Alexandre Ramires

A Photographia Conimbricense terá sido em Coimbra a casa fotográfica com maior atividade e longevidade, desde 1869 até meados dos anos vinte do século vinte. O seu proprietário foi José Maria dos Santos (1838-1902), que anteriormente tinha sido ourives e dentista. Nesta casa trabalharam alguns fotógrafos por ele contratados, para além dos seus filhos que o continuaram.

Teve em Coimbra quatro localizações em períodos diferentes, tendo sido a primeira no Pátio do Castilho de 1869 a 1871, a segunda na Rua Nova da Rainha de 1871 a 1875, a terceira na Rua da Sofia de 1875 a 1886 e a quarta na Avenida Navarro.

Algumas das suas reportagens estiveram representadas em várias exposições, entre elas as distritais de Coimbra de 1869 e 1884 e nas Universais de Paris de 1878, onde foi premiado, e de Chicago de 1893. Esta casa foi produtora de um grande número de imagens de épocas diversas, em múltiplos formatos e técnicas, entre elas vistas estereoscópicas de Coimbra, do Bussaco e da Figueira da Foz, que serão apresentadas , comentadas e datadas nesta comunicação.

Rodrigo Peixoto e António Coelho

The photographic documentation of cultural heritage and its availability for consultation and research in a digital and decentralized way is increasingly important for an idea of a common European space based on a shared cultural heritage. This concern is expressed in the CE Cultural Heritage report.

The creation of specific protocols is of the utmost importance for the creation of quality digital files. Supported by existing protocols – Metamorfoze and FADGI – and in collaboration with the European Stereo Masters: Carlos Relvas project, a protocol was developed for Carlos Relvas’ wet collodion originals (and ambrotypes). The article’s authors are unaware of another example of a case study that addresses the reproduction of 19th century glass transparencies on collodion. The importance of photographic archives (and the fragile nature of their originals) makes the creation, publication and institutionalization of these protocols urgent, guaranteeing technologically resilient images that can be used, now or in the future, with the certainty of maintaining a verifiable relationship with the original, independent of subjective interpretations or individual preferences. We propose to present the protocol developed by us sharing problems and solutions in the following fields:

1- Administrative Calibration a) Workflow and database management b) Titleing of the original c) Derivative editing and post-production

2 – Secondary digitization a) Measurement of light in the reproduction of wet collodion plates and ambrotypes. b) Preliminary measurement and Workflow for transparencies. c) Reproduction and workflow adapted to the technical characteristics of the original. d) White Balance (measurement with spectrophotometer).

Rute Muchacho

Curating new media faces a number of challenges and curators are grappling with a very important issue: to improve their practice to practice and the way they communicate with the public, they must shift the focus from using technology to other resources intrinsic to the art of new media, you have to focus more on curating art that deals with new media and less on curating the new media themselves (Quaranta: 2012). The variability of new media and the ease with which artists adapt to these technologies should contribute to facilitate the exhibition of their works, promote the understanding of their work and communication with the public, contributing to improving the visitor’s experience.

As argued by Quaranta (2012), it is important to understand what is relevant to the contemporary art audience, working with the artist to find a good way to “translate” the work into the white cube and develop dialogue with other contemporary art forms ”. We currently observe two different worlds of contemporary art and we need specific curators for these areas with very specific properties. The curator must be able to present the works of art of the new media to the contemporary art audience in a way that “is understood as art and also obliges the public to reconsider their prejudices about what can be accepted as art. With or without technologies ”Quaranta (2012).

Such exhibitions provide a space, first, to reflect on the continuum of ideas that take shape through a variety of media and, second, to discover the correlations that the new art of the new media shares with its precursors. The idea of creating narratives that are not fragmented and follow the path of art development also shows the dynamics of curatorial practice itself. If museums have refrained from showing art in new media, being skeptical about the qualities of this art in the course of art history, exhibitions such as Database Imaginary 05 provide the artistic references that institutions may not have. He argues that the art of the new media must multiply and change to stay alive.

Jon Ippolito (2008), defends that “like a shark, a new medium piece of art must continue to move to survive”. Museums are more “at ease” with a static shark (Ippolito, 2008), like the skeletons of dinosaurs, Monet’s paintings, which raise conservation problems that are already well known in these cultural spaces. In the art of the new media we cannot configure and forget, it is constantly updating and is a living work in constant change.

There is no doubt that there is no single practice or model for curating new artistic media and this is triggered mainly by the hybridism of art itself. Christiane Paul (2008: 65) argued that ‘since the art of the new media is more oriented to processes than to objects, it is important to transmit the underlying concept of this process to the public ”. New media curators need to be constantly creative and versatile to create evocative spaces and experiences.

As new media art gradually enters the museum’s doors, curatorial strategies need to not only communicate art, but also the fact that the exhibition itself is a process (Gkoutziouli: 2012).