Scoring the Work: Documenting Practice and Performance in Variable Media Art

Author(s): Corina MacDonald

Source: Leonardo , 2009, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2009), pp. 59-63
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20532590

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Scoring the Work: Documenting
Practice and Performance in ABSTRACT

Variable Media Art I his paper examines the

issues inherent to documenting
integral characteristics of vari
able media artworks. The author
begins by revisiting Suzanne

Corina MacDonald
Briefs vision of documenta
tion as a socially constructed
practice central to the creation
and dissemination of knowledge.
This perspective lends insight
into the nature of the document
-JL. hose concerned with the preservation of vari referred to as a "manifesto," it puts in the digital age and suggests
able media artworks have looked first and foremost to docu forth some of Briet's ideas about the a new cultural technique for
working with variable media
mentation as a means of enabling the future instantiation of nature of the document, the practice art as both document and
these works. In the museum context, existing descriptive and of documentation and the relation
documented. Janet Cardiff's
cataloguing methodologies are leveraged and adapted to this ship between users and documents. 40 Part Motet (2001) provides
end, with varied success. It has become apparent that the docu Her treatise begins by building on case material for this discus
mentation of these works must evolve to take into account the traditionally espoused notions sion, and Richard Rinehart's
of the document as an embodiment proposal of the score as a
their unique characteristics. Both the mutable nature of the documentary medium is sug
works and the technological environment in which they oper of proof, expanding this idea to de gested as a means of capturing
ate are problematic for traditional museological documenta fine a document as "all concrete or the elements of practice and
tion [1]. These documentary practices must adapt in order symbolic indexical signs [indice], performance associated with
variable media.
to reflect the contextual and recombinatory relationships be preserved or recorded toward the
tween variable media artworks and documents. In this paper, ends of representing, of reconstitut
I will revisit the writing of Suzanne Briet, whose 1951 work ing, or of proving a physical or intel
What Is Documentation ? tackled the concepts of document and lectual phenomenon" [3]. Several
documentation in a radical way, one that continues to elicit of her key ideas constitute a significant break from previous
discussion within the field of information science today. I ap thought within the field of European documentation. Her
ply Briet's ideas about the nature of the document to current analysis of the document as a sign subverts the positivist view
concerns regarding the documentation of variable media art. of evidence as proof of a "fact" and situates the practice of
Janet Cardiff's 40 Part Motet (2001) will provide case material documentation within a network of social and cultural produc
pertinent to this discussion. I believe the perspective of infor tion, something not previously acknowledged by documental
mation science will be an informative one for a discussion of ists [4]. The production of knowledge and its documentation
these issues and will help to identify the parameters of a new proceed simultaneously, and often the two may become con
paradigm for the documentation of these works, one that in flated, as documents are rearranged in new contexts to create
corporates content, context and practice [2]. new meanings. The fluid, discursive and contextual nature
of the use and creation of documents is emphasized here, as
"the forms that documentary work assumes are as numerous
What Is Documentation? as the needs from which they are born" [5]. The content of
Suzanne Briet (1894-1989) was a pioneer of the European documentation is in fact "inter-documentary," comprising a
documentation movement, a precursor to the field now known complex array of relationships between indexical signs. Briet
as information science. She was among the first women to be predicted that evolving technologies would only further the
appointed as a professional librarian at the Biblioth?que Na trend of selection and recombination of information in new
tionale in France, in 1924. During her 30-year tenure there, formats to meet diverse needs. In her lifetime, this trend was ef
she gained the nickname "Madame Documentation" for her fected by the use of the Dictaphone, microfilm and Teletype.
active role in advancing documentation as a practice distinct Briet explodes the idea of paper as the primary documen
from librarianship. What Is Documentation? pushes the boundar tary form, literally referring to the book as bursting from its
ies of the field and of the profession and is strangely prescient seams due to the need for "mobility" [6]. So what forms then
of current dilemmas faced by librarians, archivists and cu can a document take? Briet asks:
rators despite the technological advances of intervening
decades. Is a star a document? Is a pebble rolled by a torrent a document?
Is a living animal a document? No. But some documents are: the
What Is Documentation? is a short work of 48 pages. Often photographs and the catalogs of stars, stones in a museum of min
eralogy, and animals that are cataloged and shown in a zoo [7].

