Scart - a website on audiovisual heritage by packed - nimk

Interview met Gerard Alberts (UvA)

emanuel — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:27:06 +0000

interview_tag:

Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Amsterdam, May 30, 2011

Gerard Alberts teaches history of computing at the University of Amsterdam, and at the Preservation of New Media program at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Stuttgart. His current research endeavours include leading the European Science Foundation Eurocore project 'Software for Europe' and the 'Stichting Historie der Techniek project De geest van de computer; geschiedenis van software in Nederland'.

He has been an advisor on exhibitions and an advisor to SCEN, Stichting Computer Erfgoed Nederland, on several projects, most recently on a program valuating objects and establishing a register of computer heritage in The Netherlands1. His historical interest in the culture of computer use and his close involvement with computer heritage projects have led Gaby Wijers and Jason Langdon (NIMk) to contact him in the framework of the Obsolete Equipment Project.

1. See: http://www.computer-erfgoed.nl/ and http://www.computer-erfgoed.nl/register.htm

NIMk: Can you tell us how you got involved in the conservation of computer-based art?

Gerard Alberts: I'm a historian of computing. I started out studying mathematics to get a good sense of our technological culture. You couldn't study computer science at that time - in the 70's. It only became possible in 1981. I always thought I was going to be a philosopher, but once I looked into archives for historical research, I was lost. I've become a historian since, and took my PHD in history on a study of rationalisation in Dutch society in the 1950s.2 That makes me a cultural historian. Within that range of cultural history I keep coming back to computers, ICT culture and mathematics, partly because nobody else dares to go there.

As a cultural historian, I'm interested in what people actually did with their machines, how it changed their behaviour, and how it changed their culture. My interest in such machines means that I'm an exception amongst historians of computing because I actually want to see and touch the machines. That's why I got in touch with the museum people in the Netherlands and in 1992 we started the Werkgroep Verzamelbeleid Computerhistorie, a working group on collection policy computer history’. We started as a completely informal working group, and focused not on the preservation of things, but on collection policy. Indeed our entry point into the whole field of collecting old computers was rather abstract.

NIMk: And from which museums or institutions did these people come?

Gerard Alberts: The main drive came from the tax and customs museum, Belasting en Douanemuseum, because it consisted of this quaint little museum in Rotterdam which got overrun by a collection of equipment from the actual tax data processing establishment in Apeldoorn –by tradition one of the largest data factories in the country. So from one day to the next they went from a quaint customs museum, with objects relating to smuggling etcetera to owning a whole collection of obsolete computer and punch card equipment that was thrown upon them. They had to decide how to deal with a cumbersome problem.

Other participants in the working group were from the Techniekmuseum, the museum of technology, in Delft, from Scryption, the museum of writing equipment in Tilburg, from a private collection with a background in accountancy, the Stichting Moretgroep Collectie. Little by little, people from the private collection Stichting Computermuseum, then in The Hague, and from the Computermuseum at the University of Amsterdam joined the working group.

I had developed a keen interest in all this kind of old equipment and suggested an exhibition at Scryption of punched card systems sponsored by the Stichting Moretgroep Collectie.3 And I have a weak spot for private collectors: for those individuals who find it difficult saying goodbye to their old machines. These were the same people who provided me with the details of how to work a machine; why a certain notch was there; in which order the button were pushed. I'd be interviewing them when all of a sudden their hands would go up in the air and start manipulating, showing me how they would insert the first words when booting up the computer. It’s set in the memory of their muscles. Those are my greatest days, when I can really touch on their memories.

The working group had existed for 12 years when we applied for more money to do some larger projects. The funding organisation, Mondriaan Stichting, said: “Ok, we've supported a smaller project, but in fact we don’t want to spend money on a working group. You will have to become a legal entity”. That is why we changed from a working group to Stichting Computer Erfgoed Nederland (SCEN, Foundation for Computer Heritage in The Netherlands). The founding partners were the official museums involved –“official” meaning museums in the national museum register. By consequence I was no longer part of it; I have been an advisor to SCEN since then. We felt that we were in danger of losing the connection with private collectors. So from the start of SCEN we established a platform meeting twice a year with everyone involved, choosing its venue both at museums and private collections. Over the years, SCEN has been on excursions to places like Bletchley Park (Milton Keynes, UK) and the Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum (Paderborn, Germany). With SCEN, museum professionals and private collectors, we have travelled everywhere, to local private collections as well as international museums.

I've got to know the field inside out. I did the first inventory. Not as an inventory of machinery, on the level of objects, but as an inventory of where the collections are located, resulting in this little booklet Collectie Nederland Oude Computers.4 The first thing one notices is that the moment one thinks one's finished, the field starts changing dramatically. You may think you've developed something of a common policy of collecting, i.e., you give people the ability to trust that they can throw away or give away certain objects because such items will be in other museums as well. You make it easier on museums to deselect. However a major part of collectors are private collectors and whatever they may have on their mind, they never think of giving away an object. To them it's hardly helpful having a common collecting policy, but never mind. We have them all listed here according to the situation in 1999. The other thing you notice is where policy is being made for real: at home and in the museums, and certainly not at some working group table where the directors of the very same museums sit discussing policy. It may soothe one's conscience to suggest that a working group discussing at such a level made it easier for them. What really happened was that the co-operative transfer of large parts of collections from one museum to the other never passed via the table of this working group. Indeed it should not have done.

The founding partners of SCEN were the Belasting en Douanemuseum, the Techniekmuseum Delft, the Scryption, and the Universities of Groningen and Amsterdam for their museums. You can see the ephemeral fate of museums these days. Techniekmuseum Delft is no longer a museum but a collection at the Technical University of Delft. Scryption lost its funding and has ceased to exist as a museum. One of the worlds finest collections of pens and typewriters is now stored in a depot. So a lot is going on in this field. Despite the firm basis one thinks is established: even the two major private collections have merged since. Stichting Computermuseum, an enormous collection of early personal computers from the 70's or 80's, has moved from The Hague to Apeldoornn and joined forces with the computer games museum in Epe, Bonami. In this field everything is moving, merging.

NIMk: What is the time frame of the collection? Are people interested in changes in computers nowadays or do they focus on the sixties?

Gerard Alberts: There is a general loss of interest in recent machinery, after 1990 lets say. There is a keen interest among personal computer collectors in details of machines from the 70's and 80's. There are specialized Amiga clubs and Apple clubs, trying to maintain the culture that grew around these machines at the time.

NIMk: It has become an online presence as well hasn't it, for example in forums?

Gerard Alberts: To me as an historian it's horrifying, because one can no longer distinguish between original machinery and software or emulation software, remakes of that software. I wouldn't even know where to start. At the moment I have no partiular interest in knowing such details. But I do know that between now and 10 years' time, I will be interested and I can predict my own despair at this point.

The case of the 50's and 60's is relatively easy. There are about a dozen machines in the Netherlands, each of them unique and representing its part of the pioneering spirit. It is easy to have an overview, to access the remnants of such machines, and to be sure that none of these machines is ever going to work. And in terms of Software (which is the field of my present research interest) all one has are the instruction booklets. Incidentally someone may have kept a pile of memory dump, but practically, even if they have a foot high pile of computer printout that does not count for me as accessible.

Yet, as a cultural historian I am keenly interested in how people worked with these machines and I have different entries. One of my favourites is looking for the sound on these machines. Because that means that you're looking for one specific item amongst all these machine buttons and handles -which happens to always be down on the left hand side, so that's an easy task. Once you start to recognize one entry to the machine, you start to recognize the rest. So for my own historical research it has been a good point of entry into the panel, into the desk of the machine. But far more important than that, far more important than my little apprehension of the machines and their consoles has been this item as an entry point to ask people how they actually worked with the machine. If it makes a sound and it's a warning sound, the key question for a whole range of new interviews becomes: who has the authority to stop it making that sound? Because if a machine is on an alarm one wonders: 'Oh, what's happening? Who is responsible?' If you are able to reconstruct that, you gain a lot of insight into the power structures around the machine and you start to understand how people trust and work with it. So from a historical perspective, it has been a very useful entry point for me.

NIMk: When you talk about sound in this sense, you're specifically relating it to on board sound. It's not the sound that you can create with a computer?

Gerard Alberts: No, it's really about on-board sounds that are part of the handling of the machine. So it's part of the machine’s interface. That is what makes it so interesting, that's what makes it culture. It has been a very useful entry point and has provided novel access to the memories and tacit knowledge of the people who worked with them.

NIMk: You interviewed these people on such points, but also about how they dealt with their collection?

Gerard Alberts: No, at that point I was doing interviews for my historical research. It was not so much about their collection, but on the other hand, when I visited collections the knowledge of sounds gave me an entry point into recognizing parts of certain machines. And no, the sounds are primarily related to machines from the pioneering age of the 1950's, one or two dozen.

The majority of private collections one visits is made up of machines from a whole new pioneering age, the 1970's, when people started to build micro computers into hobby computers and pc’s. Collections of these more recent micro computers are far from stable. They have been merging together.Until recently the Stichting Computermuseum in The Hague was like a beach on which many smaller collections were stranded. This ever expanding collection lacked the expertise and the funding to be really described and disclosed. It's an enormous collection, a huge pile of old equipment, which has just been moved to Apeldoorn in an effort to join forces with the Bonami games museum.

NIMk: How can one translate this to the art scene? Do the majority of computerbased artworks date from the 80's?

Gerard Alberts: Well Peter Struycken was pretty early. His earliest work with the changing light colours was from the late 60's. He was one of the pioneers, but judging from the computer art books, there were more. There were enough people working in this field to produce books.

And if you look what was done at the time, one striking phenomenon is that designers and engineers played around with the machines and were fond of making connections with the world of art. They liked making music with machines or writing programmes that would produce a composition. I have a plastic record of a violin concert composed on a machine, i.e., a programme was written to do a composition, but violin players did the execution of the composition. So people played with the machines in just about any way you can imagine. And there is a parallel tradition that has little to do with digital computers, of musicians playing around with analogue computers. Steim, with which you are no doubt familiar, has been around for a long time in The Netherlands. It is a separate tradition, because it is technologically separate, but its intent is not so different from that of working with digital computers.

