Basket20th-century history in computer reproduction
How does an image of a past historical age present itself to us? How did the people, and the things around them, look? Objects from everyday life and culture are on display in museum collections; the spirit of an age is reflected in surviving buildings and in restored historical monuments. However, the spectator – not being sufficiently prepared – cannot always feel the atmosphere of past ages. He must form a view of past times based on reproductions created by the makers of historical costume-dramas, or on conventional “toys” – the models employed by the makers of animated films.
His possibilities for making use of documentary sources are limited, for the technology of recording and preserving events on film only arose comparatively recently. Today we are able to preserve for posterity all the significant (and insignificant) events that occur in the world. The cine-film technology of the past hundred years can provide us with archive recordings – but these are not accessible to all who might be interested in seeing them today. However, since the end of the nineteenth century photography has had this capacity for mass reproduction; in pictures taken by professionals and amateurs, the most varied aspects of the life of their time have been recorded for all to see.
Historical scholarship attempts to establish the course of events, to describe the clashing of old and new lifestyles, to lay bare the causes of historical change. These are topics of perennial concern. The writing of history, compared with the writing of fiction, has traditionally been more highly regarded. But the art of multi-media is primarily visual, and it strives not only to describe the events of past ages but also to present them by means of images. Today’s computer technology is capable of working together with the most diverse sources of information – from official documents to chance shots taken by amateur photographers – and on the basis of static information can present events in a variety of different ways. The richer the store of information, the greater is the range of resources that multi-media can bring to it. And in this regard the history of the first half of the twentieth century – when the chronicling of events on cine-film was just beginning its development – is the best possible field in which to demonstrate how a multi-media production, both popular and scholarly, differs from cinema documentary.
On this site you can acquaint yourself with the range of the studio’s work in the historical field. These programmes differ from one another in style, in the technology employed, and in the materials on which they are based. Common to them all is the fact that they all focus on the same time and place: the Soviet era, the first half of the twentieth century.