Briet is renowned for using the unorthodox example of an

Corina MacDonald (information specialist), 4264 Gamier, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2J
3R5. E-mail: <cmacdonald@traktion.com>.
antelope as a document to illustrate this statement: A new
species of antelope is discovered in Africa and a specimen is
This article is part of the Leonardo Special Section "Documentation and Conservation of
the Media Arts." This special section documents the work of a vast research alliance headed
brought back to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Briet considers
by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology (Montreal, Canada) this antelope to be a document, because it is framed as such
on the documentation and conservation of the media-arts heritage. This research project
is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the within a community of scholarship, that of zoology. Unlike its
Daniel Langlois Foundation. cousins in the wild, this particular beast has become the focal

?2009ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 59-63,2009 59

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I point of a specialized discourse and its the document, only concerned with thevironment of "ambient intelligence" that
attendant social interactions. For Briet, transmission of content; however, the is context-aware and able to recombine
this antelope is a primary or initial docu importance of the container's influenceinformation in real time based upon geo
ment?the object of the documentary act. should not be overlooked in the questgraphical or other environmental data
She identifies the "documentary fertility" for mobile and contextual content [10].and user preferences [11]. How can the
of this primary document; its potentially These three elements are inseparable:perspectives of information scientists
limitless manifestation in multiple forms, containers are integral to the propertiesconcerned with the nature of digital ob
from the press release announcing its dis of content and context. jects provide insight into the documenta
play at the zoo to a recording of its voice, Digital resources perhaps illustratetion and preservation of variable media
from drawings and monographs to its ulti Briet's concept of the document moreart? Variable media artworks have much
mate taxidermy and display in a museum. persuasively than the antelope in the zoo. in common with digital documents,
The forms that are created from the ini If we revisit her definition of the docuexisting as distributed and interdepen
tial document are defined as secondary ment as a "concrete or symbolic indexi dent networks of components. They are
documents, the means and networks cal sign," we see that materiality is notcomplex configurations of the digital
in which the phenomenon manifests a prerequisite characteristic. Rather, it isand analog, physical and ephemeral,
itself outside its original frame of the notion of the pointer that is empha that depend upon a variety of human
context. sized, a notion that certainly applies welland nonhuman agents for instantiation.
They are interactive, mutable, fleet
The idea of the document as socially to digital entities, which could be said to
constructed was a new one in the li exist materially as electrical signals buting and fragmentary. As Richard Rine
brary world of 1951. Briet's thinking led whose meaning depends upon the in hart has pointed out, they are as much
performative as they are object based
her to propose a new approach to the terplay of external agents that can read
management of information, departing and reconstruct them when required. [12].
from the centralized control and ac The container in this case provides the An artwork is framed within a given dis
cess model of the library to a contextual
model of selection and recombination
based upon the needs of specific com
munities. She proposed a new role for Briet predicted that knowledge creation and
the documentalist: working side by side
with researchers, "prospecting" along the documentation would increasingly become
frontiers of a given domain of knowledge
and participating in the construction
of new knowledge. In fact, she viewed
parallel and even convergent enterprises.
documentation as a new cultural tech
nique spanning documentary forms,
social networks and cultural means of pointer: the file format and its associcourse in much the same way as is Briet's
expression [8]. primary document. There is a compari
ated operations within a specific cultural
and technological framework. This con son to be made between the exposition
tainer enables the reconstruction of theof the antelope in the zoo and the work
The Digital Document: content and context of the document, in the museum. Both act as pointers
Container, Content an iterative process dependent uponwithin social and cultural networks and
and Context environmental variables. The process ofrely upon the interoperability of mul
The nature of the document remains reconstruction
a echoes another aspect oftiple agents within them. They generate
subject of discussion and debate in the Briet's definition of the document; itswebs of secondary documentary forms,
field of information science. The prolifgoal of reconstituting or representing aall of which serve to reconstitute, repre
eration of heterogeneous digital and netphenomenon. The digital document orsent or prove the original phenomenon.
worked resources in today's information object is a fragmentary entity, by natureThe artwork as a primary document can
landscape raises many questions about both intangible and interactive. In manyprovide a means of understanding the
what forms a document may take and in cases there may be more than one tech interdependencies between the many
what ways we may interact with them. Bri nological configuration or container thatcomponents of a work within multiple
et's work positions the document within will provide access, leading to variability
networks of production. Like the digital
a social and technological framework, exin the final presentation of content anddocument, the variable media artwork
isting in multiple forms to meet multiplecontext. These three distributed yet in can be said to exist in the assemblage
needs. Her division of content from form terdependent facets are all required in of container, content and context. The
prefigures the popular metaphor in infororder to convey meaning. relationship between the content and
mation science of container, content and form of the work becomes an important
context, a multifaceted perspective that consideration in its preservation. Under
Variable Media Art:
has become instrumental for the descrip standing the artwork as a constructed
The Work as Document phenomenon
tion and preservation of digital resources situated within networks
[9]. Many of the current technological Briet spoke of the atomization of theof secondary documentation will point
implementations aimed at managing digbook into its constituent leaves and thetoward a preservation strategy based on
ital documents have treated these threerecombination of these leaves in new a new understanding of the practice of
facets independently and have favored forms (such as the binder) that weredocumentation. To illustrate the docu
the preservation of content and contextcontext specific. Today in informationmentary characteristics of variable me
over the container. Often the containerscience literature, context is everythingdia art, we will discuss the case of Janet
is considered a secondary property of Cardiff's 40 Part Motet.
as researchers seek to create a digital en

