it can be difficult to locate specific details. A recent report (23) estimated that 1.5 million pages of information are added to the Internet every day. The web currently contains 800 million pages, which amounts to 6 terabytes of text. Internet search engines do a wonderful job, but can overload the user with references which are not entirely relevant to their research or interests.
Students just beginning their journey into holography can benefit from knowing what has already been achieved. Science and technology students have the benefit of well written textbooks available in most libraries. Art and design students are not so lucky. The reference books are simply not published on a similar scale. Turning to the Internet is a positive alternative for students in this area.
6. A POSITIVE SUGGESTION
It is easy, in papers such as this, to bemoan the fact that material is not archived or accessible, or that it is not possible to locate information accurately. A positive step should be made and two proposals are therefore put forward here, which rely on the fact that an holography community does exist and can, perhaps, support its thirst for the distribution of information.
In 1998, Anait Stephens, a pioneer in the field of creative holography, died. She produced a massive body of work, very little of which has been collected by museums and galleries. We can all benefit from seeing what previous generations have achieved - even if we do not embrace their lifestyle, work ethic or subject matter. It will now be difficult for researchers, students and contemporary artists to gain access to Anait’s work, writing and observations. In an attempt to rectify this situation, a new web site has been launched to coincide with this conference, which will begin to catalogue the work of Anait Stephens. The new site (www.anait.com) has been coordinated by the author of this paper with the sanction of Anait Stephens’ family. Although restricted in nature at the moment - most of the material has been extracted from the artist’s retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Holography, New York, in 1979 - it is hoped that it will grow and become an independent reference for an artist who made a significant impact in the pioneering years of our craft. Members of the holography community are invited to provide material to be included on the site so that it can grow into an accurate digital archive available free of charge to a global audience.
6.1 LINKING
Although almost all holography-related web sites contain a page of links to other sites, which can help direct people to more information, there are now almost half a million pages dedicated to holography, (24) and navigating this mountain can be very difficult.
The second proposal in this paper is to set up a central web site which contains the web addresses of sites dealing with all aspects of holography, collected into groups. It is clear that ‘links’ pages will always reflect the choice of the person who manages the site on which the links are included. Businesses tend not to link to other businesses in fear of losing contracts, artists tend to link to sites they find interesting themselves, and some sites do not want you to leave at all and provide no links.
An experiment has now been set up (www.hololinks.com), to offer a dedicated links site for holography without the distraction of other content. This will be a fully automated site, allowing users to ‘post’ web addresses and place them into a selected category. The site will not allow multiple postings of the same address and will accept web addresses from any area of holography. Members of the holography community are encouraged to include their own web addresses on this site, as well as others which they find of interest.
Once included in the site, all links are active and can be used to visit the associated web site. www.hololinks.com will launch in September and run, experimentally, as a service to the holography community, for three months. After this period it will be assessed and, if proving useful, will continue. Comments from users of the site will help assess its development and usefulness.
7. CONCLUSION
We need access to timely and accurate information in the field of creative holography. We need the opportunity to view what has gone before, so that we can build on that knowledge and help foster the individuality of our own creative work. We will not be around forever, but new artists will follow and they deserve the best base on which to make their leap into creativity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Monika Frost for her editorial advice during the writing of this paper, the artists and institutions who have contributed information and material during its research, and to artshost.net (www.artshost.net) for providing server space and technical infrastructure for the hosting of the two new web sites announced in this paper.
REFERENCES
Clicking on the reference number below will take you back to the start of the chapter in which the reference appears.
1, E-mail Web: www.apepper.com
2, Die Neue Dimension, Kulturbrauerei, Knaackstrasse 97, 10435, Berlin, Germany. 8th June - 8th July 2000
3, The Museum of Holography, New York, was open from 1976-1992.
4, A listing of some permanent installations can be found at “Search The Light”, www.holo.com/peper/search.html.
5, Matthias Lauk founded the Museum for Holographie and neue median, Pulheim, Germany, where he built up a large collection of holographic art work (as well as examples of other areas active in the field) In 1996 he sold 232 major pieces from this collection to Bonn.
6, Planned to open in 2001.
7, Details suppled by the artist in an e-mail to the author, June 2000.
8, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, July 18 - 20, 1990.
9, Comments made during the audience “question and answer’ session after Titterington's invited presentation: “The Critic and the Curator’s View...”, “Report” International Congress on Art in Holography, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, July 18 - 20, pp. 13-23.,1990.
10, J. Ross, “Holographic art on the Internet”, SPIE’s International Technical Group Newsletter, Holography, June, pp.2, 2000.
11, www.ekac.org
12, www.holography.demon.co.uk
13, www.holonet.khm.de/jross
14, www.zkm.de
15, E-mail to the author, May 2000.
16, http://web.mit.edu/museum
17, www.ntticc.or.jp
18, www.comm.uqam.ca/~GRAM
19, E-mail from Georges Dyens to the author, May 2000. For further details of this CD-Rom contact GRAM
20, www.holonet.khm.de/Visual_Alchemy
21, This academy is one of the few to include holography as an integral element in its undergraduate and postgraduate study program. Contact Professor D. Jung. E-mail: jung@khm.de
22, www.holoworld.com
23, Forrester Research, quoted on the search engine www.google.com
24, See reference 9.
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