>Introduction
  Research approach
  General documentation theory
  Current documentation strategies for installations
  Research results

Video documentation of installations

Requirements for video documentation of installations

Conclusion

Glossary

Literature

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Introduction

When planning to make a video document or recording a few questions come to mind that can be grouped together as: What is the role of a video recording within the overall documentation of an installation?

This broad question can be subdivided into questions such as:
— What is the aim of a video recording?
— What is possible and what are advantages of a video recording?
— What requirements should a video recording meet to provide insight into the installation?
— Which features should be captured to experience the installation and to which depth?
— What should be captured to make a re-installation possible?
— How could the installation’s choreography and interactivity be recorded?
— What are possible scenarios?
— What technical equipment and know-how is required for video recordings?

Generally speaking, installations need a different approach in video recording and documentation than more traditional work of arts. A useful description can be found in the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation:

‘...because of the performance aspect of many installations, conservators working with this medium will need to look beyond the material and consider that the ‘heart’ of a work might lie primarily in its less tangible qualities. Preserving for the future something that is above all an experience might require conservators to take a more fluid view of what may or may not be changed about a work, challenging conventional notions of accuracy and authenticity.’ 1

Installations can be very different and often variable. Video installations, and especially closed-circuit installations, are often interactive works of art, i.e. the public has to be present, moving or positioning itself inside the work so that it becomes alive.

In order to be consistent in our vocabulary, we will use a working definition for installations in this module, that is:

Installation art creates a visceral and/or conceptual experience within an environment.
— Some installations are site-specific: they are created to exist in a certain space. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork.
— Some installations have performative or live aspects. Input/output, interfaces and interaction are important. (Interaction means that the spectator is regarded as an integral to the completion of the work)

Crucial to an adequate presentation (and experience) of such installations – now and in the future – is a careful documentation of the specific requirements for their (re)presentations. A task, that is complicated, due to the fact that the ‘ideal’ presentation is difficult to define, especially for media art installations. For media works of art, the original, ‘authentic’, state often varies in the course of different presentations.

One of the main questions thus is how to document installations and, more precisely, what to document. How to understand, capture, define and transmit the ‘heart’ of the art work? Do we concentrate, as in traditional art, on detailed descriptions of objects, artefacts, the physical material or do we describe the experience, the mediation of the sensory perception?

Since performances and video artworks exist, recordings have been made with the aim to leave something behind. In the attempt to create a document or‘reflection’ of the work, photographs, films or videos are made. A variety of media are used to document installations so as to analyse actions and performances, or to promote the work, or to place the work within an historical context. Recordings of live projects appear increasingly as important as or even more important than the work itself. However, in some cases, when ‘audience participation’ or the spatial environment is the central theme, then documentation could never replace the work. Interestingly despite the fact, video recordings of installations, performances and other temporary artistic events have become common practice, research into qualitative video recordings and good practice on this subject is rare.

When documenting an installation work of art, different aspects play a role, like the installation’s physical characteristics, its relation to and position within the architectural space, as well as its performative aspects, experience and interactivity (the audience as a participant/actor/performer).

Amongst the existing range of documentation methods, video recordings can provide crucial information on a whole set of issues (depending of the goal, scenario and/or realisation of the documentation):
— overall impression
— visual aspects of components
— relation of components
— relation to space/architecture
— sound
— movement
— choreography
— time specific aspects
— interactivity
— presence (and experience) of the audience

note 1: William A. Real (2001). ‘Toward guidelines for practice in the preservation and documentation of technology-based installation art’. Journal of the American Institute for conservation, Vol. 40, no. 3, p. 226.