60 MacDonald, Scoring the Work

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 40 Part Motet reconstitute or re-perform the phenom that are required to re-present the work. ^R|
40 Part Motet is an audiovisual installation enon of the work. This "infrastructure" is
Tacit knowledge in the museum setting ^B|
work that investigates the intersections of a kind of interoperable architecture cru is essential for the preservation of vari- ^B?
perception, sound and space. Like much cial to what is perceived as "the work," able media art yet remains as ephemeral ^B|
of Cardiff's work, the Motet is concerned namely the phenomenological dimen as many of the works. Hummelen and ^Bjj
with the ephemeral nature of sound as a sion that reflects the artistic intent. Briet
Sch?lte review some of the methodolo- ^E
medium and the ways in which it influ claimed that a document could act as a
gies that have been devised to capture jH|
ences both memory and our perception substitute for a lived experience, and it the practices associated with these art- ^p*
of time. Sound is a physical phenomenon is in this sense that we can understand
works [18]. Interviews with artists are one |^B
yet it evokes an ephemeral presence. how the infrastructure provides the doc way of gathering this knowledge directly H^H
With 40 Part Motet, Cardiff utilizes a gal umentary structure for the experience of from the source, and the use of multime
lery space to re-enact a performance of the artwork [15]. To revisit the tripartite dia interview formats permits nonverbal
an extremely complex polyphonic cho metaphor of the document as container, communication through example or
ral work of the 16th century, Thomas content and context, the container could demonstration. Interview material can
Tallis's Spem in Alium. Forty recorded be equated to this infrastructure, which be incorporated into artist's archives,
choir members are channeled through in turn allows the content and context which should ideally be shared among
dedicated speakers, arranged in a circu of the work to take form. In 40 Part Motet institutions [19]. Besides the interview,
lar configuration originally conceived the container includes the operation of they review the Variable Media Question
by Tallis. The installation deconstructs components such as hard disk recorders, naire [20], a tool that has the potential to
conventional spectatorship, allowing the amplifiers, cabling and speakers, the in document intangible features of a work
listener to "climb inside the music" by teraction between space and sound, as by incorporating varying perspectives
moving throughout the space and listen well as the movement of listeners through alongside information about the artistic
ing to different configurations of voices the space. The content of the work is em intent and the effects and behaviors of
[13]. The trajectory taken by the listener bodied in the experience. Context exists the work [21].
is an integral part of the experience of in the cultural and social constructions Cardiff's Motet has generated an abun
the work. The principle of spatialization brought to the work by all participants, dance of secondary documentation.
is explored, whereby perceptions of both as well as the roles and practices involved Exhibition catalogs and reviews, press
aural and physical space are affected. in instantiating the work. interviews, photographs and detailed
The installation is highly interactive, re technical specifications are all collected
quiring the participation of an audience Tacit Knowledge and by the institutional proprietor. While this
to complete the work and carry out the is an informative network of documen
artist's intent. the Documentation tation, it does not encompass all of the
Simulation also plays a key role in
of Practice contextual knowledge required for pres
the work in the implied presence of the Context is the most difficult aspect of theervation. Some of the collected docu
performers indicated by the anthro work to document for posterity. It conments, such as records of conversations
pomorphic presentation and arrange sists in large part of what could be called
archived as e-mail correspondence, do
ment of the 40 speakers. Channeling as tacit knowledge. The concept of tacit provide some context. The museum has
a metaphor describes both the physical knowing was developed by Michael Po also undertaken to film short interview
conduits through which the recordings
are connected to the speakers as well as
the spectral effect of the voices they emit.
Tallis himself could be said to be chan Thomas Tallis could be said to be
neled across time in this work, which
Cardiff describes as a collaboration channeled across time in this work, which
rather than a reinterpretation [14]. The
overlay of recorded sound and ambient Cardiff describes as a collaboration rather
sound within a space creates the impres
sion of layered realities, an infiltration
of the past into the present, the virtual
than a reinterpretation.
into the real. The work juxtaposes both
physicality and ephemerality, psycho
logical and technological aspects of
perception. lanyi and refers to the range of concepsegments with the artist discussing the
Like the primary document, particu work. However, all the documentation
tual and sensory information that cannot
larly the digital document, this artwork be expressed in words but that providesthus far acquired and produced lacks a
relies upon a complex interoperability the backdrop to our understanding record of the tacit knowledge that is em
of components, from the digital audio of a thing [16]. It is best described by bodied in the practice of reinstalling and
recordings of the performers to the re Polanyi's aphorism: "We can know morere-presenting the work. By nature, this
verberation of the presentation space than we can tell" [17]. For documental knowledge cannot be easily expressed us
and the presence of people within it. The ists this kind of knowledge by its very na
ing words, but there are some techniques
infrastructure of interactions between ture poses a problem. For variable mediafor eliciting it that may be appropriate
physical constituents, technological ele artworks, the tacit knowledge necessaryfor this case.
ments and participatory activity corre for preservation consists of the artisticWith 40 Part Motet, tacit knowledge
sponds to Briet's notion of a document in intent, the social and cultural contextsresides primarily with the artist and her
that it points to external agents that act to that impart meaning and the practicescollaborators. The artist, however, is not