NIMk: At the moment we are investigating the quantity, the number of museums and installations, and the exact definition of the problem, i.e., quality, typology and status of digitally born artworks in Dutch collections and making an inventory.5

Gerard Alberts: That's what we did about 10 years ago with computer collections. We've come quite a bit further on from then, since founding SCEN. I must say that the platform really functions very well. And by having it as a platform without the other formalities, you avoid the natural tensions that occur between professionals and amateurs. With amateurs, the private collectors, there's a tension between them which is twofold. The private collector wants to own and collect, while on the other hand, they want recognition. So there is a natural tension –or jealousy if you want to call it that – between the cultural recognition that museums get and what private collectors feel they too are due. This immediately pops up when the issue of funding a project arises. It's not so much about the money, but about the recognition and the status, which can create jealousy. In order to cope with this twofold problem, being a foundation with a platform works really well.

We're working on a transition to the latest fad in heritage world, which is creating towards a heritage community. But to do so I've warned the people of SCEN, we are bound to have to pay the consequences and find our own sponsoring. A heritage community, from the point of view of politics, is a community that no longer needs funding. That's the other point of view. One is to form a community that develops its identity around the notion of heritage, of objects of heritage. But the government is fond of this principle because to shows one's right to exist would also mean that one shows that one can generate one's own funds. Because one has this community. Which community wouldn't support it's own heritage, they would ask, what kind of community is that?

NIMk: We're looking for ways to connect people working in the institutions or museums, for instance the Stedelijk Museum, like Gert Hoogeveen, and people like Tjebbe van Tijen who has a big storage department, and is also an archivist. He used to work at the IISG, and has collected equipment and still has it stored. He's also a great enthusiast. And there are more. How can we create a platform, and find a ‘ structure’ in which we can somehow keep track of what there is still out there in terms of computerbased artworks, equipment and how to deal with obsolete equipment? On the other hand we are looking for access to knowledge on how to use the equipment or how it was used. What is the most significant or unique piece, what are the selection criteria…?

Within the museum collections of the Netherlands, the basis is formed of computer artworks from the 80's which are obsolete, replaced or declared dead. We must come up with a plan on how to deal with such a situation. Of course this is a big issue that we can't entirely solve. Our desire is to find a way to create a network or a platform combining knowledge, cases, equipment, artists, institutions and so on. Especially within the amateur/enthusiast sections within which there is so much knowledge and passion, and in the field of hacking - it would be useful to combine it all. This is why I find SCEN's approach very interesting and I'm not sure if we should do something similar or, if possible, connect with SCEN. That would be even better I think.

Gerard Alberts: This search for knowledge, and in particular the tacit knowledge of how one actually works with these machines, is my point of interest. When it comes to approaching the community as a historian, that's what I want to know.

Now let me continue on the point you made in passing, about the different areas of computers and these different styles of collecting that go with it. There is a pioneering age of the 50's and early 60's of which these two dozen machines remain. We may approach these machines individually as far as there are remnants of them and if we are lucky, we can interview some of the users. That's just about it. Then there is a next generation of what are called mini computers. We will find a DEC PDP-11 in just about every collection –highly uninteresting machines. If you talk to the owner of the machine, he will be fascinated by the capacity or by a technical feature of that machine.

Now comes the approach of SCEN, which changes the perspective. These PDP11 minicomputers played a major role in the computerization of laboratories and research institutes and at a later stage, computerization of data processing. The machines had a considerable societal impact, and SCEN set out to pinpoint this with the help of the collectors and their expertise. This is what we did: we gathered a number of collectors (private collectors and museum professionals) around the table with the pioneers of such machines. With their help we were able to designate the interesting transitions in the machines. By looking at the question in such a way, they would tell us which machines were interesting and I just kept asking why.

Well, as it turned out, within this whole range of PDP11 machines there is one type embodying the technical transition, making it appropriate for data processing as well: PDP11-45, available from 1972. You can actually trace the transition of the machine, through the places in which you can find back specimens of this very machine. From the 11-45 onwards you may find PDP11 machines in collections of the greater data factories. This interesting conclusion is reached by combining the points of view of collectors and historians. Keeping in mind that the heritage object should be significant in some way or another to Dutch history, as part of the Dutch history of automation or Dutch history in general, this machine stands out.

The interesting point for our discussion here is the innovative approach developed by SCEN. We created a roundtable situation including all the expertise available, from various backgrounds, and continued until significant conclusions were reached. Indeed, without realizing, we moved into the direction of a heritage community.

NIMk: Is SCEN also willing to do this? And to go and look for the expertise of the art from the 80’s or 90’s?

Gerard Alberts: Yes, but in a far more radical way. And that is the more substantial side of a transition to a heritage community. You can do this for a variety of reasons and call yourself a community instead of a platform. The community includes many subgroups, each with their own expertise and their own passions.

The word passion inspires me to introduce a footnote on keeping collections. I’m against dragging machines around the country. If a machine is somewhere and kept in storage at a company or in a private space, it sits there, because someone cared for it. Whatever you may create institutionally, you have to work hard to care for that machine on a level with the passionate collector who keeps it at a specific place. So before you gather old equipment parts in a central depot, think hard about what you destroy in terms of passion. Do it only if you are sure you can take with it the passionate care that people have put into looking after it. I as a historian have a keen interest in keeping such knowledge alive. So every day a man or a woman touches a certain machine is a good day for me.

NIMk: Maybe we can pay some attention to the subject of storage and maintenance, because this is one of our questions and research topics in the Obsolete Equipment project. I don’t think we’ll ever get to a central storage point and I’m not sure if it would be the best solution. I believe more in networked storage. But during all the interviews and cases we did, we were looking for storage and maintenance requirements. Did you arrive at such a thing? Do you have a protocol?

Gerard Alberts: No, there are no protocols, but there are good purposes.

NIMk: Are they written down? Could we find them?

Gerard Alberts: Not that I’m aware of.

NIMk: We have discussions about whether or not we should plug in the equipment once a year or not. All these kind of straight forward, typical discussions.

Gerard Alberts: There are, not in the Netherlands, but in the UK and US, well-documented resurrection efforts for obsolete computers. There are networks of information about specific old machines. There are all these very early machines like the relays, the clikketiclack-machines, from the 30’s and 40’s, which are relatively easy to run because they are not very sensitive compared to computerized machines. And from the 60’s also, if you isolate the power supply from the rest of the machine, you’ll be safe from the point of view of personal safety. Still, you want to reflect on what you are doing. What many people restarting a machine from the 60’s do, is replace the power supplies and capacitors. Strictly speaking, if you do that, it’s no longer a machine from the 60’s, because the insufficient and untrustworthy power supplies that these machines had were an essential part of the practice of working with them. What if a notion like “mean time between failures”, a standard expression in the 1960s, suddenly lost its meaning?

The people at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, told me their experience in reconstructing the famous “Manchester Baby Computer” – the 1948 pilot model of a stored programme computer. Negotiating the project, asking permission to purchase vacuum tubes for the contraption, they were told by the Museum's director: ‘Well, go ahead, but I don’t want to get any bills for very expensive parts over the coming decades’. So they collected what they could get on vacuum tubes. They were state-of-the-art in 1959, ten years on from the time when the original machine was built. Over these ten years the average lifetime of the vacuum tubes had considerably increased from the say 3000 hours they would have had in 1948. Given the number of tubes in your machine, you can actually count the average amount of minutes that you have before breakdown. But these very same vacuum tubes, from the very same factory ten years on were so much more reliable, that breakdown problems had vanished. So one of the essential experiences of working with these very early computers was lost, i.e., the experience that it could break at any second, and they were actually making counts of average time between failure of hardware. This is no longer relevant. So you lose an essential part of the experience of working with that machine. However good and conscious you are in making your reconstruction, you will always come up against this fact.

NIMk : Yes, you are gaining something, but losing something else which is quite significant. This relates to emulating the equipment of media artworks and all issues around how to mimic the original and document the differences.

Gerard Alberts: Indeed, I’ll finish the story about episodes and come back to the subject of emulation.There is another part we should talk about which is heritage.

As a prelude to the theme of heritage: we’re so much focussed on the technical equipment and the material remnants that we tend to overlook the rest of heritage. Heritage is formed by the material remnants of past practices. That doesn’t mean that we have to restrict ourselves to these technical components. There are other material objects: paper, etc.

Back to episodes. The problem of valuing an object presented itself differently for different episodes in history. Seemingly, for the early episode you have a sort of clear-cut problem: These are the top items, take care of them well. Which museum will accept that and say: “Ok, here are our two dozen icons from the 50’s. Done.”? With the help of these experts, we opened up our expertise and started asking questions like, ‘is there a story to it?’. This resulted in some very interesting situations.

We sent out a form to all the collectors (both professional and private collectors) asking them to fill out what kind of machines they have, what it had been used for and asked for a short biography of the machine. Now here was the difficulty. When you say “biography”, you want to know who purchased this particular machine and for what purpose, when was it used and by whom. However, the answers we got from private collectors were detailed specifications of how the machine was designed at the factory and from what date to what date the specific type had been manufactured and how many of them were produced. It never entered their mind that we wanted the biography of that specific piece of machinery. What they would give instead was a description of the production type.

NIMk: Something you would be able to get from the manufacturer?

Gerard Alberts: Yes. This misunderstanding is very significant for the conceptual problem that we are dealing with here. Like I explained before for the second episode of the minicomputers (1965-1980), we included different approaches of expertise, but we held on to the idea that there would be one consensus and one authoritative voice deciding on the value of the object. Continuing in this direction of increasingly opening up the expertise as well as the fore for a variety of inputs, it does not converge any more tino one concept belonging to one machine. Consider the next episode of micro computers, from the mid 1970s onwards. Not only do you have many perspectives on one machine, but the sheer number of different brands and different types of machine is simply overwhelming for us - it's far too much. So that gave us a good reason to leave behind the idea of one evaluating committee with one kind of expertise and one authoritative voice if there are as many stories. Every narrative of expertise….

