[-empyre-] Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] let it go

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@subtle.net>]

Francis wrote:
> As Caitlin notes, this isn't an entirely new problem:
Installation and
> conceptual work have their own volatility issues, and even
paintings
> and sculpture age. New media gets a lot of attention here
in part
> because works that are intertwined with quickly
obsolescing technical
> networks are probably more volatile than anything; it also
gets a lot
> of attention because it's new and as such has the halo of
novelty.


I'm  concerned by the attitude which says "oh net.art - is
anti-material,  its ephemeral..lets  let it go.."   as it
seems  an attitude  based on financial factors as net.art
hasnt yet been for the large part "collectable", rather than
an attitude focused on the common good. Interestingly,
this is not what is happening with digital preservation of
the internet itself.  Globally enormous publicly and
privately funded efforts are place to preserve early and
current Internet content.

the critical difference is not newness for its own sake ..
but  the time line over which these media corrupt and decay,
and their current market value.  there is a massive
conservation industry which protects the commodity valve of
the infinitely more stable painting and sculpture - although
Leonardo's Last Supper apparently started falling apart
quiet
soon after it was painted because of the experimental "new"
media techniques he used.

Tho these preservation interests are largely financially
focused, i.e. we want to see these works because of the halo
or aura of value they have,  as a society we also do want to
see the earliest surviving books, photographic plates and
pieces of cinema. And I'd say in 50 years we will want to
see the earliest surviving pieces of the internet  and of
net.art.  It  may be an unstable and transitionary media,
however, it is precisely this positioning which makes it so
fascinating.. and ultimately preservable.

The life span of  networked  art, apart form those
carnivores which feed off the net itself,   is sometimes
limited to 2 or 3 years before browser and java upgrades
make them obsolete to the majority of viewers. a huge slab
of networked history from the past experimental decade has
already disappeared,  whereas  museum installation new
media,
and the elevation of video to high art object, slot nicely
into the consumer market, and are therefore subject to "art"
preservation  projects.

However international library, university, government and
some
private  endeavours (like the internet archive)
deliberately and incidentally catch net.art in their
preservation web.
Heres a link to a conference late last year focusing on
these online preservation projects:
http://www.nla.gov.au/webarchiving/
http://www.nla.gov.au/webarchiving/abstracts.html
id also  refer you to this months archives on empyre where a
lot of the guests have been drawn from that conference:
https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2005-February/date.html


Melinda

Dr Melinda Rackham
artist | curator | producer
www.subtle.net


> > I should quickly introduce myself  - Francis McKee,
researcher
> > examining open source movement at Glasgow School of Art
and Head of New
> > Media at CCA in Glasgow.
> >
> > I'd like to second Martijn Stevens point - I've been
averse to joining
> > this discussion so far as i have felt the conservation
projects to be
> > far from my own interests or experience.  I understand
rationally all
> > of the good reasons to conserve and preserve net art or
digital works.
> > My gut instinct though is to let many of them go - the
net for instance
> > is essentially such an unstable medium with extinction
built into so
> > many sites and many of the artists I've enjoyed most
seem to thrive on
> > that or produce works that are in process and cannot be
saved as they
> > change from moment to moment, feeding off the web's
current activity.
> > The first generation of net artists also seemed to have
invested
> > heavily in an anti-materialist/anti-object sentiment
that seems
> > inimical to some aspects of preservation though i feel i
should go back
> > and read Josephine Berry's 'Information as Muse' essay
again
> >
>