MacDonald, Scoring the Work 61

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I a source continually available to the mu Toward a New Paradigm of the document as a constructed entity
seum, and so responsibility for "knowing" of Documentation: is quite applicable today to both digital
the practices associated with the work has Scoring the Work documents and variable media artworks.
been delegated to one person who can The move away from an emphasis on
oversee successive installations at various Suzanne Briet envisaged documentation form toward the primacy of use and con
locations [22]. The frequent reinstal as a new cultural technique, with prac text is a key attribute of the new paradigm
lation of this work in different spaces titioners actively occupied alongside the of documentation envisaged by Briet.
presents unique problems, because the producers of knowledge. She predicted While documentary practice is shifting
experience of the work is so closely tied that knowledge creation and documenta to accommodate the nature of contem
to its physical location. The importance tion would increasingly become parallel porary art forms, there is a need for a
of sound spatialization requires that some and even convergent enterprises. This structured model that will address some
parameters be established to determine idea is illustrated in the museum environ of the issues particular to variable media
which physical spaces are most suitable. ment by the changing relationships be artworks. Documentation of variable me
These parameters exist as specifications tween the key players concerned with the dia art must comprehensively consider
about room dimensions, decor and re
verberation. If certain fundamental cri
teria can be met, then the installation
can proceed. Once a decision has been
The overlay of recorded sound and
made to install the work within a given
space, the tacit knowledge of the tech
ambient sound within a space creates
nician comes into play. This individual's
"sound memory" [23] of the original in the impression of layered realities, an
stantiation of the work serves as a guide
and is a highly subjective awareness re infiltration of the past into the present,
siding only in the practice of this single
person. the virtual into the real.
The experiential nature of the work
is mirrored by the subjective practice of
its installation, and to date no systematic
methods have been defined to transmit preservation of variable media art. Tradi the facets of container (infrastructure),
these processes to others [24]. Potential tional approaches to documentation are content (experience) and context (tacit
means of capturing this knowledge and no longer appropriate for these works. knowledge). It must be responsive to the
context could be borrowed from the man The distributed and interdependent evolution of a work and its networks of
agement techniques of gathering "les nature of the works calls for a similarly production. The document must reflect
sons learned" and "best practices" [25]. diverse yet interconnected network of the form of the work itself [29].
For example, an installation log would be professionals. The division between insti In What Is Documentation ? Briet iden
a simple method of recording practice by tutional roles and practices is decreasing tified two emergent documentary tech
documenting the context-specific instal as museums today frequently function as niques: that of an "increasingly abstract
lation issues that may provide insight in production spaces for the development and algebraic schematization of docu
the future. These lessons learned borrow of a work [27]. The museum has become mentary elements" and a simultaneous
