Variable media art
This topic includes works of digital and internet art. It can take the form of performance, interactive or installation art. It can be ephemeral in nature and poses particular problems in terms of documentation, preservation and access. Long term preservation strategies need
to examine what is going to be preserved and
the way in which it will be preserved.
Articles
| Books
| Events
| Organisations and Websites
| Online tutorial
| Policies, Strategies & Guidelines
| Projects and Case Studies
| Bibliographies
| Glossaries
| Journals & Newsletters
| Discussion Lists
| Surveys
| Tools
| Evaluations
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Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving Variable Media Art
Rinehart, Richard
In: D-Lib magazine
(Date Created: May 2002)
- A brief description of "Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving Variable Media Art", a consortium project whose collaborators include the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Walker Art Center, Rhizome.org, the Franklin Furnace Archive and the Cleveland Performance Art Festival and Archive.
- http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may02/05inbrief.html#RINEHART
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Capturing Unstable Media : Summary of Research
Fauconnier, Sandra; Fromme, Rens
(Date Created: Mar 2003)
- This is an overview and inventory of current research initiatives, including rhizome.org, Daniel Langlois Foundation, Netzspannung.org and the V2 Archive. The paper also has a set of recommendations in the areas of metadata, strategies and interoperability.
- http://archive.v2.nl/v2_archive/projects/capturing/capturing_summary.p
df
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Database of Virtual Art for an Expanded Concept of Documentation
Grau, Oliver
(Date Created: 2003)
- This article, written by the developer of the Database of Virtual Art, discusses the database's development as well as the detailed documentation stored on the works in the database. Because of the unique nature of virtual art, extensive documentation is vital if the art is to remain accessible in the future.
- http://web.archive.org/web/20070429172110/http://www2.hu-berlin.de/gra
u/database.htm
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Database of Virtual Art: For an Expanded Concept of Documentation
Grau, Oliver
(Date Created: Sep 2003)
(Germany)
- This article, written by the developer of the Database of Virtual Art for ICHIM 2003 (International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting held at the Ecole de Louvre 8-12 September) , discusses the database's development as well as the detailed documentation stored on the works in the database. Because of the unique nature of virtual art, extensive documentation is vital if the art is to remain accessible in the future.
- http://www.archimuse.com/publishing/ichim03/016C.pdf
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Digital Preservation : Recording the Recoding : the Documentary Strategy
Depocas, Alain
(Austria)
- This article argues that the best way to preserve new media art is to disseminate the work together with the relevant documentation that includes metadata as well as contextual information. Establishing the structure of this documentation can pose a great challenge since it involves recording as many aspects as possible of artistic activities including new technologies, as well as the history of the evolution of new art forms. The accompanying documentation is envisaged as an interpretation, rather than mere illustration of the new media art - as an interface that makes it possible to explore the networked structured work, rather than just to capture or contain it. Therefore the nature of archives is redefined from the notion of storing the information, to that of navigation, of establishing links between pieces of information, of mapping, and of the ability to identify relevant information.
- http://www.aec.at/festival2001/texte/depocas_e.html
- Paper presnted at the ARS Electronica Festival, 2001
- Echoes of Art : Emulation as a Preservation Strategy
Variable Media Network
(Date Created: 2004)
- This is the transcript of the conference held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on May 8, 2004.
- http://www.variablemedia.net/e/echoes/index.html
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Ephemeral Will Endure : the Future of Conceptual Art and Digital Preservation
Sharp, Rebecca
In: DigiCULT.Info Newsletter
(Date Created: Aug 2002)
(United States of America)
- Based on an interview with Jon Ippolito, Co-ordinator of the Variable Media Initiative (VMI) at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, this article addresses the main components of the VMI. The initiative allows artists working with ephemeral media formats to collaborate with museum and media consultants to produce appropriate preservation strategies for their works. Through the use of an interactive questionnaire, artists specify “preservation and dissemination options according to the properties unique to their work”, thus further enabling this area of art history to be available to future generations.
- http://www.digicult.info/downloads/digicult_info2.pdf
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How to Preserve Digital Art
Mayfield, Kendra
(Date Created: 23 Jul 2002)
(United States of America)
- A news article providing an overview of the Archiving the Avant Garde project.
- http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/07/53712
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Longevity of Electronic Art
Besser, Howard
(Date Created: Feb 2001)
- This paper, submitted to the International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting, 2001, highlights the problems in preserving electronic art. It describes the approaches to preserving electronic resources in general, notes the special characteristics of electronic artworks that pose challenges for preservation and proposes practical strategies for preserving electronic art.