NIMk: ...It’s a matter of consensus, of formalizing common knowledge, isn’t it?

Gerard Alberts: Yes. And in order to formalize common knowledge, you have to take away the idea of an authoritative body.

NIMk: It becomes all-inclusive.

Gerard Alberts: Yes. And this is what we are trying for the next step. We are actually in the process of laying the basis for that.

NIMk: Will the Amiga Club and the Apple Club join SCEN?

Gerard Alberts: Yes. Not as the Amiga Club, but Amiga collectors are part of our collectors and we’re trying to mobilize them and bring in the expertise from the Amiga Club. And that’s the crucial part. Are we able to mobilize not just that 10% of Amiga adherents who collect one or two pieces, or 2000? So that defines the third stage of establishing what the heritage is.

NIMk: If we take this comparison to the museums, this is exactly the point we're at now, how to mobilize them? Some museums have bought some computer-based artworks. They will have to maintain them for the next hundred years, but they don’t yet have a strategy on how to do it.

Gerard Alberts: It’s worse, they are in a crisis, because they have no clue of what to do.

NIMk: Museums are looking into conserving media artworks in the same way that they handle objects: considering what elements might belong to the artwork; if replacing parts would harm the authenticity; if together with the work the related equipment should be bought; if the equipment should be hired, can it be updated or not? What does this mean? Of course there are also, within the museum world, good practices such as DOCAM, Inside Installations and the Variable Media Network and so on, for which guidelines, decision making models and case studies are researched. In practice they are applicable to individual works and are based on conversations with individual artists. There are some clues, but no general approach and network.

So, how can such an obligation or task be met? How to select? How to handle the amount of work? NIMk, for instance, has around 100 computer-based artworks. We’ve always had a policy in which we collect the documentation and let’s say the moving image together here at our premises and the artist him/herself takes care of the equipment. That is the way we’ve dealt with it. The museums have dealt with it in a different way. Some of them have collected and dedicated certain computer equipment, included software and everything related to one specific artwork. Others have collected equipment, which they share, using them for several artworks; some don't buy equipment, etc.

Gerard Alberts: …what the heritage is supposed to be. We are running straight into this paradox. Of what it is you're actually doing when you start to emulate. You also need to take into consideration the very fact that causes all these paradoxes. It was new and people did things, stringing the pieces of equipment together that they had. Which is not only far easier to do today, but also it is very hard to reinstate what they could do at that time. I remember my children showing me a moving image on a website. That was totally new. Not the screen of the computer, not being filmed line by line, or even the conventional imaging. I wasn’t over the horror of the impact of playing DOOM yet, but they were fascinated by the 3D imaging.

Those were moments of fascination. If you zoom out, what you have to work hard to preserve is that fascination with novelty. And then you see that you want to preserve, if possible, a working copy. The fact that artists were experimenting with the same thing, or protesting against the same thing. Who are those artists again who mess up on purpose?

NIMk: Jodi, we have some of their works in collection.

Gerard Alberts: They see what’s possible and they remind us that it's all just code. They mess up the code and show you what happens, so they really are confronting us. That’s what they are trying to bring across. Zooming out is easy. If you zoom in and say ‘oh, here is this artwork; how do I preserve it?’, then you are at a loss. Because then the matter arises on how one can emulate messing up the code. I find that such a marvellous example of the paradox of reinstating a work of art. Because the work of art itself is involved in messing up. If we can solve that example, I think we can solve a lot. But you can’t solve it if you zoom out and say ‘ok, this is a piece from the 1990’s (or whatever the date is)’. The example stands for the whole category of the booming game business; for the early examples of online gaming; for the category of artists reflecting on that and throwing this reflection in your face. That is the important thing. Whatever you do, it is that experience that you should want to preserve.

NIMk: Within the Inside Installations project that was found to be an important topic. We all basically agree on this. And within all the restoration and conservation research the artwork is researched within its context. For media artworks and especially computer-based works there is a specific technical, social and critical context. Alongside this, artist interviews are common practise. Sometimes even the audience/participants are taken into account. This is also done with performances.

Gerard Alberts: There is some memory left and people can still tell you. When I interview people, I find their muscles have memories. People who saw performances in the Stedelijk Museum in the 70’s can vividly recount what aspect most shocked them then.

NIMk: This is within the realm of the documentation of interactive art and performance based art. In terms of restoration, conservation, re-enactment or reconstruction, on the other hand, the focus is more on the physical object issue.

Gerard Alberts: I must say I was totally abhorred by the idea of re-enactment in the first place. Today I admit that when it comes to software, you have to go down that lane. And you have to do a re-enactment of the software. There is a re-enactment of the hardware and it has to be done for the software as well. And now comes the tricky part. If you talk of software in the 1950’s, then I have a historical notion of it as a historian. The word came about because they wanted to describe creating such machines. People were in fact making layered programmes. The novel style of programming was of programmes making programmes, emulation, and simulation. Anyway, there are several expressions relating to the experience of what is actually being done if you want to perform preserving practices like emulation. So what do you have against emulation? Again at that point I would be inclined, as a historian, to say ‘Let’s leave it there. We zoom out, what were they actually doing?’ But I’m fascinated enough to want to keep my hands on the actual practice of emulation as well.

NIMk: The artwork has a value. An economic value as well. And to change it, to update a piece, can change the value. All these issues are of course related to each other.

Gerard Alberts: There is a final point here. Heritage is about identification. I’m trying to bring in the narrative aspect here, because the whole notion of heritage is that you can present heritage all the time –present also in the sense of presenting, making present. And in the age of “real existing post-modernism”, what can heritage mean? As a cultural historian I find it's my duty to sit back and think what can heritage mean at all in this era when we do not have any fixed identity. In this horrific prospect of looking into the history of games, this dilemma of heritage, which I described in abstract terms, stares us right in the face. There are these old games, vintage games, but can you tell which is the original? There is no trace of authenticity or identity to it. Moreover the original games are drowning amongst the multitude of emulations being marketed – often as “vintage”– today. Tell me then, with which object we would identify it and make it heritage? And to which cultural identity may it be connected? Or how could I “identify” with it? This is a serious problem. And we are not just talking about the technical notion of heritage; we are seriously rethinking it. Philosophers like Derrida help us not to fear about the whole heritage issue exploding. But it’s being put into perspective, it’s losing firm ground. That’s all fine and you can call it heritage, but you should be very much aware that it is no longer the heritage it used to be.

NIMk: Yes, and we should be really transparent about it. This idea that we emulate things and try to recreate things. In a sense it's of great importance that there be some kind of heritage. But then again, one must do it convincingly because everything is changing culturally around us by the minute. All of the experiences we are having now are influencing what we’re watching…

Gerard Alberts: Yes, and more than that, it's biting its own tail. What we appreciate in these artists so much is that they are sensitive to these fundamental motions in culture, more than others.

Philosophers like Deleuze or Derrida help us put the issue into a broader perspective. I feel that this literature should be studied in relation to the theme of heritage, even if a project like Obsolete Equipment will hardly offer the time for it. My own most intensive involvement with this literature was with Martijn Stevens in Nijmegen. He wrote his dissertation on Digital Art and its Preservation. (Radboud University, 2010)6.

NIMk: Thank you, this has given us a good overview of the things you’ve been involved in and how it relates to our research. It feels like an invitation to find people to join your camp and to see how we can go there. Even the vocabulary is similar.

Gerard Alberts: Perhaps we are talking about the heritage of the “born digital”?

Notes:

2. Jaren van berekening; toepassingsgerichte initiatieven in de Nederlandse wiskunde-beoefening, 1945 - 1960, G. Alberts. Amsterdam: AUP, 1998
3. Het meest gelezen gaatje; De ponskaarteninstallatie in de administratie (Scryption 1993/4).
4. Collectie Nederland Oude Computers, Gerard Alberts. Tilburg: Werkgroep Verzamelbeleid Computerhistorie (Scryption), 2000.
5. http://nimk.nl/nl/conservering-mediakunst-collecties
6. Martijn Stevens, Virtual Memory: Art Museums in a Digital Culture (PhD Radboud University, 2010)

Case study rapport: black and white… (2001, Nan Hoover)

rony — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:36:35 +0000

Kunstenaar: Nan Hoover

Titel: black and white…

Creatiejaar: 2001

Type: Closed circuit video-installatie

Collectie: Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst (NIMk)

Onderzoeker: Eve Dullaart

Publicatiejaar: 2010

Taal van case study rapport: Nederlands (met korte Engelse samenvatting).

Download de PDF-versie om het case study rapport te lezen.

black_and_white_nan_hoover.pdf

Case study rapport: Panta Rhei (1998, Ricardo Füglistahler)

rony — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:34:13 +0000

Kunstenaar: Ricardo Füglistahler

Titel: Panta Rhei

Creatiejaar kunstwerk: 1988

Type kunstwerk: Videosculptuur

Collectie: Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE)

Onderzoeker: Evelyne Snijders

Publicatiejaar: 2010

Taal van case study rapport: Nederlands (met korte Engelse samenvatting)

Download de PDF-versie om het case study rapport te lezen.

panta_rhei_ricardo_fuglistahler.pdf

Case study rapport: Straggling (1995/2009, Christiaan Bastiaans)

rony — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:31:16 +0000

Kunstenaar: Christiaan Bastiaans

Titel: Straggling

Creatiejaar kunstwerk: 1995/2009

Type kunstwerk: Video-installatie

Collectie: Kröller-Müller Museum (KMM)

Onderzoeker: Evelyne Snijders (KMM)

Publicatiejaar: 2010

Taal van case study rapport: Nederlands (met korte Engelse samenvatting)

Download de PDF-versie om het case study rapport te lezen.

straggling_christian_bastiaans.pdf

Case study rapport: Mill x Molen (1982/1990, Bert Schutter)

rony — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:10:32 +0000

Kunstenaar: Bert Schutter

Titel: Mill x Molen

Creatiejaar kunstwerk: 1982/1990

Type kunstwerk: Videosculptuur, video-installatie

Collectie: Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE)

Onderzoeker: Evelyne Snijders

Publicatiejaar: 2010

Taal van case study rapport: Nederlands (met korte Engelse samenvatting)

Deze case study beschrijft de technische en ethische kwesties die opduiken bij het herinstalleren en het preserveren van de computergebaseerde interactieve installatie Mill x Molen (1982/1990) van de Nederlandse kunstenaar Bert Schutter.

