[-empyre-] September 2010 on -empyre- "Archiving New Media Art"

[Renate Ferro]

September 2010 on -empyre- soft-skinned space

"Archiving New Media Art: Ephemerality and/or Sustainability"

Moderated by Renate Ferro (US) and Tim Murray 
(US) with Taxonomedia: Vanina Hofman & Consuelo 
Rozo (Argentina/Colombia/Spain),Ricardo Dal Farra 
(Argentina/Canada),  Jon Ippolito (US), Mona 
Jimenez (US), Claudia Kozak (Argentina), Gariela 
Previdillo (Brazil), Lluis Roqué.

http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/

What are the challenges  to archiving new media 
art?  Is the new media archive sustainable or 
undermined by obsolete softwares and 
technologies?  Does the ephemerality new media 
and electronic art preclude archiving, if not 
challenge the very notion of the archive?  How 
might archival efforts bear traces of the 
politics of institutions, patrons, and strategies 
of inclusion?

The impetus for this discussion is provided by 
the September 1-3, 2010, conference in Buenos 
Aires, Argentina, "Conservar, Documentar, 
Archivar. Encuentros de conservación de arte 
electrónica y digital," organized by the archival 
collaboratory, Taxonomedia, led by Consuelo Rozo 
and Vanina Hofman, and sponsored by CCBA-Centro 
Cultural de España en Buenos Aires, Espactio 
Fundación Telefónica and Museo de Arte 
Latinamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). 
Taxonomedia staged discussions and workshops on 
how  new media archives can be organized and 
structured; on the technical challenges faced by 
electronic and  new media archives; and on the 
challenges posed by planned obsolescence and 
incompatible softwares and hardwares .

This month's discussion will introduce -empyre- 
to many of Latin America's leading specialists in 
new media archivization, theorization, and 
politics from Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia in 
addition to leading voices in the documentation 
of new media art.

==================================================================
Moderated by:

Renate Ferro (US) is a conceptual and  new media 
artist working in emerging technology, 
participatory installation, and digital culture. 
She is the co-managing moderator of -empyre- and 
the art/imaging editor of the journal diacritics 
published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. 
She teaches in the College of Architecture, Art, 
and Planning at Cornell University.  She has 
recently staged participatory exhibitions in 
Berlin and Chiapas, Mexico, and she will direct 
an intervention in October  for -empyre- at the 
Making Sense Colloquium at the Centre Georges 
Pompidou in Paris.

Tim Murray (US) is the Curator of the Rose 
Goldsen Archive of New Media Art at Cornell 
University and the co-managing moderator of 
-empyre-.  He is Director of the Society for the 
Humanities and Professor of Comparative 
Literature and English at Cornell.  As a curator 
of new media art and theorist of the digital 
humanities and arts, he sits on the Steering 
Committee of HASTAC.  He is the author of 
numerous books and articles on new media, film 
and video, contemporary art, performance, and 
theory, including Digital Baroque: New Media Art 
and Cinematic Folds.

Featured Guests:

Ricardo Dal Farra (Argentina/Canada)  is Founding 
Director of the Electronic Arts Experimenting and 
Research Centre (CEIArtE) at National University 
of Tres de Febrero, Argentina; Associate 
Professor and Chair of the Music Department at 
Concordia University, Canada; Associated 
Researcher at the Music, Technology and 
Innovation Research Centre, De Montfort 
University, United Kingdom.  As 
Researcher-in-Residence at the Fondation Daniel 
Langlois in Montreal, he created the Archive of 
Latin American Electroacoustic Music and 
Composition and participates in 
DOCAM--Documentation and Conservation of the 
Media Arts Heritage (Canada).

Vanina Hofman for Taxonomedia (Argentina and 
Spain)  is a PhD Candidate on the Information and 
Knowledge Society programme at the Internet 
Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) - Universitat 
Oberta de Catalunya. She has a Master degree on 
Curatorial and Cultural Practices in Art and New 
Media by MECAD/Media Centre of Art and Design - 
Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona.   Vanina 
taught and worked at MECAD for three years where 
she organized two exhibitions, coordinated the 
artist's residencies programme, and participated 
in the production and editing of the book "Arte 
electrónico / Entornos cotidianos" among other 
activities. Additionally, Vanina has developed 
independent research projects like the "Arte, 
mujer y tecnología" in 2009 
(<http://www.maquinaomaravilloso.net/>www.maquinaomaravilloso.net), 
while in 2007, she co-founded Taxonomedia, an 
independent association focusing on the 
importance of media arts conservation, 
documentation and archiving 
(<http://www.taxonomedia.net/>www.taxonomedia.net).

