Modelling provenance of Intangible Heritage

Posted by Robert Sanderson on 25/02/2021

Very interesting!

From the wikipedia article, the Radif is:
    a collection of old melodies that have been handed down by the masters to the students through the generations

Which is very interesting if taken literally as it requires *two* classes we don't have -- a collection class for non-physical things [dare I say in this context that yes I am banging that drum?] and a class for a Melody to parallel Visual and Linguistic sub-classes of Information Object.  Once there is a set of melodies, this can be the specific object of the activities where the tradition is passed on.

I wonder about the use of Type without further properties or activities, as it's currently impossible to relate a concept to other classes.  An example which came up here recently is the precoordinated headings with temporal, personal and geographic facets ... for example "History (E55 Type) of 15th Century (E4 Period) France (E53 Place)". Clearly History of 15th Century France is a Type, but one that should be able to be related to the Period and Place.

Posted by Pierre Choffe on 26/02/2021

We considered this interesting question of context and origin in the frame of the Doremus project. For example, we describe the creation of Henry Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Z. 860 as an Expression Creation that occurred in the historical context of the death of Queen Mary II. The Expression itself has a historical context of Queen Mary funeral and a religious context of Anglicism.

Posted by Pierre Choffe on 26/02/2021

Dear Martin, dear all,

We considered this interesting question of context and origin in the frame of the Doremus project. For example, we describe the creation of Henry Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Z. 860 as an Expression Creation that occurred in the historical context of the death of Queen Mary II. The Expression itself has a historical context of Queen Mary funeral and a religious context of Anglicism.

Post by Martin Doerr (15 June 2021)

Dear All

Here a few thoughts about issue 527, Modelling Provenance of Intangible Heritage.

We may define "intangible heritage" as living human memories:

A)    Memories and oral traditions about events, things, people

These can be treated as propositional objects.

The question of where these traditions originate is more complex. It may be associated with Groups, and would need a specific activity of transferring such knowledge, as well as creation. Paths of tradition may be known. Content variants pose another challenge, which may need a core-variant relation, or a variant set?

B) More varied will be myths, fairy tales and other oral fiction, and mixtures of fiction and history. There may or may not be a historical origin, as with the Odyssey and Iliad. We will need a policy how to talk about unknown origins, and evidence of variant consolidation.

Very different are

C) Procedural knowledge and traditions (techniques, dance, music, rituals)

Music in particular will include musical motives, a sort of "symbolic object", and again core-variant relation, or a variant set.

Groups as originators may work, but often the tradition also appears in areas where they live without differentiating a different group.

May be CRMsoc could provide a lighter construct of the social collectives involved and where they have acted?

All the best,

Martin

Post by Daria Hook (16 June 2021) 

Any system should have common basis.
Intangible heritage has one source - human activity, and appears as a result of it (reflections: myths, legends, oral heritage...) or in process (dances and songs, food). If you have doubts, look the Shumerian tablets. All is already described there.

With kind regards,
Daria Hookk

Post by Martin Doerr (16 June 2021) 

I fully agree! My question was about the details, the complexity of describing collectivity, at the level of multiple actions and interactions, coherent or similar actions of coherent groups, or incoherent sets of people, observing  the Troian War and consolidating stories from it...

All the best,

In the 53rd CIDOC CRM & 46th FRBRoo SIG meeting, the SIG decided to keep this issue open. 

The construct that the issue set to describe cannot be defined through the CRM at this point (how to describe categorical information). The discussions among MD, MaN, DH, OE are to carry on until they reach a concrete proposal.

HW: MD, MaN, Dh, OE

May 2022

In the 57th CIDOC CRM & 50th FRBR/LRMoo SIG Meeting, the SIG talked about potential ways of exploration for the present issue. 
The overall sentiment seems to be that it packs a lot of information in a HW assignment that creates unrealistic expectations (which is why no real progress has been made since it started). 
At the same time, a proposal has been made at the CIDOC 2023 conference by the Intangible Cultural Heritage WG (see: Intangible Cultural Heritage & Museums Project) about a method for documentation and a model to do so that uses CIDOC CRM. 

They could be invited to the next SIG meeting to present their work (contact person would be Trilce Navarrete Hernandez), but the SIG should also make sure to properly introduce the issue at hand, in order to not miss the connection with the work performed by the Intangible Heritage WG (see: recodring and presentations:CIDOC ICH WG). 

Marseille, October 2023