The Digital Biography of Things
A Canadian Case Study in Digital Repatriation
abstract
I propose taking a closer look at the anthropological, classificatory and exhibitionary principles on which a Canadian digital repatriation project (GRASAC) was built. The process of dematerialisation and subsequent reinsertion into a new ‘concretion’ (the digital database) has lent the objects a new status within a certain organisational structure. This kind of products, once created, take on a life and history of their own, separate from that of the objects themselves. Digital files of physical objects are more than just simple reproductions or copies, and can be read as a further phase of the ‘objects’ biography’.
Keywords: Ownership • Communities • Digital repatriation
permalink: http://doi.org/10.14277/6969-052-5/SE-4-41