[-empyre-] Games, histories and preservation

[Sean Cubitt]

Goog good: one should also recall the recall of the sony emulator installed
on Macs for a few weeks in the 90s

But there are issues here

Eg The Duchamp Large glass replica by Richard Hamilton. It fractured one
night in the Tate Millbank. It was repaired. Is it still a replica? (this
without discussing the Barnett Newman debacle in Amsterdam when the whole
canvas was incorrectly painted over after a knife attack)

[a more curious one: Courbet¹s Stonbreakers, icon of 19th Realism, was
subject of Agfa colour film tests in the late 30s /. Early forties. It was
destroyed in the Dersden firebombings. The colour photo is all that remains.
What relation does the photo ­ and its replications ­ have to the lost
Œoriginal¹?]

Eg (2) the variable media network <http://variablemedia.net/> experiments.
Weinbren¹s Erl King emulated : the colour gamuts are no longer the same. The
touchscreen response times are much faster. Refresh rate is different as is
apparent screen resolution and actual luminance. Etc etc

See the excellent discussions, inlcuding a forum on games emulation and
technostalgia at

http://www.variablemedia.net/e/echoes/index.html

Emulation not so much a solution as another mode of the same problem, better
phrased

Sean


On 17/3/08 12:34 PM, "Jason Nelson" <heliopod at yahoo.com> wrote:

> As for preservation. I've always found game emulators
> http://www.emulator-zone.com/
>   
> as the ultimate form of preservation (for any digital work).
>   
>  
>   
> Why are game emulators the ultimate for of digital preservation?
>   
>  
>   
> The games from the 70s, 80s and 90s, as designed, are no longer playable
> (unless you own old consoles and by chance they are still working). And so
> there is that classic, change of hardware format problem. There has been some
> porting now of the games to stand alone devices or compilations for newer
> console systems. But really the bulk of these games should have been lost to
> the changing technologies.
>   
>  
>   
> Instead, decentralized users, from around the globe, both individually and in
> groups starting creating emulators for old games, for a surprisingly wide
> range of console systems. They were not doing this under the umbrella of a
> company or institution, they were amateur coders who simply loved the games.
> There were also lots of copies of the games out there,
>   
> usually without working consoles.
>   
>  
>   
> And now these games are preserved, not in the back room of a state run
> library. But on
>   
> the hard drives of thousands and thousand of individuals.
>   
>  
>   
> So it would seem that game preservationists have a lot to learn from 15 year
> olds and
>   
> bit torrent enthusiasts.
>   
>  
>   
> cheers, Jason Nelson
> 
>   
> 
> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it
> now. 
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> tDypao8Wcj9tAcJ >
> 
> _______________________________________________
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Prof Sean Cubitt
scubitt at unimelb.edu.au
Director, Media and Communications Program
Faculty of Arts
Room 127 John Medley East
The University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010
Australia

Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494
M: 0448 304 004
Skype: seancubitt
http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/
http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/seanc/
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Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
http://leonardo.info

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