The 20th century brought significant changes in art practice and theories, which also influenced contemporary art conservation strategies. Not only does the field of media art require special care, but it is also ageing much faster than classical works of modern art. The specialisation of media art (time-based media) conservation will be introduced using two projects as examples: Re:Senster – a project for the restoration of the cybernetic sculpture Senster (1970) by E. Ihnatowicz and the exhibition REBOOT. Pionieeiring Digital Art at Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam (2023–24) organised by LI-MA media art platform in Amsterdam. As will be shown in the presentation, the priorities of both projects were to draw attention to media art, its already century-old international history, its cultural potential and the problems of collecting and exhibiting. The lecture highlights that the range of art preservation based on new technologies is extensive, constantly changing, and always predicated on knowledge exchange, transdisciplinary collaboration, and networks of care.
Variable Media Initiative, https://www.guggenheim.org/conservation/the-variable-media-initiative
DOCAM, https://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=1544
Laurenson, P., The Management of Display Equipment in Time-Based Media Installations, Tate papers online https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/03/themanagement-of-display-equipment-in-time-based-media-installations (accessed 24.01.2022)
Hölling, H., ‘The Archival Turn’, in: Data Drift: Archiving Media and Data Art in the 21st Century, ed. R. Smite, L. Manovich, R. Smits, Riga: RIXC and Liepaja’s University Art Research Lab, 2015, p. 74.
Re:Senster Projekt, http://senster.agh.edu.pl
Lost Art, film on Senster, TATE London, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoZb5MTKzQc&t=16s
Exhibition REBOOT, Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, https://nieuweinstituut.nl/projects/reboot-baanbrekende-digitale-kunst
LI-MA Living Media Art platform, https://li-ma.nl
Who Cares for Netart?, video by LI-MA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zfocV9QEVs
Digital Canon!?, LI-MA https://www.digitalcanon.nl/#list
Mediakunst.net, https://www.mediakunst.net
https://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org by JODI
Scrollbar Composition by Jan Robert Leegte, http://www.scrollbarcomposition.com
https://mouchette.org by Martine Neddam
Symposium Transformation Digital Art 2024, LI-MA, Amsterdam, https://li-ma.nl/article/transformation-digital-art-2024/