- http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Papers/elect-art-longevity.html
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Museums Seek Methods for Preserving Digital Art
Carlson, Scott
(Date Created: 28 May 2002)
- A short news article of an interview with Mark Tribe about the Archiving the Avant Garde project, that seeks to establish a set of guidelines for preservation of digital works of art.
- http://chronicle.com/free/2002/05/2002052802t.htm
- Preservation and/or Documentation : the Conservation of Media Art
Wijers, Gaby
(Date Created: 02 Feb 2005)
- This article was originally written as background information for the 2005 Media Art Preservation Conference. It gives an overview or media based art preservation and documentation strategies as well as obstacles to these strategies.
- http://www.montevideo.nl/en/nieuws/detail.php?id=72&archief=
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Preserving Interactive Multi-Media Art: A Case Study in Preservation Planning
Becker, Christoph; Kolar, Gunther; Kung, Josef; Rauber, Andreas
(Date Created: 12 Dec 2007)
(Austria)
- This paper presented at ICADL 2007 (10th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries, Hanoi Vietnam 10-13 December 2007 ) presents the findings of a pilot project for preserving born-digital interactive multi-media art. The paper discusses the challenges in preserving this kind of work, related work, the PLANETS preservation planning approach and a case study on Ars Electronica museum in Linz Austria.
- http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/pub-inf_5204.pdf
- Available D.H.-L. Goh et al. (Eds.): ICADL 2007, LNCS 4822, pp. 257–266, 2007
- Research into Four Media Installations
Wijers, Gaby; van Saaze, Vivian
(Date Created: Dec 2003)
- Four case studies are used to illustrate the various aspects of the documentation, registration and preservation of multimedia art. The main objectives of the study were to identify what particular aesthetic and technical elements are essential, and should be preserved in order to ensure that the integrity and significance of the work remain intact during future presentations and to identify the criteria for preservation and re-installation.
- http://www.montevideo.nl/en/nieuws/detail.php?id=52&archief=ja&showjaa
r=2003&beginjaar=2004
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Screen Savers
Berwick, Carly
(Date Created: Sep 2002)
(United States of America)
- This article looks at efforts undertaken in the United States to preserve digital and other new-media artworks. It highlights artist-museum conservation partnerships as seen at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; describes initiatives such as the Variable Media Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and profiles both the Conceptual and Intermedia Arts On-line (CIAO), as well as the collaborative project “Archiving the Avant-Garde”, which looks at case studies and digital preservation strategies for new-media art.
- http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1170
- Also available in ARTnews, September 2002, Vol 101, Issue 8, pp. 124-125, ISSN 0004-3273 and by subscription online at www.ebscohost.com/
- Variable and Unstable : Preserving and Documenting Our Digital Art Heritage
Depocas, Alain
(Date Created: Nov 2004)
- This article describes various initiatives in developing new methodologies, standards and documentation in variable or new media art. These initiatives include the Centre for Research and Documentation at the Daniel Langlois Foundation, and the Variable Media Network.
- http://www.horizonzero.ca/textsite/ghost.php?is=18&file=7&tlang=0
- HorizonZero Digital Art + Culture in Canada, Issue 18, Nov/Dec 2004
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Variable Media Approach - Permanence through Change
Depocas, Alain ; Ippolito, Jon ; Jones, Caitlin
(Date Created: 2003)
- The Variable Media Network is a group of cultural institutions in the USA seeking approaches to preserve digital art. Digital art is particularly evasive as it may be distributed, ephemeral, or interactive in nature. Possible preservation approaches may be emulation or also ‘re-interpretation’; the latter attempts to capture the key ideas of a piece of art and allows considerable freedom in reproducing these key ideas in the future. In any approach the artist must be tightly engaged in preservation activities. This publication describes the Variable Media Approach, at the basis of which is a questionnaire designed to capture the essence of a digital artwork. Numerous case studies illustrate the approach.
- ISBN: 0-9684693-2-9
- http://www.variablemedia.net/pdf/Permanence.pdf
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404 Object Not Found : What Remains of Media Art?
19 - 22 Jun 2003
, Dortmund
(Germany)
- International congress concerning the production, presentation and preservation of media art. Includes links to presentations.
- http://www.hartware-projekte.de/programm/inhalt/eueng.htm
- Media in Motion: The Challenge of Preservation in the Digital Age
, McGill University, Montreal Quebec, Canada
(Canada)
- This symposium on media arts preservation is to be held in conjunction with the Annual International DOCAM Summit (on October 30-31, 2008, at McGill University) by the DOCAM (Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage) Research Alliance and Media@McGill (http://www.docam.ca/enhttp://www.docam.ca/en).
- http://www.docam.ca/en/?cat=17
- Preservation of Born-Digital Art
08 Oct 2004
, Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Glasgow, Scotland
- Contains links to a briefing paper, bibliography and digital art preservation sites.
