Rudolf Pöch: A scientific pioneer

The contemporary world requires that increasingly vast amounts of material be archived and accessed, and this presents unprecedented possibilities and problems for the production, storage, and use of knowledge. With this setting in view, the present scientific project aims to investigate the productive potential of the extensive but nearly forgotten collection of the Austrian scholar, explorer and media pioneer Rudolf Pöch (1870-1921) within the context of European scientific tradition and cultural heritage. One of the founding fathers in the field of anthropology, Rudolf Pöch carried out some of the last large-scale interdisciplinary expeditions and documented them in a variety of then cutting edge media formats (such as sound recordings, moving images and specially developed photographic techniques) and vast object collections (including ethnographica and human remains). The diversity of the collected objects and media formats confronts us with technical challenges that require practical archival co-operation among the contributing institutions. Currently scattered over five Austrian institutions (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Anthropology, Museum of Ethnology, Natural History Museum and Filmarchive Austria) and thus inaccessible, the significance, quality and diversity of Pöch`s estate in contributing to the then prevailing scientific materialism in Central Europe can only be compared to Humboldt`s earlier legacy to the natural sciences against the background of classical idealism. Once (digitally) reunited and made accessible in a central database, the historical Pöch collection could well become the first step in reconstructing the industrious European network of travelling scientists around the dawn of last century. In contrast to (but nevertheless digitally compatible with) other ventures, the current projects lends itself to a case study for all issues related to the conservation, dissemination and restitution of multimedia information. These questions of storage and accessibility once resolved, the following scientific hypotheses can be investigated on the compiled data sets: Did Rudolf Pöch`s provenance of a non-colonial European country influence his aims and results as a researcher? Did his use of innovative media techniques lead him to significantly new scientific insights? Can Pöch be seen as an early representative of a hereditary approach in anthropology and did his influence establish a tradition within this discipline? To what extent was his understanding of anthropology/ethnography influenced by a network of contemporaneous scientists?

The contemporary world requires that increasingly vast amounts of material be archived and accessed, and this presents unprecedented possibilities and problems for the production, storage, and use of knowledge. With this setting in view, the present scientific project aims to investigate the productive potential of the extensive but nearly forgotten collection of the Austrian scholar, explorer and media pioneer Rudolf Pöch (1870-1921) within the context of European scientific tradition and cultural heritage. One of the founding fathers in the field of anthropology, Rudolf Pöch carried out some of the last large-scale interdisciplinary expeditions and documented them in a variety of then cutting edge media formats (such as sound recordings, moving images and specially developed photographic techniques) and vast object collections (including ethnographica and human remains). The diversity of the collected objects and media formats confronts us with technical challenges that require practical archival co-operation among the contributing institutions. Currently scattered over five Austrian institutions (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Anthropology, Museum of Ethnology, Natural History Museum and Filmarchive Austria) and thus inaccessible, the significance, quality and diversity of Pöch`s estate in contributing to the then prevailing scientific materialism in Central Europe can only be compared to Humboldt`s earlier legacy to the natural sciences against the background of classical idealism. Once (digitally) reunited and made accessible in a central database, the historical Pöch collection could well become the first step in reconstructing the industrious European network of travelling scientists around the dawn of last century. In contrast to (but nevertheless digitally compatible with) other ventures, the current projects lends itself to a case study for all issues related to the conservation, dissemination and restitution of multimedia information. These questions of storage and accessibility once resolved, the following scientific hypotheses can be investigated on the compiled data sets: Did Rudolf Pöch`s provenance of a non-colonial European country influence his aims and results as a researcher? Did his use of innovative media techniques lead him to significantly new scientific insights? Can Pöch be seen as an early representative of a hereditary approach in anthropology and did his influence establish a tradition within this discipline? To what extent was his understanding of anthropology/ethnography influenced by a network of contemporaneous scientists?