Jon Ippolito (US)  has made a career out of 
pursuing vocations for which he is drastically 
underqualified 
(<http://three.org/ippolito>three.org/ippolito). 
Following short-lived stints as a dancer and 
astrophysicist, he has co-created online artworks 
seen at the Walker Art Center and ZKM, curated 
exhibitions of video art and virtual reality at 
the Guggenheim, and published a regular column in 
ArtByte magazine. He suspects that his early 
adoption of new media has something to do with 
his recent success in pulling the wool over 
people's eyes.  He teaches New Media at the 
University of Maine.

Mona Jimenez (US) teaches Arts and is Associate 
Director of New York University's graduate 
program in Moving Image Archiving and 
Preservation, where she teaches  video 
preservation and the preservation of "complex 
media."  From 2005-2010, she was a participating 
researcher with DOCAM 
<<http://www.docam.ca/en.html>http://www.docam.ca/en.html>. 
As a Researcher-in-Residence at the Daniel 
Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and 
Technology, she created a cataloging template for 
custom and commercial machines used to make media 
art. 
<<http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=708>http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=708>
She is currently working with Kathy High (RPI) 
and Sherry Miller Hocking (Experimental 
Television Center) on a book project on 1970s 
custom-built electronic art tools, and dialogues 
between "pioneers" of tool development and 
current practitioners. For the past two years has 
led teams of moving image archivists to Ghana to 
work with caretakers of audiovisual collections.

Claudia Kozak (Argentina) is a Researcher of the 
National Council for Scientific and Technologic 
Research (CONICET); Professor at the Department 
of Literature and the Department of Communication 
Studies, University of Buenos Aires; Professor at 
the Department of Communication Studies, National 
University of Entre Rios (Parana City, 
Argentina). Co-Director Ph. D. Program (Social 
Sciences), National University of Entre Rios. She 
sits on the Board of Directors, Erasmus Mundus 
Joint Doctorate "Cultural Studies in Literary 
Interzones", and on the Editorial Board of the 
journal Artefacto. Pensamientos sobre la técnica. 
Currently, she conducts the collective research 
project Poéticas/políticas tecnológicas en la 
Argentina (Gino Germani Institute, UBA) and the 
online Exploratory Ludión 
(<http://www.ludion.com.ar>www.ludion.com.ar). 
Among other texts concerning the critic of 
contemporary culture, she has published: 
Deslindes. Ensayos sobre la literatura y sus 
límites en el siglo XX [Out of Boundaries. Essays 
on Literature and its Limits in 20th Century] 
Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2006; Contra la pared. 
Sobre graffitis, pintadas y otras intervenciones 
urbanas [Against the Wall. On graffiti, political 
painting and other urban interventions] Libros 
del Rojas, 2004; Las paredes limpias no dicen 
nada [Clean Walls Don't Say Anything. Anthology 
and essay] Libros del Quirquincho, 1991; Rock en 
letras [Rock in Lyrics. Anthology and essay] 
Libros del Quirquincho, 1990.

Gabriela Previdello (Brazil) lives and works in 
São Paulo, Brazil. Graduated in Fine Arts, she 
developed her work in art direction, producing 
different events, media and art exhibitions, 
including FILE electronic language international 
festival.   As FILE Archive Coordinator, she 
works on digital memory research, with emphasis 
in conservation, preservation and exhibition of 
electronic and digital art.

Lluis Roqué (Argentina) works in the Department 
of Conservation and Restoration at the Museum of 
Contemporary Art of Barcelona 
(http://www.macba.cat/) where he is responsible 
for the conservation of audiovisual and 
photographic materials.  He was trained in Fine 
Arts at the University of Barcelona where he 
specialized in the Conservation and Restoration 
of Images.





-- 
Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
Managing Moderators, -empyre- a soft-skinned space
Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York  14853