- http://www.erpanet.org/events/2004/glasgowart/index.php
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Re:live09 : Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
26 - 29 Nov 2009
, Melbourne
(Australia)
- http://www.mediaarthistory.org/
- Refresh : First International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
28 Sep - 03 Oct 2005
, Banff New Media Institute, Banff,
(Date Created: 2005)
(Canada)
- Includes session on collecting, preserving and archiving the media arts. Conference paper abstracts are available from the website. Also Streaming Archives includes video and Mp4 sound files of the presentations.
- http://www.mediaarthistory.org/refresh/refresh/refresh.html
- Vital Signs : Exploring Past and Future of New Media Art and Hybrid Art in Australia
07 - 09 Sep 2005
, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square, Melbourne, Victoria,
(Date Created: 2005)
(Australia)
- Includes papers discussing the preservation of digital artworks. Existing and developing archival strategies will be presented along with artworks that explore these archival issues.
- http://www.vitalsigns.rmit.edu.au/
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Organisations and Websites
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- AktiveArchive
AktiveArchive
(Regularly Updated)
(Switzerland)
- This is the website of AktiveArchives a research project begun in 2004 by the Hochschule der Künste, Bern (Berne University of the Arts) and the Schweizerischen Instituts für Kunstwissenschaft (Swiss Institute for Art Research). The project aims to research, document and preserve electronic artworks.
- http://www.aktivearchive.ch/
- Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica
(Austria)
- This organisation has several purposes, including the Ars Electronica Center, which is a Museum of the Future, a research and development facility, Ars Electronica Futurelab, a Laboratory for Future Innovations, and the Ars Electronica archive. The Ars Electronica archive features 25 years of digital media art.
- http://www.aec.at/en/index.asp
- CACHe : Recovering Computer Arts Histories
University of London
(Regularly Updated)
(United Kingdom)
- CACHe is a 3-year research project founded in 2002 based at the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, University of London and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The purpose of this project is to document, collect and provide access to digital arts from the 1960s and 1970s.
- http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hosted/cache/index.htm
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Capturing Unstable Media
V2_ Organisation
(Date Created: 2003)
(Netherlands)
- Developed by the V2_ Organisation, this project used two electronic art projects as case studies to focus on ways to capture and preserve electronic art independent of medium, including documentation, metadata and interoperability aspects. The project has resulted in a series of recommendations, including documentation guidelines and a formal model (ontology). The results of the project were added to the website in March 2004.
- http://capturing.projects.v2.nl/
- CRUMB : Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss
University of Sutherland
(Regularly Updated)
- Sponsored by the AHRB (Art and Humanities Research Board), this site has resources on many aspects of variable media art, including preservation and archiving. It includes a new media discussion list, curatorial resources, seminars, bibliographies and interviews.
- http://www.crumbweb.org
- Daniel Langlois Foundation : Le Fondation Daniel Langlois
Daniel Langlois Foundation
(Canada)
- The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology is leading a new five year research alliance project that will focus on important issues regarding the preservation and documentation of media art. To address these issues, this research alliance plans to pool numerous fields of expertise, including art preservation, art documentation, art history, technology history, information sciences, archival management, engineering and computer processing. The research will focus on three principal areas, and each will produce tools, guides and methodologies essential to preserving this new cultural heritage.
- http://www.fondation-langlois.org/
- Database of Virtual Art
Humboldt University, Berlin
- This database, supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF), has been developed to document and provide access to digital installation art. Its documentation system focuses on information about technical requirements, installation settings, software and hardware configurations. The web interface also allows artists to input this information themselves. Although mostly in German, this database represents an important development in ensuring continuing access to this art.
- http://www.virtualart.at/common/recentWork.do
- DOCAM (Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage)
DOCAM
(Date Created: 2005)
- This five year project is funded by La Fondation Daniel Langlois. The project will research the conservation of the heritage of variable media arts and use case studies to help develop strategies and methodologies for the long term preservation of these works. The site also contains links and bibliographies to related works.
- http://www.docam.ca/spip/rubrique.php?id_rubrique=2
- EAI Online Resource Guide for Exhibiting, Collecting & Preserving Media Art
Independent Media Arts Preservation (IMAP)
(Date Created: 2006)
(United States of America)
- This resource guide addresses issues and draws together information on current practices relating to single channel video, computer based art and media installation. The preservation section was created by IMAP (Independent Media Arts Preservation).
- http://resourceguide.eai.org/
- Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Culture and Media Science
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
(Date Created: 2005)
(Austria)
- The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute is based in Linz, Austria. The purpose of the institute is to develop strategies for the documentation, description and preservation of digital artworks and media art, particularly the digital artworks of the Ars Electronica Archive. This project is expected to run for seven years and other partner institutions include the University of Art and Industrial Design, Ars Electronica Center and Lentos Art Museum based in Linz.
