Using sources: (audio-visual) artifacts and their contextualization

1. Artifacts tell their own stories

• Who, what, when, where, why?
• What is the transnational/European dimension?

2. Artifacts connect people

• What relationships over borders does this show?
• Who was excluded?

3. Artefacts mean many things

• What stories does the collection support?
• What other stories are there?
• Did the same artifact mean the same thing in different places?

4. Artefacts capture moments

• What situations does the artifact let you see?
• What 'normal' senses of Europe does it capture?

5. Artefacts reflect change

• What did the artifact do?
• What role did it play in changing lives?
• How did it create (which) Europe?

Graded Assignment 2 (for Lecture 4):

Read carefully the objects of history guide that you find at http://objectofhistory.org/guide and then see for yourself how the various objects are contextualized on www.inventingeurope.eu.

EACH STUDENT (so: not group-wise, however we encourage discussion in the group) explores www.inventingeurope.eu and selects from the various “Tours” or from the “Explore our partners’ collections” and “Explore Europeana” an object, image or video that intrigues him or her. Tell us:

1) What you find intriguing about this object;

2) Give the metadata for your object;

3) Analyze your object. Which of the 5 ways of using artefacts to tell stories has been used with respect to the object that you have chosen?

4 ways of looking at a thing

(depending on what CONTEXT)

Compare: http://www.inventingeurope.eu/exhibit1tour3item3/

Cacao press, invented Coenraad van Houten (NL) 1828 with German firm Lehmann

‘The cocoa mill and the compressor’, Liebig trade card, early 20th century.

Artifact

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10325699&itemw=4&itemf=0001&itemstep=1&itemx=60

Liebig = German

this advert - French

held in the (British) Science Museum

The Production of Chocolates

Creator: Polygoon-Profilti (producer) / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (curator)

Publication date: 19 January 1946

Length:

01:36

Artifact (UK spelling artefact): n.

1. an object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest;

2. something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure: the curvature of the surface is an artefact of the wide-angle view

(http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/artifact)

Or European?

http://www.aumarche.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=store.prodDetail&prodID=1655

A material trace of

HUMAN RELATIONS

http://openimages.eu/media/14285/Fabricatie_van_chocolade

A Dutch story?

http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/nl/items/RA01:2000-367FOL/&p=4&i=10&t=182&st=Verkade&sc=%28Verkade%29/&wst=Verkade

• who designed the card?
• who printed how many?
• how were they acquired?
• who collected them?
• what activities did they show

Object of History

(Euro-style)

Bonbons decoreren, 1956

V-12014

Met een puntzakje decoreert dit meisje platte bonbons. In een bak naast het meisje zit vloeibare chocolade. Hierin een spatel waarmee ze de zachte chocolade in de spuitzak doet.

http://www.verkadepaviljoen.nl/home/nl/viewphoto.php?categoryid=45&id=1047&page=1

Global AND local relationships

Source

Object

• Selected as saying something special about the past
• Classified and (thus) placed in relation to other objects
• Supports specific kinds of stories (national, institutional, technological)
• Attached to specific information (metadata)

http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/nl/items/RA01:30051001472411/&p=1&i=6&t=12&st=venz&sc=%28venz%29/&wst=venz

Venz campagne in volle gang (1958-59)

Evidence used in

part of

Is this a local story?

http://www.verkadepaviljoen.nl/home/nl/fotowall.php

(compare http://www.cocoareworks.co.uk/site/home.htm)

‘The cocoa mill and the compressor’, Liebig trade card, early 20th century.

No 4 in the 'Chocolat' (Chocolate) series of trade cards showing workers in a chocolate factory engaged in various stages of the manufacturing process. The Liebig company produced sets of trade cards to promote their meat extract, a cheap and nutritious product invented in 1847 by chemist, Justus von Liebig. The meat extract was produced from 1865 at the Fray Bentos-Liebig processing plant set up in Uruguay. 1,863 sets of cards were produced continuously from 1872 until 1975 by which time the company had joined with Brooke Bond to become Brooke-Bond Oxo and was owned by Unilever.

Image No. 10325699 | This is a Rights Managed image.

Credit © Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library -- All rights reserved.

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10325699&itemw=4&itemf=0001&itemstep=1&itemx=60&screenwidth=1440

HISTORICAL

INQUIRY

HERITAGE

COLLECTION

(partially) answers a question

about cause-effect relations:

• "What did middle class consumers know about factory conditions around 1900?"
• "How did the Liebig firm reach customers beyond its borders?"
• "How did manufacturers seek to instill trust in instant foods?"

compare: http://www.museumboerhaave.nl/object/barometer-in-foudraal-v14022/

History asks:

how did it get to be this way?

What changed when and why?

(in this class)

You Are Here

• digital rep. of physical artefact (the card)
• portrayal of another artefact (cacao press)
• example of a set (series of cards)
• illustration of process , era, principle (advertising, manufacturing, circulation)
• NO representations are merely documentary!

What stories can an object tell us

about our lives today?

from where you view the big picture!

Stands for something in the

http://www.inventingeurope.eu/exhibit5tour3item2/

• what does the object tell us?
• who is involved? How?
• what does it mean to whom?
• what other things are related to it?
• what places are involved?

PUBLIC SPHERE

context

knowledge

Representation

source(s)

Verkade milk chocolate bar, 75g (2012)

and what questions do we need to ask?

question

writing history

This week:

how do we use artifacts to explore history from the bottom up?

http://objectofhistory.org/guide/

www.inventingeurope.eu

0UC14

Building Europe on Transnational Infrastructures

Lecture 3: Using sources:

(audio-visual) artifacts and their contextualization

Dr. Alexander Badenoch

1 October 2012

Last week: European Integration from the 'bottom up'