Digital Worlds of Hidden Texts: A Case Study of a Guitar by Antonio Stradivari
Résumé
The experience of interacting with digital tools can unveil material texts that we know to exist but cannot directly see. Through the example of a guitar by Antonio Stradivari, the talk will discuss how the digital medium establishes a dialogue between paper waste and parchment fragments and the musical instrument they live in. Digital imaging – of photons in the visible spectrum as well as X-rays – serves here as an eye-opener towards the imaginaries of the text’s analog life before the instrument, of the text as invisible, but yet vital, constituent of the instrument, and of the presence of the text after its virtual recovery, even though it remains physically hidden.