[spectre] ERPANET Workshop on the Preservation of Born Digital Art

[Oliver Grau]

ERPANET Workshop on the Preservation of Born Digital Art
Glasgow, Scotland
8th October 2004

ERPANET is pleased to announce a workshop on the preservation of born
digital art. This one-day event, co-sponsored by the Centre for
Contemporary Arts (CCA), will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, on the 8th of
October 2004.

Digital technologies are a ubiquitous presence in contemporary art
practice, from production through to presentation and preservation. Born
digital art employs technologies as its very own medium, exploring their
inherent properties, conventions, contents, contexts, and potentials for
interaction and participation. They may take the form of an installation or
digital environment; a website or web intervention; custom software; or an
attachment to an email. New media galleries and organizations have engaged
in commissioning, facilitating, presenting, and, vitally, archiving digital
artworks and projects. Indeed, several have formed on-line databases or
assembled physical collections, which have in turn prompted international
debate and research into issues of documentation, longer-term preservation
and access. The challenges of the medium are many: hardware, software,
operating systems, and browsers are threatened by obsolescence and
supercession. There are also the difficulties of documenting such works, of
reasserting their interactivity, and of recreating a specific context or
environment. The Internet itself is an unstable medium subject to constant
change and its own potential vulnerabilities. More recently, some museum
and private collections have begun to acquire born digital artworks and
face the task of developing plans or strategies for their long-term care.
For the majority, however, acquisitions remain highly selective: what they
can commit to is dictated by the long-term functionality, resource and
maintenance implications that such artworks, particularly those with
a ‘network-dependency’ or interactive element, can bear. The question of
what is possible – across a range of collecting contexts - is only just
being determined.

Benefits from Attendance
One of the major aims for this workshop is to provide an international
forum to exchange information about born digital art collecting and
archiving practices across different institutional and national contexts.
This workshop is aimed at all people involved in the creation and
management of born digital art.

The aims of this seminar are:

· To identify some of the challenges that the ‘permanent retention’ of born
digital artworks, particular those that are ‘network-dependent’ pose.
· To identify key platforms, operations, users, contexts of presentation
and experiences with born digital art
· To consider selected current collecting policies for born digital artworks
· To review selected current accessioning and documentation procedures for
born digital art
· To consider selected current storage and long-term access/care procedures
for born digital art
· To identify precedents for standards in
collecting/accessioning/storage/long-term care policies and procedures
across the ‘permanent retention contexts’


Seminar Format
During this workshop, presentations will explore the preservation of born
digital art from the perspective of both the artist and the collecting
organisation. A panel discussion will examine issues arising from the
presentations, such as developing specific collecting policies, addressing
technical issues, managing born digital resources, and enabling long-term
access to born digital art. During this session, workshop participants will
have the opportunity to share their own experiences.

Speakers include
-Frances McKee (artist, CCA)
-Susan Collins (artist, senior lecturer, UCL, London)
-Sandra Fauconnier (archivist, V2, Rotterdam)
-Peter Ride (CARTE, University of Westminster)
-Nikolett Eross (c3, Budapest)
-Simon Faithfull (artist, lecturer, UCL, London)
-Oliver Grau (Database of Virtual Art, Humboldt University,
Berlin)

Venue
This workshop will be held at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA). This
stunning building is located in the heart of Glasgow’s city centre. The CCA
have generously invited participants to attend the opening of their latest
exhibition on Icelandic art following the close of the workshop. The
opening will feature live performances, music and refreshments. ERPANET is
extremely grateful to the CCA for its generous support in the delivery of
this event. For more information, please see http://www.cca-glasgow.com.

Registration
To Register on-line, go to
http://www.erpanet.org/events/2004/glasgowart/index.php. The registration
fee is 65 GBP and will include lunch.

For more information contact british.editor at erpanet.org or
tinalouisefiske at aol.com