[-empyre-] Game Art & Archival...

[Lichty, Patrick]

I also know this is a little late, but I think it repeats a question in new media discourse.
There was conversation about archiving games (I'd like to say regardless of platform).
Her is the problem as I see it and some new insights I have on this.
For the last 10-15 years there has been a technotopian urge to digitize everything, as bits don't decay, and are easily reproduceable, und so weiter, und so weiter.
Of course, there are immense issues of selective conservation, ease of deletion, elision of records in migration, non-maintenance/unfunding of servers, I've written a lot about digital archives/conservation/curation, and in my opinion, atoms always trump bits for persistence. Period.
In addition, there only seem to be two ways to preserve the game/digital record for later experience.  Maintain a legacy platform, or emulate.  The first creates the empemerality of computer systems and the latter calls forth the issues of translation of experience into the new platform.  Neither are perfect.

Thsi is where I make a very firm statement.

As long as there is morphology in information systems over time, one ultimately cannot preserve an archive for any acceptable period of time (in antiquarian terms). Period.

This is why I wrote "The 50-Year Computer", as much for cultural stability as for limiting toxic waste flow.  In order for there  to be a stable cultural trace, the platform/medium it is expressed through has to remain stable as well.  We can argue about the decay of books and patinings, but this is semantics.  Everything decays, it's the question of what is acceptable?

For me, the minimum period of time should be inter-generational, that is, 40-60 years (2-3 generations) We're getting close to Altairs that have been running that long, and the PDP-1 at the Computer History Museum still plays Space War...

But is this really what we're considering?  Having a Commodore 64 running BallBlazer in a museum?

My wish is not so much for a stable archive, but one stable enough so that grandchildren can understand Pong.  I also love the interpretation of technology in Lynch's Dune that make it seem like the machines and technologies have been almost static for thousands of years or perhaps in the 8000 years or so since the Butlerian Jihad and the edict against AI.  Herbert & Lynch posit that after you outlaw human emulation, technology hits a wall, and it merely becomes ubiquitous and stable.  I would not be surprised if the learning kiosk on Arrakis was not a thousand years old, which I think is amazing.

In terms of cultural stability, scholars and historians are in diametric opposition to the game industry.  They want to make popcorn and franchises, and let them go when they stop being profitable. Recode PacMan if people want it 20 years later.

In short, i think the MAME emulator project is probably the best chance we have at a good platform for conservation.

Sorry if I am disjoint, woke up late.


Patrick Lichty
Asst. Professor
Dept of Interactive Arts & Media
Columbia College Chicago
916/1000 S. Wabash Ave #104
Chicago, IL USA