Depocas, Ippolito, Jones (eds.): Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach (2003) [English/French]

“Since its founding, the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology has considered the preservation of electronic and digital artworks a pressing matter. But it took some years before we received any project demonstrating a truly innovative approach to this issue.

When the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum submitted the Variable Media Network project based on the paradigm proposed by Jon Ippolito, the museum’s Associate Curator of Media Arts, we recognized the project’s potential as a model for approaching the issue of preserving nontraditional media artworks. The project was particularly valuable because it enabled research that was greatly needed in the field of art preservation.

To the Guggenheim’s original proposal, we added a component: an actual emulation test case to preserve a digital work. We felt that while there have been many theories and discussions on preserving digital and dynamic artworks, there was a need for practical, emulation experiments from which much knowledge could be gained.

We are proud to be forging this research partnership with the Guggenheim Museum and to be enriching and helping disseminate our knowledge. This publication, accompanied by a Web site and an online database, is integral to our goal of sharing information and directly involving the communities and institutions concerned with preservation.” (Jean Gagnon, Preface)

Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach / L’approche des médias variables : la permanence par le changement
Edited by Alain Depocas, Jon Ippolito, and Caitlin Jones
Preface by Jean Gagnon
Published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation, in Montreal, 2003
ISBN: 0-9684693-2-9
138 pages

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Annet Dekker (ed.): Archive2020 – Sustainable Archiving of Born-Digital Cultural Content (2010)

The term ’born digital’ is closely related, maybe even synonymous, with the term ‘natively digital’. This term is often used as reference to the object of study in the academic research of the Internet that gives focus to digital methods. In other words, research strategies that follow the specifics of the Internet as a medium. In this context the term refers to digital materials that are specific, and/or born into the Internet, like the link and the tag, and devices, like search engines, and opposed to those materials that have migrated to it, in other words, have been digitally reformatted.

“We have asked several stakeholders from different disciplines to write down their experiences, findings and solutions. These specialists from the area of born-digital preservation and archiving reflect on the current state of affairs in their specific field and identify the most pressing concerns. Established Internet artist Martine Neddam elaborates on the challenges an Internet artist faces over the years, from domain name registration expirations, to database back-ups, recent updates and much more. Researchers and artists Anne Laforet, Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk explain the benefits of using FLOSS and open standards for preserving born-digital material. Florian Cramer, lecturer at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, reflects on the PRINT/pixel international conference that was organized in May 2009, and discusses the issue of digital print material. Departing from the closure of two important advocates for media art preservation – the Daniel Langlois Foundation and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute – Canadian researcher and writer Caitlin Jones focuses on the issue of responsibility for keeping our media art heritage alive. Gaby Wijers, head of Collection and Conservation at NIMk, Amsterdam and Gabriele Blome, art historian, University of Siegen, Germany, shed light on the first internationally shared online archive GAMA – the Gateway to European Media Art. Australian curator and researcher Lizzie Muller draws attention to the importance of capturing audience experiences when dealing with the preservation of born-digital cultural material. Jeroen van Mastrigt, lecturer at the Art, Media and Technology Faculty of the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU-KMT) in Hilversum, discusses archiving strategies in gaming.”

Compiled and edited by Annet Dekker
with chapters by Annet Dekker, Martine Neddam, Anne Laforet, Aymeric Mansoux, Marloes de Valk, Florian Cramer, Caitlin Jones, Gabriele Blome, Gaby Wijers, Lizzie Muller, Jeroen van Mastrigt, Maurits van der Graaf, Gerhard Nauta
Publisher Virtueel Platform, Amsterdam, 2010
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 NL License
ISBN 9789490108045
112 pages

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See also Speculative Scenarios, or What Will Happen to Digital Art in the (Near) Future?, 2013.