- http://media.lbg.ac.at/
- PAD : Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination Project
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
(Date Created: 2002)
- PAD is intended to complement existing archiving research by filling a gap that has been identified by a survey. The gap identified is that electronic literature is not yet the focus of any major preservation effort, and many important aspects of preserving this type of work - such as how to maintain conditional sequencing of files delivered to the reader across different technical platforms - is not being addressed adequately. PAD proposes to fill this gap by adopting technologies and standards already in development and extending them in ways that will allow works of electronic literature (and other kinds of digital art objects) to have a long lifespan in a form as close to the original as possible and as useful material for scholarship.
- http://www.eliterature.org/pad/
- Rhizome.org : the New Media Art Resource
Rhizome.org
- Rhizome.org is a non-profit organisation which aims to preserve electronic art. The organisation provides access to new media art by providing a free online platform where artists can display their art. Rhizome Users must register to view the online art.
- http://rhizome.org/info/index.php
- Variable Media Network
Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation; Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technolgoy
(Date Created: Jan 2004)
(United States of America)
- Committed to implementing the Guggenheim Museum’s unconventional preservation strategy, the Variable Media Network is a group of cultural institutions in the USA which looks at developing tools, methods and standards needed to realise this scheme. The Guggenheim approach involves encouraging artists to define their work independently from medium, that is to pass on guidelines for recasting their art work in a new form once the original has expired. The website outlines the initiative, gives examples of past and future case studies and provides information on events related to this field.
- http://www.variablemedia.net/
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Projects and Case Studies
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Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving Variable Media Art
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
(Date Created: 2001)
Reviewed by: Museums Seek Methods for Preserving Digital Art
; How to Preserve Digital Art
- Archiving the Avant Garde is a collaborative project to develop, document, and disseminate strategies for describing and preserving non-traditional, intermedia, and variable media art forms, such as performance, installation, conceptual, and digital art.
- http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/about/avantgarde
- CACHe : Recovering Computer Arts Histories
University of London
(Regularly Updated)
(United Kingdom)
- CACHe is a 3-year research project founded in 2002 based at the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, University of London and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The purpose of this project is to document, collect and provide access to digital arts from the 1960s and 1970s.
- http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hosted/cache/index.htm
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Capturing Unstable Media
V2_ Organisation
(Date Created: 2003)
(Netherlands)
- Developed by the V2_ Organisation, this project used two electronic art projects as case studies to focus on ways to capture and preserve electronic art independent of medium, including documentation, metadata and interoperability aspects. The project has resulted in a series of recommendations, including documentation guidelines and a formal model (ontology). The results of the project were added to the website in March 2004.
- http://capturing.projects.v2.nl/
- Inside Installations : Preservation and Presentation of Installation Art
Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN)
(Regularly Updated)
- This three-year research project began in 2004. The project involved input from collecting organisations in the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom. Belgium and Spain. Thirty complex installations (many multimedia) were re-installed, investigated and documented with the view to develop best practice in the areas of preservation strategies, artists’ participation, documentation and archiving strategies. Best practice documents available from the Research link.
- http://www.inside-installations.org/home/index.php
- PAD : Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination Project
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
(Date Created: 2002)
- PAD is intended to complement existing archiving research by filling a gap that has been identified by a survey. The gap identified is that electronic literature is not yet the focus of any major preservation effort, and many important aspects of preserving this type of work - such as how to maintain conditional sequencing of files delivered to the reader across different technical platforms - is not being addressed adequately. PAD proposes to fill this gap by adopting technologies and standards already in development and extending them in ways that will allow works of electronic literature (and other kinds of digital art objects) to have a long lifespan in a form as close to the original as possible and as useful material for scholarship.
- http://www.eliterature.org/pad/
- Sustainability of Video Art : Preservation of Dutch Video Art Collections
Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art
(Date Created: 2003)
(Netherlands)
- This collaborative project was completed in 2003. The project report has three parts; part one is the report itself, part two is the list of preserved video art works and part three is the glossary and bibliography. The report discusses the preservation methodology that was developed and evaluated during the project.
- http://www.montevideo.nl/en/pdf/CONSERVERING_1tm80.pdf
- Variable Media Initiative
Guggenheim Museum
(United States of America)
- An intiative of the Guggenheim Museum that seeks to identify artist-approved strategies for preserving variable media artwork (installation, performance, interactive, digital). Artists are encouraged to define their work independent of medium and provide guidelines on how their work may be recast in new formats.
- http://variablemedia.net/
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