Deze studie is onderdeel van het project Obsolete apparatuur: het behoud van afspeel- en weergaveapparatuur voor audiovisuele kunst dat door Platform voor de Archivering en Preservering van Audiovisuele Kunst (PACKED vzw, Brussel, België) en het Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst (NIMk, Amsterdam, Nederland) wordt ondersteund. Het project Obsolete apparatuur brengt case studies samen van NIMk, M HKA (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerpen, België), S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, België), Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, Nederland), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Nederland) en Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (Amsterdam, Nederland).

Het onderzoek naar Mill x Molen maakt deel uit van de eerste fase van het project die is gewijd aan videogebaseerde kunst en die tot doel heeft een theoretisch en praktisch kader voor te stellen en te verkennen voor de distributie, het tentoonstellen, het beheer en het behoud van videogebasserde kunstwerken.

Download de PDF-versie om het case study rapport te lezen.

Mill x Molen (1982/1990), Bert Schutter, case study report.

Case study rapport I/Eye (1993/2011, Bill Spinhoven)

rony — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:32:13 +0000

Kunstenaar: Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten

Titel: I/Eye

Creatiejaar kunstwerk: 1993/2011

Type kunstwerk: Interactieve computergebaseerde sculptuur

Collectie: Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst (NIMk)

Onderzoekers: Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten, Gaby Wijers, Hanna Hölling

Publicatiejaar: 2011

Taal van case study rapport: Engels

Deze case study beschrijft de technische en ethische kwesties die opduiken bij het herinstalleren en het preserveren van de computergebaseerde interactieve installatie I/Eye (1993/2011) van de Nederlandse kunstenaar Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten.

Het onderzoek naar I/Eye maakt deel uit van de tweede fase van het project die is gewijd aan computergebaseerde kunst en die tot doel heeft een theoretisch en praktisch kader voor te stellen en te verkennen voor de distributie, het tentoonstellen, het beheer en het behoud van elektronische en digitale kunstwerken.

Download de PDF om het volledige rapport te lezen.

I/Eye (1993/2011), Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten, case study report.

Ethics and practices of media art conservation, a work-in-progress (version 0.5)

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:29:41 +0000

Auteur: Gaby Wijers (Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst)

Publicatiedatum: augustus 2010

Introduction

Since the 1970s, media art has become a category in itself, with a growing number of artists experimenting with technology. We can define and categorise media art in different ways: by its technological and artistic context; in the context of fine art as opposed to film and information and communication technology (ICT); and by its temporal character, as opposed to the traditional understanding of fine art disciplines. We could also define media art as a broader category that embraces various electronic art forms such as video art (the oldest and most well known example), media art installations, computer-based art, (digital) performances, net-based art, etc., and combinations of all these. What all these art forms have in common is their technological nature, which result in specific vulnerabilities in terms of contexts and technologies and a shortened lifespan.

The use of ephemeral materials or of rapidly ageing media technologies affects the material stability and, frequently, the meaning of media artworks. It is characteristic of media art is that there is a carrier (of the signal and the information), which can only be made visible with the help of playback equipment, displayed on or via display devices (monitors, beamers, etc.), and, occasionally, related signal processing or control equipment. In all cases all the components of a media artwork are interdependent: a media art installation can only be displayed if the monitors and the other devices are still functioning. The equipment is thus not only crucial for display, but also for preservation and digitisation; transfer to a different format will be impossible without suitable equipment. Whether the manner of presentation requires specific technical equipment or not depends on the artist. In spite of all (conservation) efforts, all of this technical equipment will eventually become obsolete due to the fragility of its components and ongoing technological advances. This obsolescence of physical storage formats and presentation equipment is the most appealing challenge in the conservation of media art. PACKED vzw1 and the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk)² focus on this technological dependency in their research during the Obsolete Equipment project2.

Since the end of the 1990s, media artworks and the obsolescence of the associated equipment have received considerable attention in conservation research and literature. Two divergent approaches can be distinguished: the ‘purist/original-technology-at-all-costs’ approach, and the ‘adapted/updated-technology-approach’. Both approaches are valid but a suitable approach somewhere between these two has to be found. It would be an error on the part of collecting institutions to give up too quickly on old technology. Decisions have to be made about the value of that technology for the work. Some of the issues involved are:

• What is important to preserve, and how should it be preserved?

• What are the essential aesthetic and technological elements that absolutely need to be preserved if the artwork is to retain any integrity in the future? And how should they be preserved?

• If essential technological elements cannot be preserved, can they be replaced, and how?

• What is essential to establishing the origins and authenticity of the work?

Questions covered in the Obsolete Equipment project include:

• Do we have to accept a greater degree of loss than contemporary art conservation is used to if we want to deal with the increasingly ephemeral technological components of media artworks?

• What decision-making models and guidelines are available for the preservation of media artworks that are threatened by the obsolescence of the playback and display equipment, and for the preservation of the necessary equipment?

• What are international best practices for the preservation of media artworks and for the preservation of necessary equipment?

• What are international best practices for the migration and emulation3 of media artworks that are threatened by the obsolescence of the playback and display equipment, and for the preservation of necessary equipment4?

1. Ethics of media art conservation

In fine art conservation, the main ethical issue is that all conservation activities should be faithful to the integrity of the original art object, respecting both the authentic, original appearance of the work and the artist’s original intention. Most ethical codes specify different kinds of integrity: physical, aesthetic and historical. The first refers to the material components, the second describes the ability of an object to create an aesthetical sensation for the viewer, and the last describes the history that has imprinted on the object5. These concepts of integrity (appearance and intention) are the greatest and most urgent issues confronting the field of media art conservation.

Uniqueness and Authenticity

The most widespread conception of a work of art is that it is a unique object. Media art challenges this conception, since the uniqueness of the physical manifestation is not applicable to video art, or to other forms of media art. A media artwork is certainly unique and authentic but its tangible form as such is not – the (analogue) video signal and the (digital) computer code can be copied: video is a technically reproducible medium with masters, sub-masters, copies, etc. Furthermore, most display equipment is mass-produced and is not necessarily unique unless it has been modified by or for the artists. In times of mechanical and digital reproduction the notion of a unique artwork is no longer seen to be relevant by a significant sector in contemporary art, namely media art.

In the case of Das Ende des Jahrhunderts (1985), by Klaus vom Bruch, the video Azimuth included in the work is not only a part of this installation but is also a video work in itself that has been acquired by a number of collections6.

Since the cameras and monitors used in black-and-white... (2002), by Nan Hoover, were purely functional and mass-produced, the function of the equipment could be mapped without discernible change, and since the equipment is hidden from the viewer it could be replaced by equipment having the same functionality7.

While fine arts preservation often deals with objects, material and the notions of authenticity and originality, media art preservation is not primarily concerned with physical manifestation; instead, we deal with increasingly ephemeral technological components and this is reflected in the refreshing strategies that are developed and implemented. Furthermore, the original authentic state often varies greatly, either because variance is sometimes part of the concept, or over the course of subsequent presentations. The question is, what kind of authenticity is preferable: conceptual authenticity faithful to the artist’s intention, or contextual and functional authenticity based on the original context and function of the work? The most common concept of authenticity in fine art conservation is based on physical integrity.

The starting point for the research in the case of Project I-’90 (1989–90), by Peter Struycken, was authentic presentation, i.e., a re-installation using identical components to those used in the original installation. This approach to re-installation was not realisable in practice because on the one hand, a significant proportion of the variables relating to the equipment are unknown and, on the other, some of the equipment, specifically the slide projector unit, no longer exists. For a presentation where the media authenticity has to be preserved, (some of) the original equipment is replaced by similar, but not obsolete models. The missing links in the complete authentic version must be determined again – insofar as it is possible, in consultation with the artist – and this information can serve as installation instructions for future presentations. Technically speaking, this version is realisable; artistically there are some problems in establishing the relationship between the deterioration of colour and the meaning of Struycken’s work. While a certain degree of deterioration is acceptable with many other film- and slide-based artworks, it is problematic in this work by Struycken where colour is the central theme. The colours of slides and films in Project I-’90 have to be as close to the original as possible. Using digital techniques to process the original material was the only workable way of restoring the colour balance to the films and slides. Furthermore, the possibility of exactly positioning the images from the slides on the filmstrip was lost during the transfer from analogue to digital production techniques. However, preserving authenticity and meaning while respecting the artist’s intentions has remained problematic. In this re-installed version the work is not defined by its media and associated equipment, but as a projection, regardless of the way in which this projection is realised. In practice this will mean some form of video projection (yet to be tested). Peter Struycken has a distinct preference for this form of re-installation, which is in fact a classic emulation8.

For Dennis Oppenheim’s installation Circle Puppets (1994) the support [equipment] was not an important factor in the identity of the work and he considered the TV monitors and DVD players as tools, the originals of which do not have to be preserved (...)9.

Traditional fine art preservation concepts of authenticity and uniqueness are reconsidered for media art preservation. Inspired by the Variable Media Network (VMN)10 and DOCAM11, an entirely new framework and vocabulary have been introduced using notions such as ‘medium independent’, ‘variable’, ‘behaviour’, ‘migration’ and ‘emulation’12. As Pip Laurenson points out, ‘Discussions about authenticity and time-based media artworks will become more prevalent in time'13. A recent alternative to the concept of ‘authenticity’ is the notion of ‘historically informed performance’. Johannes Gfeller is one of the media art conservation researchers who work with this notion14. ‘Historically informed performance’ (HIP, also referred to as period performance, or authentic performance) is a widespread approach, or movement, in music performance. In performance studies it is seen as a discipline related to all forms of authenticity, and it examines how music was performed at the time it was composed15. It is interesting to think about an equivalent approach for media art.

