Digital Art Through the Looking Glass : New Strategies for Archiving, Collecting and Preserving in Digital Humanities

Digital art challenges archiving, collecting and preserving methods within and outside of gallery, library, archive and museum (GLAM) institutions. By its media, art in the digital sphere is processual, contextual, modular and ephemeral, and its creative process is collaborative. From artists, scholars, technicians and conservators?to preserve this contemporary art is a transdisciplinary task. This book brings together leading international experts from digital art theory and preservation, digital humanities, collection management, conservation and media art histories. In a transdisciplinary approach, theoretic and practice-based research from these stakeholders in art, research, education and exhibition are presented to create an overview of present preservation methods and discuss demands and opportunities for the future. Finally, the need for a new appropriate museum and archive infrastructure is shown to preserve the art of our time. --Back cover. Cover170x240 1 FINAL_betapublication_PDF 2 Impressum_final 2 TableofContents_v6_20191408 7 FINAL_Introduction_c 10 Ch1_FINAL 26 Early New Media Art. 26 The search for originality in technological art and its challenges for preservation 26 Georg Nees & Harold Cohen: 28 Re:tracing the origins of digital media 28 Keywords 28 Media, digital 31 Georg Nees 34 Harold Cohen 36 Nees, Cohen, media 41 The medium was the message 45 Acknowledgement 48 References 48 George Legrady 50 Abstract 50 Keywords 50 From analog to digital 50 Transitioning to digital: Truevision Targa System (1986) 53 Early projects (1987-1991) 54 Conclusion 60 References 61 Introduction 63 The 1960s is a unique period, not only in its political, social or economic significance, but as the decade when Media Art emerged. It was the year 1968 when social protests began to spread out at US universities’ campuses through youth and feminist m... 63 In that period and in that historical context, two automatic technologies of the image reached the market: the Personal Computer and Portapack video camera. In light of the 1960s countercultural movements, a group of pioneering and experimental artist... 63 In the United States, pioneering artist Sonia Landy Sheridan got involved in the creation of posters for the democratic convention together with her students and discovered the photocopy machine as the perfect tool for the creation and distribution of... 63 [...] In the early sixties, artists began to work with copy machines, whether located in offices or installed in public places. For these artists, copiers were truly ‘found media’, personal discoveries uncovered in setting not previously recognized as... 63 N'ima Leveton, an engraver from San Francisco, produced her first series of prints on a coin machine she found in a neighbourhood supermarket. In 1964, Barbara Smith rented a Xerox 914 photocopy machine that was installed in her dining room; it was us... 63 Although digital technologies were established in the 1980s, these analogue and electronic tools answered to new creative needs which reflected some of the changes that were taking place in economic, social and political fields and predicted many of M... 64 Of these experimental techniques, especially those practices relating to the computer and the photocopy machine have been kept in different places, establishing their own spaces for exhibitions, workshops and even archives or collections. Following th... 65 Although most researchers have spent a substantial amount of time using and fixing copy machines at some point in their career, few have considered the machine ́s epistemological, aesthetic, political, and social impacts in their research. (2016: 8) 65 In the case of the photocopy machine as an originally electric and later digital technology, it had a number of technical and functional features as well as restrictions that made it unique for creative use by becoming its graphic language. But one of... 65 When the photocopy machine made art 65 Historical milestones in the context of media art 68 Conclusion 71 Acknowledgments 72 References 72 Abstract 74 Keywords 74 Introduction 74 “anarchive” 75 Why does it take so long to produce each project? 76 Obsolescence and updating 77 Augmented books 78 Ch2_FINAL 79 Introduction (by Wendy Coones and Oliver Grau) 83 Panelist introduction 85 Panelist statements 87 Panel discussion 96 Audience question & answer 101 Ch3_FINAL 106 Keywords 108 Dear colleague, 108 Before Making 110 While Making 111 After Making 113 Dealing with a Collector 114 Final Notes 118 Version 0.9.1 119 References 132 Abstract 136 Keywords 136 A tension between light and dark, or heavy and light 137 Circulation 140 Networked co-archiving 143 Embracing unpredictability and the indeterminate 145 References 146 Abstract 148 Keywords 148 Digital art as original 148 The problem of preservation in archive theory 150 Historicizing digital art 152 Originality: Artistic intention as archival source 153 Alternative methods of storage, access and (re-)usability 155 Conclusion 157 References 158 Ch4_FINAL2 162 Abstract 164 Keywords 164 Research context and literature 166 Videosonata: A case study from REWINDItalia 169 Doppelgänger Redux: Re-enacting an early video performance under the eyes of an audience. 172 Conclusion 178 References 179 This case study was developed without the help of any public or private institution, collection or program, as part of the personal research of the author in the technical conservation of digital artworks. The artist David Rokeby, who kindly helped du... 184 Description of the artwork 184 Methodology 186 Visual Generator 191 It has a high aesthetic impact (visual representation of the artwork) 191 Original images are available and can be used. 191 Semantic Generator 191 Re-creation process 191  Regarding the logical level, following implementation was chosen: 192 References 194 Brandi, C. 2008. Teoría de la Restauración. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. 194 Image references 194 Unless otherwise stated, copyright of all images is owned by the author of this article. 194 Ch5_FINAL 209 Redesigning Rare Japanese Books in the Digital Age: Design of the Narrative Book Collection 209 This paper introduces Narrative Book Collection—a unique model of digital exhibition for pre-modern Japanese books that explores computational and visualization approaches to create a new book reading experience in the digital age. Narrative Book Coll... 209 The transformation of books 209 Introducing the Narrative Book Collection 210 Research outline 210 Foundations 211 Books as cultural artifacts 211 Digitization of rare japanese books 212 The concept of close reading and distant reading 213 1. 214 2. 214 Story, storytelling and narrative 214 Setting the stage to FutureLearn 215 Design of the Narrative Book Collection 215 Overview 215 Pilot research on FutureLearn 216 Learner attributes 216 Developing the course 217 Conducting the course 218 Analyzing the course 218 1.2 219 2.2 219 2.2 219 Qualitative approach 219 Results and findings 220 Design goals 221 Design process of the Narrative Book Collection 221 Initial design 222 Results and findings 222 Summary 223 Refined design 224 Design Process 224 (a) Story formation 224 (b) Data generation 224 Since the 1st course run, 105 titles—264 digitized images—were accessible in high-resolution images and 95 titles were available on the prototype. However, many of the digitized books did not contain enough bibliographic records and not all books were... 224 (c) Story-driven data analysis 224 Figure 3.4. Main features in the first and second iteration. 225 (d) Narrative visualization 225 Bookshelf View 225 Book View 226 Implementing the Narrative Book Collection 226 Expected pathways 226 Proof of concept 228 Research setting 228 Learner attributes 228 Table 4.1: Learner Attributes (4th course run) 228 Evaluation—Quantitative approach 229 Access to Bookshelf View 229 Access to Book View 229 Encouraged to re-join the course 230 Evaluation—Qualitative approach 230 Results and findings 231 Concept proof 231 Summary 232 Conclusions 232 Discussion 232 Contribution 233 References 233 Keywords 237 Abstract 275 Keywords 275 Introduction 275 Context, Tate and the collection 277 The artworks 280 The artwork’s lifecycle in the museum 281 Preservation and preservation strategies 282 Defining significant properties and risks 283 Analysis 285 Storage 286 Intervention—Migration, emulation and anything else that helps 286 Documentation 288 Developing best practices 289 References 290 Image References 311 SB_combined_CHECK_a 313