"... Stones only ...", said the the well-educated videotape technician working for The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).A veteran in the field of television production, transmissions and videotapes. " ... stones are the only reliable solution for long term preservation of information - all other materials are fading away whether you like it or not...", said the videotape veteran smiling while making this provocative joke during a lunch in Nrk. We were talking about how to estimate a lifetime for old two inch and one inch tapes. The statement was answered with laughter from all of us listening to the old man and his opinions. He is right in one way: All videotapes where the history of the moving images of a nation is stored , are fading away or the content is not there any more after many years of storage. But the dates - the dates and years for the final end of the tapes - are still a matter for evaluations among experts. We do not know the date for the funeral of the tapes.No. We only know that the end will come some day. The recordings of radio and television productions and movies and papers have this in common: There is no eternal life for any of the products.How to take care of the history of any nation
with reference to my statement? The answer is easy to give: You have to make new copies of the productions. Not once, but again and again and again and again. We are talking about an ever lasting work without any pause. Sorry. Sorry to tell all of you who have defended budget cuts ,wiping of tapes and setting up a selection policy
to make one department happy: The department for budget planning. Budget planning without interest for the products made by the institutions for television and radio
productions."... stones only .." - if you wish to read your history in 4000 years from now on. Right, old man. So, I have set up a new plan for the aim of my walking in cities and sites where I know events of history. I look at the walls of the buildings and I look up to the roof of the buildings. Then I use my video camera making shots of the buildings and the information put on the walls.I searched
the facts, the names and the events published on signs put on the wall. Interesting
studies, my friends. I learned a lot about forgotten persons and events.Let me take you to La Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico City. Last year I attended an interesting seminar in Mexico City: Cuarto seminario internacional de Archivos Sonoros y Audiovisuales.
The title of the seminar: La salvaguarda del patrimonio sonoro y audiovisual: un reto mundial. Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico was responsible for the arrangement. A splendid work was done by Fonoteca Nacional.The seminar took place in an old and nice building. Outside the building on the wall I saw a memorial sign contenting information about a famous Mexican poet: Octavio Paz. I must admit that I was too preoccupied with my different activities connected to the seminar that I was not sure
about the man. I knew I had heard about him, but the seminar took all my time. Then
I studied the sign better and then I woke up, so to speak. Octavio Paz had lived in the house. Octavio Paz Lozano was born March 31,1914 and died April 19, 1998. He was a Mexican writer, poet,diplomat and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature. Octavio Paz was introduced to literature through the influence of his grandfather's library contenting classic Mexican and European literature. His father was an active supporter of the Revolution against the Diaz regime. In year 1937Octavio Paz attended the Second International Writers Congress in Defense of Culture in Spain during the civil war showing his solidarity with the Republican side and against fascism. In October 1965 he resigned from the diplomatic corps in protest of the Mexican government's repression of students who were fighting for democracy in the country. In 1990 during the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin wall Octavio Paz
he took part in open talks about the the collapse of communism. Writing, political work,personal engagements, travellings. A life of activities like his family who supported Emiliano Zapata and had to live in exile after the assassination of Zapata.
"... There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot..." - so far Octavio Paz Lozano who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1990. The history on the wall on a nice building in Mexico City facing the busy traffic made me interesting in reading about the man and his work and his life.
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