Artist’s intention and signature

Closely related to the guiding conservation principles of respecting authenticity and integrity is the notion of the artist’s intention and signature. When replacing (obsolete) equipment it is crucial to deal with issues relating to active artistic involvement, modifications by the artist, and specifications about the equipment used by the artist. During the last decade it is has become common practice to consult and interview artists when preservation problems relating to damage and obsolescence arise. Laurenson advocates redefining the notion of artist’s intention in terms of ‘work-defining properties’: ‘The kinds of things that might act as work-defining properties of a time-based media installation are plans and specifications demarcating the parameters of possible change, display equipment, acoustic and aural properties, light levels, the way the public encounters the work, and the means by which the time-based media element is played back. The artist might explicitly provide work-defining instructions to the museum or designate a model installation from which the key properties of the work can be gleaned.’16

Mon.-Sun. (1996) and Bach Two Part Intervention (1998) by Jonathan Horowitz were made specifically for VHS tapes, which, because they are also a sculptural component of the work, cannot be replaced. The museum should be supplied with files and instructions on how to print out the labels so that by following these instructions the integrity of the work is retained. Of course all the components have to be kept: a ¾” TV from the time the piece was made, the custom-made TV stands, and so on. The equipment is part of the piece. If all of this material is available, it should be possible to make new VHS tapes and labels, but the artist is unsure if all of these are at the museum.17

The artist’s interview has become a vital tool in the conservation of contemporary art. It is now best practice to conduct such an interview at the moment of acquisition or when issues relating to obsolescence or re-installation arise18. The artist is consulted ever more frequently and is asked to authorise decisions about re-presentation and conservation. One could even go a step further and state that a growing number of presentations and re-presentations become collaborative projects between artists and the curator and/or conservator and that, in some cases, this collaboration already starts when work on the project begins. As media art is often a collaborative effort, artists should not be seen as being the sole author of the work; the interview should therefore include their assistants, programmers and in the case of co-production, the curators too.

Artists’ intentions and their opinions on conservation are important but not sacred. In practice an artist’s views evolve and current solutions could alter their earlier work, and some artists prefer to conserve their work using methods a conservator might not agree with. It is the role of the conservator to understand what might constitute an authentic media artwork and ensure that such a presentation is possible, whether the artist cooperates or not.

Functionality and Significance

As a media artwork can only be full experienced while it is functioning, properties relating to use, context and concept have to be taken into consideration – display without functionality would result in a great loss of meaning.

In the case of Insert Coin (1999), by Hans Op de Beeck, it transpired that an important component of the original installation was missing: the custom-made operating system that controls the incoming and outgoing signals19. The absence of this component meant that the work stopped functioning at a certain point. Hans Op de Beeck updated the entire system (a programmed Flash card player, monitor and electronics) to make the work functional again. Unfortunately, referring to the original version was no longer possible, as the original components are no longer available. In addition, the original version was not well documented by its owner and its caretaker.21 From the case study report by researcher Evelyne Snijders.

For digital works, technologists suggest the ‘solution’ that we merely need to copy a file onto a new physical storage medium before the old medium becomes obsolete. This was already common practice with analogue video and film. Nowadays we can recopy a digital file onto a new medium without any loss of information. This concept of ‘Refreshing’ involves periodically moving a file from one physical storage medium to another to pre-empt the physical decay or the obsolescence of that medium12. The common practices and guidelines that have been formulated over the years as well as experience gained are consulted when translating the video signals. The preservation criteria for display and playback equipment are still being formulated, however. Two key approaches have been suggested to deal with the problem of transferral: migration and emulation.

In the case of Panta Rhei (1988), by Ricardo Füghlistahler, the defective monitor can either be repaired, be replaced by exactly the same brand and type of black-and-white monitor, be replaced by a similar type of black & white monitor, be simulated by a similar type of colour monitor, or even be emulated with the aid of modern techniques. Each of these options has different consequences that must be taken in consideration.

Repair: repairing the broken monitor remains true to the original equipment used by the artist. But repairs are not always possible, and even if they are, they can result in a loss of quality or differences when the video material is played back.

Replacement: replacing the broken monitor with exactly the same brand and model remains true to the artist’s intentions. This monitor can be modified in the same way as the original. If replacing the broken monitor with a comparable black & white monitor is close to the artist’s intention, the replacement must be adapted to match the modified broken monitor. In both cases there could be a difference in quality or appearance compared to the other monitor, meaning that perhaps both monitors should be replaced.

Migration: by replacing the broken monitor with a similarly shaped newer colour monitor, you distance yourself somewhat from the artist’s intention. The differences in appearance and the quality of the image displayed on a colour monitor and on a black & white monitor would necessitate exchanging the other (still functioning) black & white monitor as well.

Emulation: replacing obsolete techniques with modern equipment that retains the original look and feel. If there is a difference in quality or appearance, perhaps both monitors should be replaced. In the Panta Rhei case study, the broken monitor could be repaired. There was no loss of quality during playback of the video material compared to the second monitor used in the video sculpture.20

Despite all efforts, current technological equipment will wear out and become obsolete, which means that decisions have to be made whether and how to update the equipment. Laurenson proposes an approach that involves assigning significance to display equipment, its relation to the work’s identity based on conceptual, aesthetic and historical criteria, and the role the equipment plays in the work. Identifying functional significance is seen here as an initial step to understanding the importance and use of the equipment.21

2. On Changes and Challenges22

The only accurate way to test if we have understood, documented and transferred the constituent parts of a work of art and the work itself is by re-installing the work. The general approach, therefore, is to conduct case studies and interviews with artists and other key figures involved in the work. This approach was also adopted for the Obsolete Equipment project, which conducted more than ten video-based case studies and interviews in its first year. Included in the research for the case studies are the artist or culture of production, the collection or work of art (history, creation, context), and descriptions of the anatomy, character and identity of the artwork that are in line with the artist’s intentions. These case studies also define the appropriate approach and the desired result. Important questions that were asked included: How are the problems related to this work defined, what solution/approach is proposed, and what is the result of this approach in relation to the definition of the problem? When answering these questions, areas of special interest such as storage, obsolete equipment, risk analysis and documentation arise. These questions indicated a logical route to follow. Following this route highlights the core problems and areas requiring attention. Fundamental to the route is the full realisation of the character of video and multimedia artworks. This awareness influences the way such artworks are approached during their lifespan, and fosters the awareness that special care is required when it comes to (collecting and) storage, obsolescence, risk analysis, and documentation.

Collecting and storing (obsolete) equipment

The importance of collecting and storing equipment has been underestimated for far too long. Although storing is the usual museum conservation approach, it has never been common practice to collect all the related equipment for media artworks. Frequently, all the equipment required for an installation is no longer available and/or the equipment pool is used to display a number of artworks. Furthermore, there is often a lack of proper storage facilities and documentation. Their vulnerability, along with rapid technological changes, makes functioning equipment scarce. Over the last few years the lack of dedicated equipment and knowhow about how to deal with it has been recognised and addressed on a growing scale. It is preferable to collect and store equipment that could be related to the artworks in a collection. Gfeller mentions two approaches to collecting and storing equipment:

• Storing the original equipment;

• Storing generic equipment typically used to present video artworks from a certain time period23.

This equipment can be used for presentations and research, as a reference when defining an artwork’s original appearance, and as starting point for emulation. Collecting relevant as well as dedicated equipment is seen as a way to gain more insights into how artworks were produced and presented; this is one of the main questions when it comes to preserving media artworks for future generations. A collection of representative cameras, players, recorders, computers, monitors, etc., is difficult to realise and manage. An important resource such as this has been realised for research purposes and incidental presentations at the Bern University of the Arts (BUA) and the ZKM (Centre for Art and Media) in Karlsruhe.

One could state that all the material belonging to a media art installation can be an inseparable part of the artwork. The visual material itself, the playback and projecting equipment, the original cables, sync devices, plugs and monitors could be essential to its re-installation. It must be possible to link all these component parts together, and register and document each of them with a condition report, which also specifies their location in the depot. This is extremely important, as it simplifies identifying which objects belong to a specific work of art.

The significance of the equipment can be extracted from the meaning and value of the work. The case studies and interviews revealed that, in general, not all the equipment has the same value for the meaning of a work of art. Information carriers, playback equipment and cables can often be replaced. Monitors appear to have the most bearing on the appearance of the artwork.

In the case of Bert Schutter’s Mill x Molen (1982) no original equipment was saved. The hanging construction (a metal scaffold) and the documentation were still available but all twelve Sony PVM-2730QM cube monitors and the U-matic syncstarter were no longer part of the collection-owner’s holdings. After the Netherlands Office for Fine Arts (now the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, ICN) acquired the work in 1990, all the equipment was transferred to Montevideo (now NIMk), after which NIMk transferred all equipment to Beam Systems in the first decade of the 21st century. Problems arose from the incorrect storage of materials, including the scattering and even the loss of several components. Twelve monitors had to be hired for the re-installation of Mill x Molen. It was not possible to hire them from one company; in fact, two rental companies struggled to meet the request. Unfortunately, even if only one of the monitors breaks down it will result in the loss of the visual appearance and experience of Mill x Molen. It is reasonable to expect this to happen within the next few years. The monitors determine both the aesthetic look of the installation and its historicity – the appearance of the installation is determined by the size and position of the monitors within the metal scaffold, as well as by the high quality of the screens. Sony monitors of this type are no longer produced. The best conservation strategy for Mill x Molen is to acquire and store twelve monitors, with a few in reserve. A documented technical analysis of the functionality of the monitors would offer the possibility of safeguarding the functioning of installations in the future, even if the preserved monitors were no longer working24.

