Preservation practices of new media artists. Challenges, strategies, and attitudes in the personal management of artworks
| Date | 10 July 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2016-0116 |
| Pages | 716-732 |
| Published date | 10 July 2017 |
| Author | Colin Post |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Preservation practices
of new media artists
Challenges, strategies, and attitudes in the
personal management of artworks
Colin Post
School of Information and Library Science,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate the preservation practices of new media artists, in
particular those working outside of the scope of major collecting institutions, examining how these artists
preserve new media artworks in their custody.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper builds case studies of seven new media artists of differing
practices and artistic approaches. For each case study, semi-structured interviews with the artists were
conducted in conjunction with visits to the artists’studios.
Findings –The study finds that new media artists face a number of shared preservation challenges and
employ a range of preservation strategies, and that these challenges and strategies differ markedly from that
of art museums and cultural heritage institutions.
Research limitations/implications –This study considers preservation practices for new media artists
generally. Further research into specific communities of artistic practice could profitably build upon this
overall framework.
Practical implications –The findings of this research pose a number of implications for art museums and
cultural heritage institutions, suggesting new ways these institutions might consider supporting the
preservation of new media artworks before works enter into institutional custody.
Originality/value –The literature on new media art preservation emphasizes the importance of working
with artists early in the life cycle of digital artworks. This study advances this by investigating preservation
from the perspective of new media artists, deepening the understanding of challenges and potential
preservation strategies for these artworks prior to entering or outside of institutional custody.
Keywords Archives, Personal information management, Digital preservation, Personal digital archiving,
Art conservation, Artist archives, Artist information behaviour, Digital art, New media art
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
New media art constitutes a significant vein of contemporary artistic production, with many
artists creating culturally significant artworks that critically investigate the meanings and
uses of technology in the contemporary moment. Yet countless such works have been lost
from the cultural record, with even more rapidly becoming inaccessible. For the past several
decades, advancesin technology have radicallyaltered daily life, with the computer especially
persisting asa deep and activeforce in the cultural imaginary.Artists respond to this present
technologicallandscape through experimentation, play,and critical inquiry,creating artworks
that push the boundaries of hardware and software, and forge connectionsacross the digital
and the analog. These works exist at the bleeding edge and often have a short lifespan.
The preservation of more “standard”digital objects is already a difficult undertaking,
complicated especially by the rapid rate of obsolescence of hardware and software programs
(Hedstrom, 1997);these preservation concerns are only exacerbated where highlyunique and
complex objects such as technology-based artworks are concerned.
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 4, 2017
pp. 716-732
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-09-2016-0116
Received 30 September 2016
Revised 2 February 2017
Accepted 8 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The author wishes to thank the editors and reviewers at the Journal of Documentation, Cal Lee for his
invaluable assistance at every stage in this research project, and above all the artists who generously
participated in the study.
716
JD
73,4
These artworks help to elucidate how societies around the globe think about and interact
with technologies, and thus constitute a significant component of contemporary cultural
heritage. Just as art historians today look back to artworks of previous times to better
understand these earlier eras, so too will today’s new media artworks speak for the present
moment. Cultural heritage institutions, museums in particular, are typically responsible for
preserving these materials, and have increasingly begun to collect new media artworks;
however, many challenges persist in the collection of these works. As Graham (2014) points
out, “the collecting of new media forces institutions to redefine many core categories,
including not only questions of what is collected, but also “the modes or ways of working for
those involved in the collecting process”(p. 2). The work of curators, conservators, and even
the audience, must change with the collection of new media art.
While there exists a growing body of literature devoted to the preservation of new media
artworks in institutional collections,a great many such artworks remainuncollected, and thus
without the benefit of the resources and preservation know-how afforded to artworks within
major collections. While it is not in the purview of collecting institutions to actively preserve
all or even most new media artworks, it is in the interest of cultural heritage at large to better
understand the preservation challenges and strategiesof new media artworks in the custody
of artists. To date, much of the research has been driven by concerns over artworks in
institutionalcollections, and consistslargely of case studies detailinghow particular artworks
have been preserved.The area of new media art preservation continues to develop, drivenby
the pursuit for more systematic and scalable approaches, but these effortsmust be supported
by empirical research that looks beyond individual cases and seeks to describe the
overarching themes, concerns, and concepts(Innocenti, 2014) –nor can this broader research
program focus only on the institutional perspective at the expense of preservation issues
experienced by artists working outside of the scope of major collecting institutions.
I want to address this by posing the following questions:
RQ1. How do new media artists conceive of the preservation of their artworks?
RQ2. Do preservation concerns arise in the process of creation?
RQ3. How do preservationchallenges manifest in the ongoingmaintenance of an artwork?
The answers to these questions have serious implications for both institutional and
artist-driven preservation of new media works. An increased body of knowledge of artists’
concerns, conceptions, and practicesin the preservation of their own artworksshould serve to
inform institutional strategies and approaches. Existing research stresses the importance of
the collaboration between artist and institution, and this dialogue already forms a key
component of many e xisting preservation approaches ( Depocas et al., 2003;Laurenson, 2004);
this study contributes to this discourse by adding empirical information about artists’
preservationchallenges early in thelife cycle of the artwork.We must also be able to recognize
where institutional and artists’perspectives diverge on the issue of preservation. While
institutions are prone to think in terms of rendering a particular object durable over time,
artists may intentionally allow works to deteriorate, or employ creative strategies actively
dismantlingprevious works to fuel the creationof new works. A deeper understandingof how
to preserve new media artworks will make it easier fora wider range of institutions to collect
and maintain new media works in their holdings –or to develop alternative strategies for
collectingand documenting significantnew media artwork that do not necessarily involvethe
custodial transfer of an object (or set of objects) from artist to institution.
2. Challenges of preserving new media art
Museums and other visual art institutions began to comprehensively diagnose digital
preservation concerns in the 1990s. The seminal study Time & Bits: Managing Digital Continuity
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