from the practice of storytelling and are the site of complementary activities as extension of "substitutes for lived expe
often conceived as narrative structures, sociated with creation, documentation riences" such as photography, radio and
from annotated databases to notebooks, and preservation. Curators, artists, con television [30]. The differentiation be
detailing circumstances and decisions servators and technicians work collab tween the experience and the structure
taken. In capturing context through nar oratively to support future instantiations of a work foreshadows today's digital en
rative, it is informative to share accounts of a work. The practice of documenting vironment, which is home to a multiplic
of both failure and success [26]. Best variable media artworks is closely tied to ity of media formats designed to share
practices are developed over time from other arenas of production and research lived experience. At the same time there
the results of extensive experience and within the museum setting. The artwork remains a need for adequate descriptive
lessons learned. In the museum setting, is no longer framed as the focal point of structures to locate and retrieve these
it would be beneficial to produce a set of a particular discourse but serves as the heterogeneous resources. These trends
best practices for the documentation of meeting place of multiple frames of ref underlie much of the work done in infor
variable media artworks in general, but erence. This shift away from a traditional mation science, which seeks to develop
perhaps a more informal guide could be static documentary model reflects what and maintain interoperable descriptive
developed for individual works such as Briet considered the essential quality of standards to enable access to the evolving
the 40 Part Motet. Developing methods the new paradigm of documentation, incarnations of digital documents. The
for documenting practice is one way to what she referred to as "the dynamism balance between experience and struc
preserve tacit knowledge. The preserva of living documentation" [28]. ture is always shifting.
tion of knowledge is as essential to the The document is no longer a stable The relation between experience and
future of the variable media artwork as concept, and documentation has in turn structure is also crucial for variable me
the maintenance of its physical and tech become a fluid and agile intellectual ac dia artworks. There is a need to transmit
nological constituents. Tools developed tivity. Documentary practice intersects the experience of the work and to docu
to perpetuate this knowledge would social, cultural and technological frame ment it in a way that facilitates the cap
enhance the network of documentation works, reflecting the interactions that ture of tacit knowledge for future reuse.
surrounding the work. occur between them. Briet's positioning A documentation model is required that

?J, MacDonald, Scoring the Work

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can convey structure, experience and mentary practices surrounding variable 11. Tanner [9].
movement. All the unique documentary media art. Suzanne Briet's definition of 12. Rinehart [1].
concerns and demands in the preserva the document as a sign recorded in order
13. J. Cardiff, quoted in Diana Nemiroff, Elusive
tion of variable media art point us toward to reconstruct a phenomenon brings to paradise: The Millennium prize (Ottawa, Canada:
a new model of documentation similar the foreground of this investigation the National Gallery of Canada, 2001) p. 68.
to the medium of the score as proposed interdependent and recombinatory rela 14. J. Cardiff, acceptance speech, Millennium Prize
by Richard Rinehart [31]. His proposed tionships that exist between a work and award, 8 March 2001.