Collecting equipment includes collecting spare equipment and spare parts, proper storage and regular maintenance. Best practices for storage and maintenance are brought together as part of the Obsolete Equipment project25. The issue of storing equipment is an institutional problem. The participating institutions either have no – or only occasional – opportunities to specialise in this. Moreover, the quantity of necessary equipment will be such that it will exceed the storage capacities of the individual institutions, and the necessary knowhow is only occasionally available. During the Obsolete Equipment project the desire was repeatedly expressed to collectively store (historical) equipment, and preferably in one location. This seems to be the most viable solution at the moment.

Obsolescence

Although proper storage and maintenance can extend the natural lifespan of electronic media and equipment considerably, it is probably only a temporary solution, as all equipment will eventually break down. The question is if their lifespan can be extended indefinitely through maintenance and repairs, especially when spare parts also become obsolete. Besides proper storage, maintenance and use as ways to extend the natural lifespan of electronic media and equipment, as well as general preservation practices should be taken in consideration when thinking about conserving media art. Conservators are only just starting to be confronted with this problem but Tate, for example, is interested in managing the way in which artworks using rare equipment are displayed, rather than just packing them away.

They would love to explore if there is an option of having a special exhibition at some point dedicated to works of art that use rare equipment as a way to stimulate more discussion on these issues. For example, exhibit some of the works that use rare equipment for a limited time during the day, for study purposes, or conduct research at weekly events; otherwise it might be very difficult to do. It is preferable that these works are being dealt with and are on display, rather than being in storage. Tina Weidner believes that as long as the equipment is still there, it is better to keep it going6.

Media art conservation has fostered new lines of enquiry, such as what is the estimated lifespan of a media artwork, and how can this be calculated? The sense of urgency in dealing with new media preservation was probably best expressed by Richard Rinehart, ‘With digital art, there’s no room for things to fall between the cracks. ... If you don’t do something to preserve it within a span of five years, it’s not going to survive.’26 This statement is especially valid for digital art; the estimated lifespan of video art is a little longer, but not much. Because of the rapid developments dictated by commercial suppliers, the data storage of media art (video, laser-disc, CD-ROM, DVD, software, networks, etc.) as well as it’s presentation technology (monitors, projectors, hardware, etc.) are seldom current for more than ten years. The first step in the conservation of video art installations is usually migrating the video signal to a format suitable for archiving. Once the original visual material from an obsolete carrier or an outdated format has been digitised, the visual material is no longer dependent on the accompanying obsolete playback technology. This migration makes it possible in most cases to replace equipment with contemporary models. However, this is difficult, if not impossible, if the ‘look and feel’ needs to be respected.

As, for example, with ‘Oratorium voor een geprepareerde videoplayer en acht monitoren’ (Oratory for Prepared Video Player and Eight Monitors, 1989), by Frank Theys, or Mon._ Sun. (1996) and Bach Two Part Intervention (1998), by Jonathan Horowitz, where the tapes are a sculptural elements too27.

In the case study Das Ende des Jahrhunderts Klaus vom Bruch stated that it is important not to fake the process. He prefers the original equipment but had no objections to updating it. He always wants the old equipment displayed beside the installation, so that viewers can see what the original work consisted of and that it has been updated.28

The best approach to carrying out case studies of media artworks and the conservation of equipment were defined based on Inside Installations practice. The possible strategies for the conservation of equipment include:

• Restoring/repairing the original equipment

• Acquiring spare equipment:

• Historical copy: replacing the equipment with the same model or a type from the same period with the same or similar functions.

• New copy: replacing the equipment with the same model or type from a later period, i.e., a more recent model with the same or similar functions.

• Migration: Reconstructing the equipment with present-day technology.

• Emulation: Reconstructing the equipment with present-day technology while retaining the original look and feel.

• Re-interpretation: Replacing the equipment with present-day equipment based on the metaphorical values of the original equipment (the exterior of the new equipment is not per definition the same as the original equipment, but will have the same ‘status’ within the time-frame in which the equipment is used).

• Reconstruction: A complete reconstruction of the work based on whatever information is still available.

Identifying functional significance is seen as starting point to understanding the importance and use of the equipment. The key questions are:

• Is the equipment purely functional or not?

• Can the function of the equipment be mapped without discernible change?

• Is the equipment visible or hidden from the viewer?

The general strand in these cases is to replace equipment or components with the same mass-produced model or with equipment having the same functionality. Replacing equipment when the look and feel of visible components and output belongs to a particular historical moment in time, or is related to a particular context, or to contemporary use of that technology, could endanger the aesthetic and historical integrity.

The use of modern equipment usually means a change in the appearance of the work compared to the original version. In some cases the original equipment is an essential part of the work; the artwork ceases to exist when this equipment disappears or becomes obsolete. It is therefore important to assess the status of the equipment within the artwork in order to arrive at a conservation strategy with regard to the equipment used.

The case studies show that there is a clear distinction between the significance of playback and display equipment. This issue is raised regularly in interviews. The consensus is that in most cases the playback equipment can be upgraded without causing too many problems. Display equipment is more problematic, however. Johannes Gfeller is quite categorical about this and advises interfering with the display equipment as little as possible. Pip Laurenson is more flexible in this regard and does not consider upgrading projectors as a significant problem, but has doubts about upgrading CRT monitors. Experience, research and the interviews with Pip Laurenson and Tina Weidner, among others, show that we should not rely on manufacturers as sources of vital technical information. The experience garnered by museums themselves is often considerably more important.

When it comes to replacing obsolete equipment, conservators and artists do not necessarily share the same viewpoint, and in such instances consultation and respect for each other’s point of view is essential. This can lead to surprising results. The Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp (M HKA) wants to upgrade ‘Oratorium…’ by using digital signals, but the artist is opposed to this and wants to retain the analogue signal. Artists are also happy to help find a solution – Klaus vom Bruch suggested displaying the obsolete equipment of Das Ende des Jahrhunderts, 1985, alongside the new (although quite how this should be done is still unclear).

Upgrading or replacement is not necessarily a negative approach; Peter Struycken, for example, was pleasantly surprised by the new version of Project I-’90:

I was surprised to see this work again in such a comprehensible condition after 20 years. Although all sorts of inaccuracies have crept in over the course of time, I had an extremely good impression of my work. I regard the reconstructed version in the same way you would listen to an old gramophone record. The intention of the performer remains audible despite all the scratches and clicks. And in this reconstruction I can clearly and easily recognise my own intentions.29

In the interview with Pip Laurenson and Tina Weidner, Weidner stated that almost anything is preferable to ending up in a situation where the work cannot be exhibited because those involved cling resolutely to the original equipment. Basically, if something has been lost, it should be acknowledged as such and made clear to the public (e.g., by creating or changing labels). This would thus be a curatorial responsibility.

Risk analysis

As risk is defined as the ‘the expected loss of value’, the initial cultural value of an object or collection needs to be established. The greatest threats to media artworks are malfunction, autonomous decay and dissociation. The risk assessment methodology developed for collections of ‘traditional’ art provides a practical route to follow. This methodology was used for the first time during the Inside Installations project to evaluate risks facing media art30.

The core issues in risk analysis are:

• Identifying the risks: what has the past taught us, and what future risks can be expected that will shorten the lifespan of the equipment?

• Time pressure: how quickly should actions be taken to avert the threats or minimise their impact? What are the likely consequences of waiting too long?

• Technical and financial restraints: what is technically possible and what is financially feasible?

• Unpredictability: what can be done about dangers or risks that are difficult to predict at present?

This methodology assesses significance against four primary criteria (determining whether there is any cultural significance) and four comparative criteria (determining the degree of significance). Assessing the artistic/aesthetic values is the first primary criterion, which in contemporary art conservation is often referred to as ‘the heart of the artwork’.

In the case study ‘Oratorium voor een geprepareerde videoplayer en acht monitoren’, by Frank Theys, 1989, the equipment, i.e., the modified ¾” U-matic top loader, the 8 identical CRT monitors and the guitar amplifier including the speaker (and, of course, the 3/4” videotape) were regarded as key factors for the risk analysis.

The word ‘Oratorium’ (‘Oratory’) in the title has two meanings: ‘Oratory’ stands for a choral work usually of a religious nature consisting chiefly of recitatives, arias, and choruses without action or scenery, and is also the name for a prayer room with a small altar, in this case a loudspeaker (or, in the first version, loudspeakers) with a video player on top. In this way, Frank Theys uses a video installation to create a sacred space in which ritual and alienation meet. At the same time he also pokes fun at grand emotions such as patriotism and rivalry. The meaning of the work comes, on the one hand, from the use of the exhibition space and, on the other hand, the use of the image as music: the display of the same close-up of a man singing ‘ You’ll never walk alone’ on all of the monitors results in a continuous repetition of sound and image such that the video becomes music and the music becomes video. Because the work is installed in the exhibition space in a transparent way, viewers can understand how this video installation functions. They can walk around the circular installation and observe the videotape running as a loop in and out of the ¾” U-matic player. They can see how this ¾” U-matic player transmits the video signal through a set of cables to the eight CRT monitors, and the audio signal to the audio equipment (and the CRT monitors). The display equipment transforms the signals into image and sound. Through their arrangement in a circle around the video loop, with their screens facing the centre, the CRT monitors seem to ‘encourage’ their own support/carrier. After all, the image and the music cannot exist without the support/carrier (the ¾” U-matic tape).31

Historical value, the second primary criterion, was recognised as the (art)historical period in which the artwork was created. ‘Oratorium…’ was created at the end of the 1980s, a couple of years before media art came to maturity in the 1990s. It is also the period that corresponds with the beginning of the obsolescence of the ¾” U-matic format (and with the beginning of the widespread change-over from analogue to digital video).

Of the four comparative criteria (condition/completeness, provenance, rarity/representative and interpretive capacity), condition/completeness is paramount.

