AI and audiovisual heritage. Rediscovery and valorization projects concerning Sicily

John

By John

From the most recent studies on the memory-media dichotomy, an increasingly central theme of the so-called memory studies, the lines of a real cultural urgency aimed at the study, valorization and preservation of the historical audiovisual heritage and the documentary heritage connected to it, especially relating to Catholicism. It is a question of responding to the request of Pope Francis who invited us to “do more on this front” to protect these sources which have now become – said the pontiff – “documents with an intrinsically universal character because they transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries, and can be understood immediately by everyone”. It is therefore becoming more and more pressing, need to encourage recovery and restoration projects that also consider new technologies as a valuable tool to be made available to more specifically academic research.

Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganòpresident of the Fondazione Memorie Audiovisive del Cattolicesimo and member of the Board of HD Forum, the association created to promote, support and spread the use of television and multimedia content in High Definition, Ultra High Definition and other advanced audiovisual solutions, is is moving exactly in this direction and has been working for some time now using its academic and technological skills to transform the stories of the Church and its popes, not necessarily remote, into a shared heritage.

What is the deep meaning of this work on the audiovisual heritage? Does it help us reconstruct the events of the past or is it also a new look at contemporaneity?
“Audiovisual documents today provide a way to reread the twentieth century through new and original investigative perspectives that allow us to respond to a cognitive challenge that is certainly complex and in full development and to renew our interpretative gaze by showing how this field still has an enormous and unexpressed cultural potential. Precisely for this reason, the need for a new approach aimed at skillfully intertwining the culturalist and historicist frameworks has emerged with ever greater clarity, to keep together on the one hand a great attention to archive documentation, on the other a reading model through which the dynamics of fruition and studies on the public are placed at the center of the cognitive discourse. In this sense, past and contemporary dialogue through the same method of analysis and allow for an operation of rediscovery that is even more urgent and necessary given that these sources are becoming increasingly rare: it is estimated, for example, that for silent films alone, approximately 12 million kilometers of film have been lost: what has survived today is therefore only 1% of the heritage that once existed, which increases, therefore, its importance and exceptionality even more. True survivors of history».

Let’s move on to the debate on the multiple roles of Artificial Intelligence. Do you see it as a “danger” or an “opportunity” for the preservation of audiovisual heritage?
«Starting from the assumption that in the ethical code of the International Federation of Film Archives, on this topic, it has been authoritatively indicated as the primary task of those who carry out the restoration that of «not changing or distorting the nature of the original materials», it should also be emphasized that that of new technologies “at the service” of the audiovisual heritage is a central point of the most current discussion on these issues. If conservation is undoubtedly fundamental, both as a point of arrival of good preservation practices and as a driving force for correct valorization, the restoration activity must not be underestimated, also to rediscover some treasures that were thought to be lost. In this sense, the debate today necessarily intersects with AI, a modern tool that opens a global cultural challenge in the field of the recovery of audiovisuals of the past: what is generated by an Artificial Intelligence, in fact, must be considered a work itself, rather than a trace of the preservation and restoration activity. The processes started by interpolating the original signal with the training DATA SETS, generate artifacts that can be more or less organized in a coherent image, but that with good certainty must still be considered as completely original results. In short, we must be aware that this “new medium”, following a statistical-mathematical model, allows us to perform a “perceptive” restoration activity in which what is generated must be considered a unique work and, as such, different from the starting one”.

A centrality of the audiovisual document also confirmed by the important investments that large companies are making in this field.
“The new attention towards audiovisual documentation has also been intercepted by Italian companies that focus on images, photographs and films to enhance their brand and their institutional history, also read in relation to historical events. This is an approach that has led some of the most important companies in our country – such as Eni, Italgas and Trenitalia, to give just a few particularly significant examples – to conduct projects to rediscover their audiovisual heritage, often with large digitalization campaigns that allow a democratization of knowledge and more agile study work open to researchers from all over the world. Corporate history and academic research are thus intertwined thanks to the precious foresight of these institutions.”

Rediscovery and valorization projects that also concern Sicily?
«I will dwell on this point to describe how our investigative gaze has recently focused on this reality. Regarding these themes, the element that characterizes Sicily and, more generally, Southern Italy is a strong and profound component of popular piety that emerges as deeply rooted in local traditions. In particular, in Sicily there are several women who have crossed the threshold of sainthood – think of the historical figures of Lucia, Agata and Rosalia – and a precious history of devotion to the Madonnas, with the many sanctuaries scattered throughout the regional territory, both eastern and western. From this observation emerges the desire to start research as soon as possible on the visual culture around the duo Women & Madonnas: that is, to map the existence of audiovisual documents that concern processions, images, iconographic representations, bulletins of various kinds, which are helpful in understanding a very particular phenomenon that is grafted with a double thread into the deep fabric of society. A project that would allow the creation of a virtuous network between academic entities – with the Uninettuno University and the Cast Research Center capable of communicating with the universities present in the regional territory – and the Memorie Audiovisive del Cattolicesimo foundation, with its varied and multidisciplinary group of researchers.
Personally, in fact, I have a very positive memory of Sicily that takes me back to my activity as a director in the production – conducted together with Luca Salmaso – for Canale 5 of the nine episodes entitled Il discorso della Montagna, storie di Beatitudine produced by Officina della Comunicazione with Don Marco Pozza. In this work I was truly able to count on the great availability, professionalism – in particular I remember the ability of the very talented actress Giulia Fiume in her interpretation of the texts of Giovanni Verga – and involvement that were made available to me, with the fundamental coordination of the team of the Community of Sant’Egidio led by the tireless Emiliano Abramo. My personal wish, but which we are seriously trying to bring to fruition, is that this experience of storytelling can be repeated through a large project that this time is not about production, but about the recovery of an audiovisual heritage of great importance for the history of this Region”.