[-empyre-] preservation for the individual creator

["lisa cianci" <lcianci@bigpond.net.au>]

Hello to everyone,
A really timely and interesting topic! Komninos' post arrived while I
was writing this, so may ask some of the same questions...

I have worked in archives and information management for over 12 years,
and am currently a practicing new media artist and teacher. I've been
involved in archiving from both heritage and corporate perspectives, and
also in looking at my own digital, net-based, data-driven work (and that
of my students) and what will happen to it over time.

I'm currently doing a master at the AIM centre at RMIT - the project
involves using the metadata and constructs of archival theory and
methodology to create an artwork on the internet.

I'm looking at preservation of digital multimedia objects from the
perspective of the artist/creator of the objects in question, but am
also interested in seeing what happens when I allow objects fall into a
state of inaccessibility, relying on the metadata I have created to
represent the original object when we can no longer access it any more.
That's a very simplistic description of the project, but I'm interested
in the ebb and flow of data and technologies over an extended period of
time. What to keep and what not to keep? What to bring forward with the
current technology and what to let slide into obscurity?

I'm keen to hear what people think about what new media artists can do
for preservation even before they begin creating their work. 

In much of the info man. industry, people talk about the records
continuum and life cycle. They have or are putting systems into place
before the point of creation of records for both long term access and
preservation of digital records. Aside from maybe some of the newer MPEG
formats, and maybe text-based formats and languages, a lot of the
encoded digital objects we are creating don't self-document. But we want
to use the latest funky bit of software regardless of its longevity
anyway!

For an individual like myself, one issue that I'm finding challenging is
the amount of work involved in creating the metadata / archival
documentation for these digital multimedia objects.  I don't have a team
of professionals to process my "collection" even though I am aware of
all the standards, tools and guidelines that are out there.

One way around this I'm experimenting with is elevating the metadata to
the same level as the content I'm documenting. An interesting recursive
exercise!

Do we (as new media artists) have to rely on collecting institutions to
collect and document our work? What can we do for ourselves? Just
interested in people's thoughts on these issues.

Lisa

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((
lisa cianci
lc@mmorphe.com
lisa.cianci@vu.edu.au
 
teacher, multimedia
victoria university
melbourne
www.mmorphe.com
multimedia.tafe.vu.edu.au
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