The constituent parts of the installation are integral parts of an ‘ensemble’, which should have the same look and feel as the original, even if technical components need replacing. If ‘Oratorium…’ lost its ‘functionality’, it would lose its ‘identity’ as a video installation and its frame would only be a ‘historic document’. The two main values for the total significance of ‘Oratorium…’ are artistic/aesthetic, subdivided into the characteristics that determine its identity: its relationship with the exhibition space, the arrangement of the equipment and its visual appearance…. By considering what would remain if the entire functionality (and thus the experience of the work) failed, it was determined that the ‘remains’ – the sculptural ‘corpse’ of the non-functional components (CRT monitors, video player and amplifier with loudspeaker) – still contributed historic and documentary values amounting to 10% of the total significance.

In the next step the abovementioned values were linked to the components determining the ‘look and feel’ of the work.

For example, the experience of sound, image and motion could be directly related to the arrangement of the various installation components in the exhibition space, the free movement of the viewer through the exhibition space, the ¾” videotape driven by a modified ¾” U-matic playback system and running in a visible loop through the exhibition space, the wear and tear of the ¾” U-matic videotape through use, the vulnerability and sensitivity of the entire technical set-up, the volume of the sound created by the guitar amplifier and the eight CRT monitors, and the calibration of the eight identical CRT monitors. Together, all these factors form a complex of interdependencies (both tangible and intangible) that should be taken into account in order to estimate the impact of expected changes in the future.

As shown above, risk analysis can establish significance and describe an artwork’s anatomy and identity. Furthermore, risks can be identified and scenarios can be developed that describe the anticipated future loss of value. Since replacement, migration and emulation are widespread conservation strategies for media art, the possibility of including recoverability of lost value can be explored in the assessment. Compared to the decisions curators and conservators might make based on their individual knowledge and experience, the rational, collaborative and structured risk assessment methodology can provide increased insights into the identity of the work and a ranking of the risks10. But case studies and interviews also show that we will never completely get to grips with the technical aspects. As Pip Laurenson says, you could obtain, for example, the statistics relating to failures from the manufacturers but you will never know what these are based on, and increasing amounts of second-hand equipment with an unknown history will be used32.

It seems that identifying, weighing, and navigating a different set of values for media artworks, such as meaning, function and intention, and how all of them will change over time would be even more appropriate.

Documentation

Due to their many variations in technology, effects and form, media artworks tend to follow a dynamic life cycle and require specific documentation. This documentation is at the heart of any preservation strategy for media art. Improving efforts to preserve media artworks will be far more complex without the support of structured documentation about the works and their context. An important task necessary to be able to adequately present (and experience) media art now and in the future is documenting the specific requirements for the presentation of media artworks. This is no easy task, as the ‘optimum’ form of presentation is difficult to define precisely for many such works. Furthermore, the original ‘authentic’ state often varies greatly through the course of different presentations. Thus, not only different presentations but also the various stages in the life of a media artwork (e.g., creation, presentation, guardianship) can supply information and documentation that could be of interest for its re-installation and preservation.

From the DOCAM website: ‘Documentation has been defined as a source of information that can fill many roles, depending on its use and time. First and foremost, from the moment the work is conceived, its documentation serves the artists and their collaborators – the first producers of documentation. As its development progresses, the documentation targets a growing audience – from conservators to curators and art critics – thus playing an important role in the mediation, dissemination and history of the artwork. Next, and often concurrent with this, the documentation is used and expanded upon through a variety of actions and activities, such as the work’s (re-)installation, preservation and restoration. Over time, re-installation and re-contextualization may be carried out. Later still, documentary elements may compensate for various ‘losses’ or deterioration suffered by the work, stemming primarily from the obsolescence of its technology or components. Ultimately, it is the documentation that will survive the work, becoming its historical witness and sometimes supplementing any remaining fragments or relics.’33

It is impossible to exhibit a video work or a multimedia work if the original equipment and the information about the components and the whole are lost. A lack of instructions may, for instance, lead to a faulty installation and/or an undesirable effect as a result of the incorrect playback speed, sound volume, resolution or surroundings.

For example, Straggling by Christian Bastiaans was presented in 1997, 2003, 2006 and 2009/2010. In 1997 and 2006 only one of the four audiovisual elements was projected. No documentation exists for the 2003 presentation, but as far as could be established no projection was involved. An artist interview was conducted for the Club Mama Gemütlich retrospective exhibition of Bastiaan’s oeuvre (30 October 2009 – 21 February 2010) and the optimum presentation requirements were documented; the artist states in this documentation that no projection is needed. The 2009/2010 presentation was in line with the artist’s intention.34

And, as frequently happens in performance-based art, theatre and music, the documentation could be the only surviving trace of the work.

The work Mill x Molen (1982), by Bert Schutter, is conceptually connected to time-specific artistic research. If the monitors break down beyond repair and cannot be replaced by others (from the same period), the installation should be declared dead and a reconstruction should be seen as documentation.⁴²

Tina Weidner: ‘I honestly think that this kind of idea has been too overworked. How much more time do you want to spend behind a desk only doing things to replace the work? I think that what is more important is to fight to keep the works accessible, and then you can address the conservation needs to keep them displayable. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable just putting paperwork up in a gallery.... It seems that in such cases everyone wants to exhibit the documentation instead of the actual work, but I haven’t seen an example that prompted me to say “very nicely delivered, it really gave me a feel for the work….” I think that if you are going to do it, you should do it on a wider scale and not just with paperwork.’ Pip Laurenson: ‘For some works you could have a documentary video, for example, which might help future viewers understand what the work looked like. … Although we haven’t had to fully confront this problem yet, I’m sure we will. It came up because we have been thinking about Nam June Paik recently and for many of his works the value and importance of the CRT monitors is obviously very high.’35

Since media art works require a proactive approach to care and management, gathering information that will ensure their display and care into the future is crucial at the moment of acquisition. Fortunately, a growing number of museums and other collecting institutions such as Tate, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and NIMk acknowledge the importance of documentation for future presentations and are prepared to integrate or already integrate a documentation strategy while acquiring the media art works.

Last but by no means least: the need for an interdisciplinary dialogue

Many of the difficult decisions faced by conservators of media art that are described in this essay pose highly complex ethical dilemmas, and in numerous instances there are disagreements within the conservation profession on how to resolve conflicting values. Art history and conservation have traditionally relied on the authority that each field brings to an artwork’s meaning and the way it is understood. This has to be re-evaluated when it comes to media artworks. We need an ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue wherein we re-think and revise the traditional and strict role definitions of the conservator, researcher, artist, curator, dealer, and others, as well as develop additional forums to discuss these issues in a cross–disciplinary way36. NIMk and PACKED offer this forum in the Obsolete Equipment project.

Appendix 1. Projects, guidelines and best practices in media art conservation

In recent years projects and institutions such as the Variable Media Network and Questionnaire, DOCAM, Inside Installations and Imago Revisited, Tate, Media Matters, Active Archive and NIMk, have developed specific guidelines and best practices for the maintenance and conservation of media art. A selection of projects are highlighted in this essay and listed in this appendix.

Variable Media Initiative

The Variable Media Initiative (VMI) was initially supported by a grant from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology of Montreal, Canada37, which comprises a group of international institutions and consultants, including University of Maine, the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archives, Franklin Furnace, Guggenheim Museum New York, Rhizome.org, and Performance Art Festival & Archives. Variable Media Network (VMN) is recognised for its new preservation approach, which integrates the analysis of materials with the definition of an artwork independent of its medium, allowing the work to be translated once its current medium becomes obsolete. By identifying the behaviour of a work (contained, installed, performed, reproduced, etc.) and strategies (storage, emulation, migration, and reinterpretation), artists, conservators and curators can advance the preservation of new media art. Describing a work of art, not only as a list of components and materials, but also by the way it behaves, is crucial to the Variable Media methodology. The four associated preservation strategies range from traditional to radical. Storage is the default strategy for most museums. For time-based media like film and video, this means keeping original projectors and hardware running for as long as possible, as well as stockpiling old equipment. For these types of works, migration is often seen as a more successful strategy. To emulate a work involves devising a way of imitating the original look of a piece by entirely different means. The term can be applied generally to a re-fabrication of an artwork’s components, but also has a specific meaning in the context of digital media, where emulation offers a powerful technique for running an outdated computer on a contemporary one. By far, the most radical strategy is to reinterpret the work each time it is recreated.

The Variable Media Initiative (VMI) organised symposia such as ‘Preserving the Immaterial: A Conference on Variable Media’ in March 200138, and the follow-up to this symposium ‘Echoes of Art: Emulation As a Preservation Strategy’ in May 200439. It also published Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach in 200340, and held the exhibition Seeing Double: Emulation in Theory and Practice in Spring 200441.

Furthermore the Variable Media Questionnaire was developed42, which is an interactive form linked to a database and is designed to assist artists and museum staff when drafting variable media guidelines. The Questionnaire is not meant to be exhaustive, but is intended to spur questions that must be answered in order to capture artists’ desires about how to translate their work into new mediums once the work’s original medium has expired. The Questionnaire asks questions about the inherent behaviour of each artwork that requires preservation. The database to which it is linked is available on request to artists and anyone else who would like to try it.

DOCAM

DOCAM (Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage, 2005–10) was an international research alliance initiated by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. DOCAM included several partners, such as the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Canadian Heritage Information Network, as well as departments at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), Université de Montréal and McGill. Its main objective was to develop new methodologies and tools to address the issues of preserving and documenting digital, technological, and electronic works of art, including the history of technology.

DOCAM conducted a number of case studies. The practical work carried out as part of the case studies produced five guides and tools that are now accessible on the DOCAM website:

• A Cataloguing Guide for New Media Collections;41

• The DOCAM Glossaurus – a bilingual terminological tool;42

• The DOCAM Documentary Model adapted to media art;43

• A Technological Timeline, which includes media artworks and technological components;44

• A Preservation Guide for Technology-Based Artworks.45

Choosing from the various conservation strategies is simplified by a series of questions that can be answered using a decision tree developed by DOCAM46. The decision tree is a restoration tool that allows stakeholders to identify the problems and potential solutions associated with preserving works that incorporate technological components. The tool facilitates decision-making by helping users focus on those aspects of a work that relate to its integrity and authenticity, while reflecting on how these aspects are impacted by the work’s technological components. The decision tree is applied to issues that define the roles played by technological components as elements of a work’s meaning. Is the equipment visible? Does it have a particular significance? What is the artist’s point of view? The answers to these and other questions help stakeholders identify the best restoration option from those outlined in the first two sections of DOCAM’s Preservation Guide for Technology-Based Artworks (emulation, migration, storage and reinterpretation).

