[-empyre-] Taxonomedia: Resolution for Digital Futures

[Timothy Murray]

Hi all,



Some time ago we received a box that nobody 
wanted to care anymore. What was inside? There 
were around a hundred of interactive digital 
works from the end of the nineties to 2003. Among 
them we’ve found artworks, CD-Rom magazines, 
educational material, etc.



We were excited because we thought we had an 
interesting material to analyse. Even we had some 
facilities we only could see the 10% of the 
material. The main reason is the obsolescence of 
software and hardware, but also there were 
illegible disks, lacks of information about the 
usability and the intentions of the creators. 
Only when you want to access to a file and you 
can’t, you clearly realize that we are not so 
free to decide when something is obsolete.



Products become garbage as much quickly as they 
can. And they have inside lots of information, 
ideas, and maybe also ideals, documents of our 
times that disappear silently. We are loosing 
interesting works mixed with cables and circuits 
without the time to reflect about them and left 
prove of its passing thorough our society. 
However if some of them are legitimated, we can’t 
keep them.



We couldn’t see a number of pieces made no more than 10 years ago.



While we wait for more stable technologies, we 
propose face the ephemeral aspects of digital 
artworks producing documentation, translating and 
disseminating their ideas, sharing knowledge in 
order to find the different points of views that 
this issue involves. 

At last, these pieces are a drawing of our society.





Thanks Tim and Renate for inviting us to participate in this project.



Bio: Taxonomedia (Spain) is a research and 
production group focused on the importance of the 
media art conservation. We propose different ways 
of approach to this subject, keeping in mind the 
shortage Spanish material on this theme and the 
importance of discussion. Taxonomedia was founded 
by Vanina Hofman and Consuelo Rozo residents in 
Barcelona.

-- 
Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
Co-Moderators, -empyre- a soft-skinned-space
Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
Cornell University