[-empyre-] Closing thoughts on Archiving New Media Art: Ephemerality and/or Sustainability

[FILE_Arquivo]

  For all Empyre members: was a pleasure to participate of such a great 
discussion here, and I hope to be more often next month!
best
gabrila

On 09/10/2010 17:52, Timothy Murray wrote:
> Hello, everyone.   As we transition into another special topic, soon 
> to be introduced by Renate, I want to express my thanks and enthusiasm 
> for the  multilayered discussion of "Archiving New Media: Ephemerality 
> and/or Sustainability."  Particular thanks go to our featured guests, 
> Vanina Hofman from Taxonomedia, Claudia Kozak  and Ricardo dal Farra 
> from Argentina, Jon Ippolito and Mona Jimenez from the US, and 
> Gabriela Previdillo from Brazil.   When we framed this discussion in 
> dialogue with the Buenos Aires Taxonomedia conference, we hoped that 
> the framework of " ephemerality and/or sustainability," would provide 
> the occasion for reflections on not only the practice of archiving but 
> also its socio-cultural implications.  Particularly welcome, from my 
> point of view, is the importance of contributions from Latin America 
> that have made more visible very crucial  issues of indigeneity that 
> bear not only the various platforms of art practice but also on the 
> politics and institutionalization of archiving itself.
>
> Those of us who have been engaged in institutional archival projects, 
> such as my Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, at Cornell 
> University,  continually find ourselves involved in spinning 
> justifactory narratives regarding the viability of archiving new media 
> art writ large but also pertaining to the challenges to accessibility 
> due to obsolescence, etc.   One of my greatest lessons from this kind 
> of work has been an ongoing sensitivity to the extensive variations 
> of  both "new media" and "archive" per se, as well as to very 
> different needs and articulations of the international community we 
> try to serve at the Goldsen Archive that subsequently expand the 
> parameters of the archive, in matter and theory.    This resulted, for 
> instance, in the broad expansion of the initial mission of the Goldsen 
> Archive away from focusing solely on computer-based art to include the 
> longer history of video art and its relation to electronic art, 
> partially in response to the important overlap of performance and 
> video in theWen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art, which we 
> brought to the Goldsen from Beijing six years ago, and more recently 
> with a partnership with Experimental Television Center.
>
> Key to these shifts have been the expression of need by communities 
> for whom new media (and video) have been vital to cultural and 
> political expression, often in less than ideal institutional 
> circumstances.   One very fruitful outcome of this month's discussion 
> has been the welcome addition to the -empyre- dialogue of very 
> specific accounts of the relation between new media and indigenous 
> practices and politics across Latin America, from Chile to Argentina 
> and Colombia to Brazil.   These accounts have stimulated extremely 
> interesting dialogues with our discussants from better known media and 
> performance initiatives in the UK , US, and Spain, in a way that has 
> foregrounded the importance of culturally and politically based 
> practices to the development of new media and to the emergent 
> complexities of its archivization.
>
> Thanks again for sharing time to focus on these very important 
> issues.  I end by extending a particularly warm welcome to the new 
> Latin American members of our -empyre- community.
>
> Best,
>
> Tim
>
>


-- 
Gabriela Previdello
FILE Archive Coordination
filearquivo00 at gmail.com
skypename: gabrielaprevidello
55|11|9896 6644
www.file.org.br

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