Details

The Records in Context - Conceptual Model v. 0.2 (preview) Dezember 2019 defines and describes an Instantiation as follows:
Definition
The inscription of information on a physical carrier in any persistent, recoverable form by an Agent as a means of communicating information through time and space.

Scope Note
A Record or Record Part must have been instantiated at least once, though this instantiation may no longer exist at the moment of description. An instantiation might also exist at the moment of description, but be destroyed at a later moment in time eg. when a derived instantiation becomes the main instantiation.
A Record Set may have an instantiation, which is to say that it is not a necessary condition.
An Instantiation may be derived from another Instantiation.
A Record Resource may have many Instantiations simultaneously (for instance, a record printed and saved in the same time as docx and pdf/A = 3 instantiations) or through time (e.g., (copy of a record).
Depending on the context, a new instantiation may be treated as representing a new or as the same record resource. While in the process of re-instantiation something is loss and something is preserved, it is up to the context and the Agent that produce/use that instantiation to assess if the two instantiations are functionally equivalent or not. For instance, a postcard representing a town map from 1874 (instantiation 1) is digitized and kept as a jpeg file (instantiation 2). The digital copy may be considered as instantiating the "same" record by an Agent considering the information transmitted by the record (e.g., the urban landscape displayed), but "different" records by an antiquarian.
Successive instantiations may change the perceivable boundaries of a record resource. For instance, a case file comprising many records may be digitized and saved as one single pdf file, which, from management perspective, may be treated as one record. Similarly, a large record set (a fonds or a series) may be dematerialized and kept as one database. On the other hand, one record (main document and its annexes) may be digitized in separate files and each one managed as discrete "physical" items.
Instantiations may need mediation for allowing communicate the records resource. While a traditional record resource sufficed human literation in order to receive the information, a vinyl recording, a video cassette or a digital file needs a device (mediator) to codify/decodify the information conveyed. This mediator may imply simple physical components (a turntable needle, for instance), or a complex gallery of software and hardware elements.
Instantiations are more than the mere content of record resource and from this perspective they may be the focus of preservation and physical management of records. Using a certain form for medieval charters or a particular format for records may have implications on the authenticity of the records. Hence, the way a record resource is instantiated contributes to the contextualizing the content.
Distinguishing the message conveyed (Record Resource) and its physical representations allows to manage their descriptions in an efficient way, and to keep information about a Record Resource even when no physical representation of it exists any more, or is known. The relations between the distinct instantiations can then be expressed wherever these instantiations may be kept, and they can be related to the Record Resource they represent.

Examples
Cópia digital de livro de registro de entrada de imigrantes na Hospedaria da Ilha das Flores

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