A Conservation and Restoration Laboratory
AV Preservation by reto.ch

A 2003 drawing for the first laboratory at Venoge Parc in Penthalaz.

This event will mark twenty years of paramount photochemical and digital services provided by AV Preservation by reto.ch. We have a particular commitment to the dissemination of audio-visual conservation and restoration techniques among friends, colleagues, scholars, students and any interested person. We also invested a large amount of time and money in open-source projects, which we believe are beneficial for the archival community. And we are running the Swiss Film and Video Directory.

From March 2023, our boutique workshop for conservation and restoration operates at the Lichtspiel in Bern, while our small research unit continues its activity at the EPFL Innovation Park.

What and How

A lecture by Joshua Levy, Michal Cohen and Reto Kromer with screening of some of the highlights, followed by an informal Q&A session and light refreshments.

When and Where

The plan was to offer an in-person event with webcasting, hosted by the Lichtspiel in Bern, where both analogue and digital projections are possible on the big screen. Unfortunately a national archive did not provide us with an indispensable element for the planned historic walk from the analogue world to the digital world, and we had to change the program at the last moment. We decided to move to a more intimate in-person event at the EPFL Innovation Park with webcast on Thursday the 29^th of June 2023, starting at 11 o’clock sharp here in Switzerland (that’s 09:00 UTC). The admission is free, but a registration is required: the in-person seats are limited to a dozen or so at our small facility and we will use a Jitsi-based platform for the remote attendees.

2023-06-18