In Art History, many years ago, I was shown Dali’s Persistence of Memory. It covered the screen in the auditorium, and I have seen it on posters and t-shirts for years since.  It was the ‘80s, so the image was a projection of a slide from a photograph, but one elements applies to thinking about digitization.  The painting, it turns out, is not a large grandiose work. At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a viewer will discover Dali’s work is 9.5 inches by 13 inches, making it only a little larger than a sheet of paper.

Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory. 1931 | MoMA

The virtual and reality of the Dali painting demonstrates some of the thought processes required when determining what to digitize and how.   Digitization allows the painting to be seen and studied regardless of location, but it both enhances (allows closer looks at the elements of the piece) and detracts (distorts the size and detail of the physical work) from the object itself.  Digitizing an object is a balance between which properties are transmittable and which are not.   Scale and texture are harder to capture digitally. Most of all, context and bias are impossible to capture. When culturally sensitive objects are being considered for digitization, the potential harm and the bias of the organization digitizing the object have to be weighed against the value of digitizing an object and the purpose of making a digital image.

Conway’s discussion of manipulation of images for different effects was an interesting discussion of the value of an exact copy and what can be done to make a digital image either more useful or more faithful to the original creator.  For example, the tone adjustment case he used allowed the viewer to see into the home and understand more about the family and its living conditions than the original print.

Video and 3D imaging allows digitization with more perspective. Combining 3D imaging with 3D printing, museums can offer visitors with sensory or vision issues and option to have 3D models of objects to touch and understanding.

The ability to digitize objects allows a wider variety of uses than an object solely in situ. It has the potential to widen the reach of an object, as well as manipulation to develop a better understanding of the object its place in time and space.