Documenting is a theme that runs across all the different parts of the Canon II project, building on the original Canon project. Safeguarding our theatre-technical and design heritage means that it has to be documented in a structured way that is usable for archives and collections, but also for professionals, students, teachers and researchers in the field.

A core starting point of the Canon project is to relate the documentation to internal and external sources and data collections in order to generate insights about the environment of the described subject.

Canon II will work with different techniques and concepts:

Documenting techniques

The documentation should be usable by experts, including exact measurements, plans, schemes, pictures, manuals, models, stories, … this makes it possible to understand not only what the subject is, but also how, where and why it was used, how it functions, etc. For this, the Canon II project experiments with different techniques and concepts to define their usability and create manuals with concrete tips and tricks adapted to the field.

• Photographing objects
• Recording the use of equipment
• Interactive models
• Recording the design process and the final result
• Scanning 3D objects
• Text recognition and analysis
• Use of specialized repositories to train AI models
• Picture and logo recognition
• Recording oral history in audio and video

Safeguarding software

Documentation needs to support the safeguarding (and the proper functioning) of the objects. This is particularly important for IT related elements that are needed to keep artefacts functional. The Canon project experiments with:

• Safeguarding rare file formats (visualization, editing files, …)
• Safeguarding software to read files or to run lighting consoles
• Safeguarding bios content for equipment with an adapted bios.

Metadata

To improve the use of sources and repositories in an ethical way, the Canon project looks into the use of metadata embedded in files. This makes it possible to share information including the copyright status, the attribution of the authors and the original source. Moreover the metadata can include <Alt Txt> descriptions for accessibility and captions for publication.

Controlled languages

To connect information between different collections it is crucial to use “the same name for the same thing”. In the original Canon project we created a draft structure that is further developed in Canon II, as well as being extended to the design field (set and lighting). The controlled language includes technical building properties, structured equipment names, brand and company names, typologies of sets and set designs, …