Naked on Pluto/Preservation

	Naked on Pluto, 2010-2015 – Marloes de Valk, Aymeric Mansoux, Dave Griffiths
Work – Documentation – Archive – Preservation

Preservation of research-based artworks

Starting point

The starting point for this case study was an invitation by LIMA to document the artwork Naked on Pluto by Dave Griffiths, Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk. The heart of Naked on Pluto is an artist-built, open source, multi-player, online video game that had served as an experiential impulse for a wider examination of privacy in the age of social media through exhibitions, workshops, lectures, interviews, books and websites. More than simply a piece of artistic software or a conceptual work, the artists view this work more broadly as research. This opens up the question of how to preserve artistic research? What makes research-based art different from other kinds of work, and what does it imply for preservation?

Conceptual background

Research-based artworks pose a challenge to preservation. Like changing artworks, these works cannot be preserved under the assumption of material fixity linked to traditional art conservation. Like in the case of installations, performances and digital art, their presentations rely on the interpretation of the work's identity. This is because they are not constituted by singular material objects such as painting or sculpture, but by a range of components and elements with variable relations and dependencies as well as aesthetic and functional roles (Laurenson 2001, Laurenson 2006, Van Saaze 2013). The overarching approach developed over the past two decades to preserve changing artworks has been to produce detailed documentation of an artwork's exhibitions, alongside the storage of its dedicated physical components, digital preservation of its media components and emulation or migration of software components, next to the option of reinterpretation (Matos et al 2015, Ensom 2019, Wijers et al 2017). This approach assumes that the trajectory of any changing artwork can be described as a succession of iterations presented at exhibitions. Research-based artworks, however, are usually manifested in a wider range of ways. They may be centred on a single art object intended for exhibitions, but they may also involve various physical and digital objects presented outside exhibition setting, activities in public and digital space, workshops, publications, accumulation of research material and archives, and so on. These works typically defy not only objecthood associated with painting and sculpture, but also iterativity associated with installations and performances. In this sense they operate similarly to processual works whose "preservation" relies more on further development and continuation rather than re-creation (Bosma 2011, van de Vall 2015, Dekker 2018). Instead of exhibition space, their main site of activation is debate and discourse, the situation of knowledge production (Steyerl 2010).

Proposed approach

How can we preserve these works? We suggest an approach that remains rooted in documentation practices and extends them into what we call experimental publishing. It is inspired by a range of online research publications created by various art preservation initiatives in recent years. They bring together expert knowledge about selected artworks, along with documentation and views from their creators. Among the latest examples are Net Art Anthology, an online retrospective of net-based works created by Rhizome, and Digital Canon, an online catalogue of historical digital artworks from the Netherlands, launched by LIMA. Another reference are preservation-oriented initiatives of various online subcultures, from private torrent trackers such as Karagarga, the retro gaming database project No-Intro, to the community endeavor Archive Team. These projects show the positive potential of refining the practices of preservation, conservation, documentation, circulation, and archiving in the context of collective practices.

In practical terms, we suggest to approach the preservation of artistic research along three axes -- archive, documentation and presentation. They may be realised in this order, and if possible, in collaboration with the artists. Firstly, available digital and physical material related to the art project is recorded. This material may be considered the project's archive. To collect its traces in one place in a structured manner an inventory of this archive is created. It may include objects, printed matter, articles, files, data, websites, and other kinds of artefacts. The archive is helpful for assembling documentation. For it, the project's various public manifestations are recorded under distinct headings, for example: objects, exhibitions, other activations (events, interviews), and research process. While exhibitions may play major role, no less important for gaining a sense of the breadth of the project is to record other manifestations. Sections may have subsections and they may be organised chronologically, especially if we deal with more large-scale projects. It is important to include sources for every record at this point. Subsequently, introductions may be written for individual sections as their narrative summaries. Finally, with the sense of the breadth of the project, its key aspects may be highlighted and assembled into a single article that gives a general introduction to the project. The article is informed also by insights from reception and historical context of the project. As a result, the respective axes may be presented on distinct pages, each providing a different entry to the project: archive (index of materials), documentation (chronological structure), and presentation (narrative).

Structure of documentation-publication

I. Presentation

Brief presentation of key aspects of the work (aimed at general audience; links to documentation)

II. Documentation

Project summary (provides general introduction to whole scope of project, may rely on artist statements)

Historical context (social, cultural, political events which shaped project)

The work (public manifestations of project, recorded under distinct headings and organised chronologically, along with references)

Object(s) (physical, digital)

Exhibitions (installation plans with components, differences between iterations, curatorial texts, identify and focus on the most significant one)

Other activations (workshops, lectures, presentations, interviews)

Research process (published documentation of research process: wikis, blogs, research materials)

Reception (bibliography of writings and responses to project)

Credits (full list of contributors, collaborators, support, rights, ...)

III. Archive

Archive (inventory of all available digital and physical material related to project)

References

How is research-based art different to other forms of art?

Steyerl 2010 talks about two kinds of artistic research, one tied to knowledge economy, another rooted in social struggles:

Actual artistic research looks like a set of art practices by predominantly metropolitan artists acting as ethnographers, sociologists, product or social designers. It gives the impression of being an asset of technologically and conceptually advanced First World capitalism, trying to upgrade its population to efficiently function in a knowledge economy, and as a by-product, casually surveying the rest of the world as well. But if we look at artistic research from the perspective of conflict or more precisely of social struggles, a map of practices emerges that spans most of the 20th century and also most of the globe.

Steyerl 2013:

"What used to materialize more or less exclusively as an object, or a product, which was an artwork before, now tends to appear as an activity, a performance, a process, a form of research, or a production of knowledge. The traditional work of art in its form as object has been largely supplemented by these occupational forms of the former work of art."

Bishop 2012:

"A project in the sense I am identifying as crucial to art after 1989 aspires to replace the work of art as a finite object with an open-ended, post-studio, research-based, social process, extending over time and mutable in form. Since the 1990s, the project has become an umbrella term for many types of art: collective practice, self- organised activist groups, transdisciplinary research, participatory and socially engaged art, and experimental curating." [Note: Further definitions of the ‘project’ (compared to the work of art), amassed during a workshop at Arte de Conducta, Havana (2007), include presentness, possibility, openness to change and contamination, a space of production, unlimited time and space, and a dialogue with the social to reach audiences beyond art.]

	Naked on Pluto, 2010-2015 – Marloes de Valk, Aymeric Mansoux, Dave Griffiths
Work – Documentation – Archive – Preservation