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The Currency of the Original
The economics of e-commerce sets it down: The real reserve in precious metals to cover
and authorise a currency is replaced by its virtual equivalent.
Up to now, there used to be a fundamental link between original and archive: for
instance the museum depot as currency (warrant) of the original which authorises the various
reproductions. This is true particularly for the classical museum as the currency of
aesthetics: a function authorised through real purchasing decisions and depot values.
The Greeks knew [...] two methods of technological reproduction of works of art:
casting and striking. Bronze and terracotta artefacts and coins were the only works of art
they could produce in large quantities 22 .
That way, the originals may remain inaccessible, but like the gold reserves of a national
bank, they are the stable reference in the circulation of their digital alter ego. Thus
the German Library (Deutsche Bücherei - the recipient of deposit copies), aims to keep
two copies, an archive and a user copy; the archive copy is the complete monument of
continuity against digital manipulability. 23 As long as the data contain redundancies, the
system is able to correct itself and to compensate for losses within limits, namely: to
interpolate via the figures. It is a different matter for the "sacred texts or data that are
truly relevant culturally, where one is aware that a lot would get lest if one were to throw
out the objects according to the model recommended by Oliver Wendell Holmes [...], and
were to keep only the digitalised data as a memento of the objects." 24 As soon as the
photographic record of objects appeared to make their materiality redundant, Holmes
announced Postmodernism in 1859:
In future, form will be separate from material. Indeed, the material is no longer of
much use in visible objects except where it serves as a model after which the form is created.
Give us a few negatives of an object worth seeing [...], that's all we need. The object
may then be demolished or set alight, if you like [...]. This development will result in
such a huge collection of forms that they will have to be sorted by categories and put on
display in large libraries. 25
Thus, the data technology of electronic libraries does not do away with the physical
book; indeed, each information still requires authorisation by reference to the real.
The reader or viewer looking for information easily forgets the materiality of the
text or image carrier. The photographic transfer of the object into the space of the pictorial
archive seems to make the original redundant; take, for example, the early Roman inscription
of Satricum near Rome which was discovered by Dutch archaeologists:
Once the position of the block with the inscription had been photographically documented
and sketched [...] this and the two others displaying the same characteristics
were transported to the Dutch Institute at Rome for preparation of the publication and to
await placement in a museum. 26
In fact, there has been a UNESCO convention for the Protection of the Natural and
Cultural World Heritage since 1972, which requires of all its member states to photographically
document special edifices. Form the archive photographs, it should be possible
to interpret or, more precisely, compute the building plan in case of its "destruction which
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