The archives of Sound and Vision, EYE, and the National Archive store an enormous amount of interesting, moving, historical, important, rare, and unknown material. Our national audiovisual heritage is contained by kilometers of storing shelves, bunkers, cellars, and safes. When a large part of these archives is digitized, these visual historical gems will be released. They will be given a new life, as educational material, as input for television programs, as web applications, as games, or as entertainment. The history of the Netherlands only truly comes to life with moving images and sound.
Starting point is realizing the broadest possible access to the content, both for developers and end users. For this reason, the partners work closely together to arrive at innovative use of the archival material.
Educational institutions, students, teachers, publishers, television and film makers, web designers, graphic designers, artists, software developers, internet providers, museums, theatres, heritage institutions, libraries, etc.; all will profit from easily accessible photos, videos, films, and sound fragments.
Projects and pilot projects realised
Verkiezingstijden.nl
On 25 May 2010, Images for the Future launched the website ‘Election times’ (Verkiezingstijden.nl), a website on 27 post-war Dutch cabinets. Experience the highs and lows. The victories, the defeats, the nightly debates, the incisive interviews. Place recent events in the context of the past and see the past as an important blueprint for the present. www.verkiezingstijden.nl (in Dutch only).
T_Visionarium Open City
The VPRO, Sound and Vision, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) organised T_Visionarium OPEN CITY, a panoramic experience of audiovisual material from Sound and Vision’s collections which has been digitised within Images for the Future. T_Visionarium OPEN CITY was a spectacular installation where visitors could navigate interactively through the audiovisual archive in a three dimensional space and could create their own temporary montage or remix. The installation makes use of the pioneering visualisation technology created by the Australian research centre iCinema. See the pictures
Mapit1418
During History Week (Week van de Geschiedenis) (17 to 25 October 2009), Kennisland (Knowledgeland) and the Nationaal Archief presented the website Mapit1418. This site provides access to a unique selection of photographic material from World War I made available by the Nationaal Archief. Photographs – often not previously shown – taken primarily in the Netherlands during the war form the particular focus of this site. It is unknown in many cases where these photos were taken. With this initiative, Kennisland and the Nationaal Archief hope to as yet add the correct geographical locations to the photos by means of crowdsourcing. Visitors to the website can post this information using a map from Open Street Map (www.openstreetmap.org), the open source alternative to, for instance, Google Maps. Moreover, visitors can add their photos of the same locations today, thus creating a fascinating comparison between the past and the present. See www.mapit1418.nl (in Dutch only).
1000 hours Barend & Van Dorp online
In 2008, Frits Barend and Henk van Dorp rode a hand trolley with all episodes of their famed talk show into the Sound and Vision building. Sound and Vision is placing more than 1000 hours of this unique material in the virtual shop window. Not only so that Dutch viewers can again enjoy the show, but also in order to sell the material. No one can deny its cultural and historic value: everyone who is anyone in the Netherlands has appeared at one time or another – but how can it raise money? And via which channel? Harry Verwayen (Kennisland) and Thomàsz Lin (Sound and Vision) organised a workshop on the theme of business model innovation based on these and other questions during the Media Park Annual Congress (Mediapark Jaarcongres). See also www.barendenvandorp.nl (in Dutch only).
Stories from Slochteren
Stories from Slochteren, site of a huge natural gas field in the north of the Netherlands, brings the past to life by combining personal memories of over 50 years of gas with historic images. Stories from Slochteren gives inhabitants of the province of Groningen a unique opportunity to relate their own story about 50 years of gas and to record it for the future. See www.gasinbeeld.nl/verhalenvanslochteren (in Dutch only).
Waisda?
On 19 May 2009, Sound and Visio, in conjunction with the KRO, launched the video labelling game ‘Waisda?’ (a Dutch play on the words ‘what is that’)’. Taking the form of a challenging contest, players were asked to add key words to video material in order to increase the findability of audiovisual archives. Waisda? is an initiative of Sound and Vision that builds on earlier experiments of KRO Internet and is a spin-off of the Images for the Future project. See www.waisda.nl (in Dutch only).
40 years of Pinkpop
More dynamic than ever, Pinkpop, the most famous pop festival in the Netherlands, celebrated its 40th edition in 2009. Sound and Vision, 3FM and NPS/VARA/VPRO opted for an integrated approach to Pinkpop’s 40th anniversary that focused on the full digital accessibility and documentation of both live concert recordings of Pinkpop and visual material of the festival from Sound and Vision’s archives. See www.hollandsglorieoppinkpop.nl (in Dutch only).
Celluloid Remix
In 2009, the Filmmuseum and Images for the Future introduced Celluloid Remix, an online remix contest with footage from the beginning of the history of Dutch film. Professionals and amateurs remixed unique Dutch cinematographic material from the period 1917-1932 into new short films with their own soundtrack. The contest was kicked off with a sizzling live performance by Eboman at a packed BeamLab. See www.celluloidremix.nl (in Dutch only).
Education platform ED*IT
During the 2009 National Education Exhibition (Nationale Onderwijstentoonstelling) (NOT 2009), the new online education platform ED*IT was launched. ED*IT was created by the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision, one of the makers of Teleblik (a site providing television and radio material for educational purposes). ED*IT offers a treasure trove of material from museums and archives. Apart from being able to add their own content, users can also process this material online for papers, presentations and digital lessons. Reliable online education presented in a useful, enjoyable and simple manner. See www.ed-it.nu (in Dutch only).
Nationaal Archief on Flickr The Commons
In 2008, the Nationaal Archief entered into an experiment by being the first Dutch cultural heritage institution to join Flickr The Commons, an initiative of the Library of Congress (US) and the international photo website Flickr. Part of the unique photographic Labour Inspectorate collection, which was digitised in the context of Images for the Future, was placed on the Flickr The Commons website. Users can add tags and comments to the photos. See: www.flickr.com/people/nationaalarchief (in Dutch and English).
Open images
Sound and Vision and Kennisland (Knowledgeland) developed a new project in the context of Images for the Future, entitled Open Images. The object of this project is to offer online access to a selection of the archive material and to thus stimulate creative reuse of this material. An example of such reuse is the remixing of archive images into new videos. Open Images also offers the opportunity to create links to other information sources (such as Wikipedia), which makes it possible for others to easily develop mash-ups. Access to the material is based on the Creative Commons licensing model in which not all rights (as is the case within traditional copyright), but only certain optional rights are reserved. See: www.openimages.eu (in Dutch and English).
Twice a woman - The film
In consultation with director George Sluizer, a definitive version of the film has been created and restored to top quality using several original negatives. The results cannot be compared to those achieved with photochemical restoration: cables, scratches and spots have been digitally ‘erased’ and the colours of the film refreshed. The completely re-edited and digitally restored version served as the basis for the new viewing copy and the DVD. See also www.filmmuseum.nl/tweevrouwen (in Dutch only).