formal notation system has a flexible yet its documentation. The work as docu 15. Briet [3].
robust structure and incorporates the ment and documented helps us to un
16. M. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (New York: An
passage of time and the possibility of derstand variable media art in multiple chor Books, 1967).
change. It can act as both a documen dimensions as pointer, narrative and
17. Polanyi [16] p. 4.
tary and compositional tool, affirming network.
the correspondence between knowledge Briet saw in the emerging role of the 18. I. Hummelen and T. Sch?lte, "Sharing knowl
edge for the conservation of contemporary art:
production and documentation. Rine documentalist a new rhythm of intellec Changing roles in a museum without walls?" in Mod
hart states that the score constitutes the tual work, one fostered by the techno ern art, new museums: Contributions to the Bilbao
congress (London: The International Institute for
"clearest type of description that com logical developments of her time. Today Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 2004)
piles formalized (systematic) discrete documentation is still a rhythmic force, pp. 208-212.
elements into documents that aid in the buffeted by new technologies and de
19. Hummelen and Sch?lte [18].
re-performance or re-creation of works manding new models. The issues raised
of art" [32]. Through the process of in the documentation of variable me The 20. J. Ippolito, "Accommodating the unpredictable:
variable media questionnaire," in Permanence
compilation, it permits varying levels of dia art call for a new methodology that through change: The variable media approach
granularity [33] appropriate to the con can embody these fluctuating rhythms (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications and
text of use. Thus, the model of the score of production and practice. Rinehart's the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art Science and
Technology, 2003) pp. 47-53.
offers a balance between experience and formal notation system leverages the
21. Hummelen and Sch?lte [18].
structure, infrastructure (container) and synergy between current technological
the phenomenon (content and context), standards and the concept of the musi 22. Details about the work are taken from an inter
creation and recording. cal score to enable the documentation view with Richard Gagnier on February 16, 2007.
Gagnier was the conservator of contemporary art at
Rinehart recognizes the link between of both experience and structure. The the National Gallery of Canada at the time.
digital informatics and variable me re-performance of a work through the 23. Gagnier [22].
dia artworks and proposes the use of a score will provide an interesting depar
24. Gagnier [22].
markup language to express the notation ture point for future investigation of the
system. This is reminiscent of Briet's idea interdisciplinary cultural technique that 25. K. Dalkir, Knowledge Management in Theory and
Practice (Oxford: Elsevier, 2005).
of an abstract and algebraic schematiza is documentation.
tion of documentary elements. A markup 26. Dalkir [25].

language provides a schema to delineate 27. Hummelen and Sch?lte [18].

the components, context and practice of References and Notes 28. Briet [3] p. 41.
a work. It acts as a script for the re-per
Unedited references as provided by author. 29. A. Depocas, "Digital Preservation: Recording
formance of the work at a future time,
the Recoding," in Takeover: Who's doing the art of
1. R. Rinehart, "A system of formal notation for
incorporating the spectrum of participa tomorrow (Linz: Ars Electr?nica Center, 2001) pp.
scoring works of digital and variable media art," Ar 340-345.
tion and decision making, of roles and chiving the Avant-Garde, Documenting and Preserv
interactions. The document, the score ing Digital/Variable Media Art: Project Documents 30. Briet [3] p. 31.
and the markup language all imply move and Papers (2004). 31. Rinehart [1].
ment and navigation. The document as 2. The author was a research assistant with the
DOGAM Research Alliance Project and was a student 32. Rinehart [1] p. 3.
an indexical sign positions itself within
of the DOGAM seminar during the 2007 winter tri
a web of connections, easily visualized mester at Universit? du Qu?bec ? Montr?al. 33. Granularity is used here to refer to the "level of
descriptive detail in a record created to represent a
using the associative properties of a hy 3. S. Briet, What Is Documentation? (Lanham, MD: document or information resource," as defined in
pertextual markup language. Rinehart's Scarecrow Press, 2006) p. 10. Translated by E. Day, the Online Dictionary of Library and Information
formal notation system for variable me Laurent Martinet, Hermina G. B. Anghelescu; origi Science, <http://lu.com/odlis/index.cfm>.
nal work published 1951.
dia art presents a documentary model 34. Depocas [29].
that is able to encompass many of the 4. R.E. Day, The Modern Invention of Information:
Discourse, History and Power (Carbondale, IL:
complexities inherent in the nature of Southern Illinois University Press, 2001).
the artwork and its relationships with its
documentation. This model embodies 5. Briet [3] p. 36. Bibliography
the notion of "recording" as a dynamic 6. Briet [3]. J.S. Brown and P. Duguid, "The Social Life of Docu
ments," First Monday, 1, 1 (1996).
documentary process [34]. 7. Briet [3] p. 10.
M. Buckland, "What Is a 'Document'?" Journal of
8. Briet [3]. the American Society for Information Science, 48,
Conclusion 9. S. Tanner, "Managing containers, content and
9,804-809(1997).
context in digital preservation: Towards a 2020 vi M. Buckland, "A Brief Biography of Suzanne Ren?e
Questions about the nature of the docu sion," Archiving 2006 Conference Proceedings (Ot Briet," 2005, <http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/
ment as expressed within the field of in tawa, Canada: The Society for Imaging Science and ~buckland/Brietaut2.pdf>.
Technology, 2006).
formation science provide us with some
interesting revelations about the docu 10. Tanner [9]. Manuscript received 8 November 2007.

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