Slashdot Mirror
Archiving Digital Artwork For Museum Purchase?
An anonymous reader writes "I am an artist working with 3d software to create animations and digital prints. For now my work just gets put on screening DVDs and BluRays and the original .mov and 3d files get backed up. But museums and big art collectors do want to purchase these animations. However as we all know archival DVDs are not really archival. So I want to ask the Slashdot readers, what can I give to the museum when they acquire my digital work for their collection so that it can last and be seen long after I am dead? No other artist or institution I know of have come up with any real solution to this issue yet, so I thought Slashdot readers may have an idea. These editions can be sold for a large amount of money, so it doesn't have to be a cheap solution."
"The Variable Media Network proposes an unconventional new preservation strategy that has emerged from the Guggenheim's efforts to preserve its world-renowned collection of conceptual, minimalist and video art and that is supported by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. The aim of this affiliation is to help build a network of organizations that will develop the tools, methods and standards needed to implement this strategy."
http://variablemedia.net/
"Matters in Media Art is a multi-phase project designed to provide guidelines for care of time-based media works of art (e.g., video, film, audio and computer based installations). The project was created in 2003 by a consortium of curators, conservators, registrars and media technical managers from New Art Trust, MoMA, SFMOMA and Tate. The consortium launched its first phase, on loaning time-based media works, in 2004, and its second phase, on acquiring time-based media works, in 2007."
http://moma.org/explore/collection/conservation/media_art
http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/majorprojects/mediamatters/
"From March to December 2003, the archive team of V2_Organisation (a center for culture and technology in Rotterdam, the Netherlands) has conducted research on the documentation aspects of the preservation of electronic art activities -- or Capturing Unstable Media --, an approach between archiving and preservation."
http://capturing.projects.v2.nl/
"DOCAM's main objective is to develop new methodologies and tools to address the issues of preserving and documenting digital, technological and electronic works of art."
http://www.docam.ca/en/?cat=17
"Inside Installations: Preservation and Presentation of Installation Art is a three-year research project (2004-2007) into the care and administration of an art form that is challenging prevailing views of conservation."
http://www.inside-installations.org/home/index.php
none of those are proved to last centuries.
tape might be a durable medium, but is still requires a compatible drive. even if you supply the drive, the bus/port/connector might not be available in the future, also electronics degrade over time (specially the ones that store firmware in flash memory and/or contain capacitors). so even if you sell your work with: a) computer; b) operating system and software; c) drive; d) tapes. there's no guarantee.
the same is true for all of the media mentioned by parent.
only solution guaranteed to last centuries ?
*** PAPER AND INK ***
yes, your heard me. ink and paper. well stored it can last thousands of years. you have to print your files as a very compact, machine readable data matrix, store it along with human readable books explaining the technology neccessary to read the print-outs, including schematics, source code, etc. no need to mention that the file formats and software need to be open source, or you need a license to the code.
this way future generations will have everything neccessary to put toghether a hardware/software combination capable of reading the data matrices, convert the bits to files and display the result.
this could be an art project on itself, since you can embed paterns and colors on the data matrices. check wikipedia page for "QR codes" to see examples of data matrices with embeded art. very cool stuff.
What ? Me, worry ?