[-empyre-] Variable Media Questionnaire

[Jon Ippolito]

Thanks to all for sharing your questions and insights in the past month on ephemerality and sustainability. I'm looking forward to reading more about the next topic, Making Sense, and its attendant colloquium. In the meantime, in the hopes that the moderators will indulge me, I'll try to catch up on some loose ends from last month:

On Oct 9, 2010, at 7:40 PM, FILE_Arquivo wrote:
> I’m very interesting in the Variable Media Questionnaire. I was wondering to apply in some artworks here.
Gabriela, I'm glad to hear it! We just launched the third-generation Variable Media Questionnaire a few months ago and are keen to get folks to use it. 

This Questionnaire has been completely rebuilt from the bottom up to make it easier for more people to use. Most importantly, the Questionnaire is no longer a standalone database template but now a free Web service, making it easy for creators and their associates to register their opinions on a work's future, whether or not they are connected to an institution. We've already seen the Questionnaire in use by a broader audience, including a recent entry by architects Diller & Scofidio.

The new Questionnaire looks at artworks as ensembles of components, because we thought that would be more intuitive for registrars, conservators, and other arts specialists. In so doing, our purpose is less to track sundry gadgets like cables or disk drives than to understand the key elements of a work that are critical to its function, such as source code or media display. Acknowledging the relational character of much contemporary art, these parts extend beyond hardware to include environments, user interactions, motivating ideas, and external references.
You can play around with a demo version of the Variable Media Questionnaire at the link below. 

http://variablemediaquestionnaire.net/

Anything you add in the demo version of the Questionnaire will be erased periodically, so you can experiment with the interface by creating fake works and interviews to this "sandbox."

The best way to start is probably to browse through artworks using the search box at left, then double-click on anything that interests you. Along the way you'll probably open a number of panels, which operate much like the windows you see on your normal computer desktop. You can open new panels, move them, minimize, or close them. If you get lost at any point, just click on the exclamation point to bring up an FAQ that should help. 

If any empyreans would like a real account or a personal tour via phone or chat, just let me know off-list. We'd love to help you document the works under your care!

jon

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Forging the Future:
Free tools for variable media preservation
http://forging-the-future.net/