Long live media art... Help!

Workshop with David Claerbout, Johannes Gfeller (AktiveArchive), Dara Meyers-Kingsley (IMAP) & Giel Vandecaveye (S.M.A.K.)
Monday May 25 2009
S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst), Ghent

How do I find my way in the conservation of media arts? How can I catalogue a video work to facilitate its preservation? Which documentation models are available for video- and computer-based installations? Which choices can be made when the original display and playback equipment of a work of art becomes obsolete? Which role can be played by the artist him/herself in the preservation of his/her work?

Internationally accepted standards exist for the handling, preservation and installation of traditional artworks such as paintings and sculptures. For the relatively young and constantly evolving media arts similar standards have yet to be developed. Nevertheless all kinds of initiatives have arisen during the last decade. They do not only instigate the interest in the complex nature of the conservation of media arts, but also try to define through collaboration solutions and methods that can be shared word-wide for the conservation of media arts collections.

PACKED, an initiative of Argos, MDD, M HKA and S.M.A.K., is part of this young international network. During this workshop PACKED presented the tools and activities of its fellow organizations Independent Media Arts Preservation (United States) and AktiveArchive (Switzerland).

Although there are several free documentation models, guidelines and handbooks available on the Web that can improve the conservation of media arts, many artists and collectors don’t seem to find them. With this workshop PACKED aimed to introduce international experts to these artists and collectors. The focus was on the exchange of practical archiving and conservation guidelines.

All video lectures below are in English.

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Introduction and welcome by Rony Vissers, PACKED co-ordinator

Dara Meyers-Kingsley is a founding member and the executive director of Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP), a New York-based non-profit service, education, and advocacy organization that is since 1999 committed to the preservation of non-commercial electronic media. IMAP has grown to a national resource for preservation training, information, and advocacy. Presentation | Dara Meyers-Kingsley introduced amongst others the IMAP Preservation Guide and the Cataloging Template, which they offer through their website to the public, in order to document film, video and audio materials.

PACKED has translated the IMAP Preservation Guide to Dutch. This was briefly introduced here, alongside with the renewed website.

Johannes Gfeller is head of AktiveArchive, that since 2002 focuses through collaboration and concrete research projects on the possibilities for documenting, archiving and preserving diverse forms of media art. Presentation | Johannes Gfeller outlined the functioning of AktiveArchive, presented the documentation models they designed for video installations and internet art, and spoke about the pool of obsolete video equipment they manage within the project.

In order to make the expert contributions as tangible as possible, a visit to the exhibition ‘The Dark Matter of Media Light’, the retrospective of Dara Birnbaum in the S.M.A.K., was part of the workshop programme. Philippe Van Cauteren, artistic director of the S.M.A.K., introduced Birnbaums oeuvre and the realisation of her work.

Round table conversation and Q&A with David Claerbout, Dara Meyers-Kingsley, Johannes Gfeller and Rony Vissers. David Claerbout is a Belgian artist who is based in Antwerp. Since the end of 1996, he has been creating a body of work that tacks between still and moving images, photographic and digital techniques, and animation and digital image manipulation. He gives great attention to the accurate preservation of his work, and has control over the practices that arise when doing so.