In addition, a number of educational activities such as the DOCAM seminars and international summits were held and the documentation generated by these events is available on the DOCAM website.

Inside Installations

Inside Installations: Preservation and Presentation of Installation Art was a three-year research project (2004–7) into the care and management of installation art47. Over 33 installations, with a large corpus of media art installations, were re-installed, investigated and documented. Experience was shared and partners collaborated to develop good practice for five research topics:

• Preservation Strategies

• Artists’ Participation

• Documentation & Archiving Strategies

• Theory and Semantics

• Networking (Knowledge Management and Information Exchange)

In addition to information about artists and works involved in the project, the highly informative Inside Installations website provides general information about the project, access to lectures from project events, e-learning resources, a project bibliography and more. The nature of installation art is distinct from traditional art because it is wholly dependent on display for its realisation. An installation is more than a collection of physical objects – it often includes relationships to the space and dynamic behaviours. It is crucial to establish a full description of the state of an installation in order to understand the significance of the component parts for the installation as a whole. Only then can appropriate preservation strategies be developed and evaluated. The conservator’s preservation activities follow this shift away from a unique material object to an installed event. Conservation has moved beyond minimising change of a physical object to a broader mission to enable the installation of the work in the future in line with the artist’s intention and the historical character of the work. The research relating to Preservation Strategies focused on two main themes:

• Firstly, using risk analysis as a tool for developing conservation plans that addressed the complex needs of artists’ installations.

• Secondly, exploring the changing role of the conservator and curator in response to the preservation and presentation of artists’ installations.

The project was co-organised by Tate, London; Restaurierungszentrum der Landeshauptstadt, Dusseldorf; Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid; and the Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art (SBMK), the Netherlands, and was managed by the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN). The project was executed by members of the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art.

Matters in Media Art

Matters in Media Art is a multi-phase project designed to provide guidelines for the care and management of time-based media artworks. The project was created in 2003 by a consortium of curators, conservators, registrars and media technical managers from New Art Trust, MoMA, SFMOMA and Tate. The first phase of the project, on loaning time-based media works, was launched in 2004, and the second phase, on acquiring time-based media works, started in 2007.

The installation of time-based media works requires new skills and new areas of collaboration within museums. Whereas internationally agreed standards exist for the handling, installation and care of traditional works of art, such standards for time-based media works are rare. The project aims to raise awareness about the requirements of these works and provide a practical response to the need for international agreements between museums.

Matters in Media Art developed process diagrams and documents for loans as guidelines and templates for institutions and owners to follow when borrowing and lending time-based media artworks. These documents include sample templates for exhibition budgets, condition reports, facilities reports, installation documents and loan agreements. They seek to update existing practices for more traditional art by incorporating new requirements for time-based media. Because time-based media artworks require a proactive approach to their care and management, it is crucial to gather information that will ensure their display and care into the future at the moment of their acquisition. The process diagram and documents for the acquisition process are grouped into three overlapping phases: pre-acquisition, accessioning, and post-acquisition. Although these three phases are distinct, knowledge about the artwork builds continuously from the moment it is considered for acquisition to final installation and long-term storage. This knowledge informs future decisions about storing, exhibiting, loaning, and conserving the work. In the future the project will also address the needs of computer-based arts48.

AktiveArchive

The research project AktiveArchive, is an initiative of Bern University of the Arts (BUA) in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zurich (SIK/ISEA)49.

This project is dedicated to the preservation and documentation of electronic media and spatially related artworks; this is done by conducting specific case studies. The artwork is treated as a whole, focusing not just on the preservation of the electronic audiovisual part, but also on the other materials used, such as the hardware, and plastic, wood or metal components. AktiveArchive strives to make all the components of the artwork accessible and secure for the long-term by conducting research into restoration and development methods of digital and electronic components combined with documentation and interpretation of the works. In this way it becomes not just a transfer of information to another medium, but an authentic re-enactment or documentation of the piece. The research into the fields of technique, conservation, documentation and art history are passed on to museums, collections and artists of interest.

AktiveArchive has a unique and large hardware pool, containing thousands of hardware components, such as broadcast video recorders and PVM-200 B/W monitors50. This hardware pool makes it possible to view or migrate artworks that would otherwise be difficult to access or maintain.

As part of the research in the digital field, AktiveArchive is proposing virtualisation as a preservation strategy for born-digital artworks. In brief, virtualisation involves preserving the original coding, hardware and operating system and visualising it in a virtual environment.

I would very much like to thank my Obsolete Equipment colleagues. Special thanks go to Rony Vissers for his feedback and Mark Poysden for his editing.

Notes

1. PACKED vzw (Platform for the Archiving and Conservation of Audiovisual Art) was founded as a platform for the development and dissemination of knowledge on the cataloguing, conservation and distribution of audiovisual documents relating to art. Link: http://www.packed.be
2. Link: http://www.packed.be/en/adapt/readmore/obsolete_apparatuur1/
3. In this essay the terms ‘migration’ and ‘emulation’ refer to updating technology with present-day equipment; the original look and feel of the work is retained with emulation, but not necessarily with migration.
4. Clearly, this essay builds on a large body of work already done in this area. Examples of research projects are included in the appendix.
5. Muñoz Viñas, S. Contemporary Theory of Conservation, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005.
6. a. b. From the case study report by researcher Dieter Vermeulen.
7. From the case study report by researcher Gert Hoogeveen.
8. Link: http://www.insideinstallations.org
9. Link: www.variablemedia.net/
10. a. b. Link: http://www.docam.ca
11. See the appendix for the use of these definitions in the Variable Media Initiative. Jon Ippolito, Caitlin Jones and Carol Stringari, et al. have written about these notions, including in: Paul, C. (ed.), New Media in the White Cube and Beyond Curatorial Models for Digital Art, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008; and Art Press 2 (12) 2009.
12. a. b. Laurenson, Pip, ‘The Management of Display Equipment in Time-based Media Installations’, 2004. Link: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/03/the-manageme...
13. Gfeller, Johannes, ‘The Reference Hardware Pool of AktiveArchive at the Bern University Of The Arts: A Basis for a Historically Well-Informed Re-Performance of Media Art’, in: Reconstructing Swiss Video Art from 1970 and 1980, Zurich: JRP/Ringier, 2009, p. 166–74.
14. Members of this movement usually perform on period instruments, use older types of acting and scenery, and consult historical treatises, as well as additional historical evidence, to gain insights into the performance practices (the stylistic and technical aspects of performance) of a particular historic era.
15. Laurenson, Pip, ‘Authenticity, Change and Loss in the Conservation of Time-Based Media Installations’, 2004. Link: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/06/authenticity...
16. A book with the working title The Artist Interview for Conservation Practice with Scenarios, Guidelines and Examples will be published in summer 2011.
17. This was actually a router for the signals from the VHS players.
18. As explained by Rony Vissers.
19. First outlined in ‘Preserving Digital Information, Report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information’, by Donald Waters and John Garrett, commissioned by The Commission on Preservation and Access and The Research Libraries Group, 1 May 1996. Link: https://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract//reports/pub63
20. This title is derived from the chapter ‘On Changes and Challenges’ in Vivan Van Saaze’s Ph.D. thesis ‘Doing Artworks: Presentation and Conservation of Installation Artworks’, Maastricht: University Press, 2009.
21. Formulated in the Imago Revised project (2009), an ICN/NIMk project that developed guidelines for case studies and obsolete equipment.
22. From the interview with Johannes Gfeller by Rony Vissers and Emanuel Lorain.
23. See footnote 3.
24. From the interview with Pip Laurenson and Tina Weidner by Emanuel Lorain, 2010.
25. Interview for the article ‘How to Preserve Digital Art’ by Kendra Mayfield, in WIRED, 2002. Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20080815045313/http://www.wired.com/culture/l.... Although Rinehart focused on digital art in the interview, this statement applies to all media art forms, even early video art.
26. See footnote 32.
27. From the interview with Peter Struycken by Gaby Wijers, 2009.
28. Brokerhof, Agnes W., et al., ‘Installation Art Subjected to Risk Assessment – Jeffrey Shaw’s ‘Revolution’ as Case Study’, forthcoming 2011.
29. As described by Rony Vissers.
30. See footnote 35.
31. See footnote 30.
32. From the case study report by researcher Evelyne Snijders.
33. From the interview with Bert Schutter by Gaby Wijers, 2009.
34. Link: https://www.scart.be/?q=en/content/interview-pip-laurenson-tate
35. Link: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/
36. Link: http://www.variablemedia.net/e/preserving/html/var_pre_index.html
37. Link: http://www.variablemedia.net/e/echoes/index.html
38. Link: http://www.variablemedia.net/e/preserving/html/var_pub_index.html
39. Link: http://www.variablemedia.net/e/seeingdouble/
40. Link: http://variablemediaquestionnaire.net/
41. a. b. Link: http://www.docam.ca/en/cataloguing-guide.html
42. a. b. Link: http://www.docam.ca/en/glossaurus.html
43. Link: http://www.docam.ca/en/documentation-model.html
44. Link: http://www.docam.ca/en/technological-timeline.html
45. Link: http://www.docam.ca/en/conservation-guide.html
46. Link: http://www.docam.ca/en/restoration-decisions/a-decision-making-model-the...
47. Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20100226070619/http://www.inside-installation...
48. Link: http://mattersinmediaart.org/
49. Link: http://www.aktivearchive.ch
50. Gfeller, Johannes, ‘The Reference Hardware Pool of AktiveArchive at the Bern University of Arts. A Basis for a Historically Well-informed Re-performance of Media Art’ in: Reconstructing Swiss Art, 1970–1980. Zurich: JRP/Ringier 2009, p. 166–74.