2023-10-11 –, Create
The “Arxiu Lliure” (Teatre Lliure’s archive) is the digital space that connects the theatre heritage of the past with the present to show, move, recall and thrill. Photographs, videos, artistic programmes, posters, press clippings, etc. are all part of a set of +60,000 documents from 2,000 shows and events. All in all, “Arxiu Lliure” is where we store, care and catalogue the heritage of the theatre for the present and the future. A living space that allows us to get closer to the documents of the context of the shows that form the memory of the Teatre Lliure.
In this project, we have combined artificial intelligence (AI) and natural intelligence (NI) to catalogue +120,000 faces of the photographic collection with facial recognition tools. We have developed a collective cataloguing project with the help of automatic facial recognition tools and a user interface aimed at facilitating the interaction between automatisms and human users. Its playful aspect has made it possible to put into action the tacit knowledge of our institutions’ staff. This experience illustrates a symbiotic relationship between both types of intelligence since the team at Lliure takes part in the cataloguing process –which enriches the photographic’ s metadata collection while also feeding into the reference database used by the algorithm. Finally, we catalog more than 25,000 faces in around 100 hours of work, carried out by around 20 different people.
What’s behind the curtain of this pioneering project? Let’s the stage play begin.
Anabel de la Paz is an ancient book librarian and works with heritage collections. She specialises in cataloguing and organising collections formed during colonisation in the Philippine Archipelago. She has collaborated on and created several catalogues of the collections of the University of Sant Tomàs (Philippines) and is currently the head of Archive, Library and Heritage at Teatre Lliure in Barcelona.