Anyone looking at transient media art images in the technically perfect form in which they float over monitors and projection surfaces will probably not have given too much thought to how future generations might be able to share the same experience. Popular opinion seems to assume that whatever has made its way into a museum and been recognized as a cultural achievement worthy of preserving and making publicly accessible must have a certain amount of durability.

How long this durability might actually last is something that not even the professionals dared to predict who met at the conference »404 Object Not Found – What remains of media art« in Dortmund to devote their attention to the special considerations involved in the production, presentation and preservation of software- and net-based art. It is clear that merely archiving image media on the shelf at the right temperature or, in the case of net art, on the server, is not enough. One touch of the delete key or computer worm attack suffices to irrevocably wipe out an artwork. Magnetic tapes can stick together and become useless after only seven to ten years. Video formats such as the so-called open-reel tapes (1/2-inch) »died out« 30 years ago, and their successors, such as the 3/4-inch U-matic format, are »threatened«. Playback devices and replacement parts will soon become obsolete. In the digital realm old systems make way for new software applications in ever briefer time spans, leading experts to predict that data stored today will be available to us for a maximum of ten to 20 years.

That's nothing compared to the 553 years the paper on which the Gutenberg Bible is printed has withstood. But perhaps just enough time to give restaurateurs and curators of German media art collections the chance to develop and implement concepts to save their holdings. And to do so if possible in a concerted effort, such as the Dutch demonstrated with their »Project Conservering Videokunst« begun in the year 2000. But Germany is still far from this type of systematic undertaking, which received support from the highest government levels.

There is, however, one exception: commercial art video distributor and service provider 235 Media in Cologne, buoyed by funds from the Bundeskulturstiftung, can now start saving the 1,100 tapes in its archive in DigiBeta format. At the same time, the Kunststiftung NRW is funding the pilot project for a database called MedienKunstArchiv, which offers an online preview, stills and information on the archived works. Archive and sales will later merge in a non-profit foundation.

But the museums have not yet reached this point. From his post at Bremen's Kunsthalle, Wulf Herzogenrath, in cooperation with the Lenbachhaus in Munich, the Düsseldorf Kunstsammlung NRW K21 and the ZKM Karlsruhe, has applied for support from the Bundeskulturstiftung for a research and data preservation imitative based on three components. The initiative proposes establishing up-to-date standards for restoration and discussing these in the context of a symposium. A few minutes from two video works will be restored as a demonstration, and an edition of the 50 most important video works will be published.

The Video Forum founded in 1972 by the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK), which is the oldest and, with 800 titles, second-largest videotape collection in Germany, is joining together with the Art History Institute at Humboldt University to apply for a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for a project researching ways to record its collection onto digital media. The project will also address the question of what can actually be restored. 80 percent of the archive is stored on U-matic-low tapes. In the past the artists have been contacted directly when the Forum needed to replace the defective submaster tape with a new copy of the master tape held by the creator.

The question of what can be preserved using which system and in which condition is one that art historians, restaurateurs and technicians can only solve together. For example, when the director of the Video Forum, Kathrin Becker, tried to play a tape by Canadian media artist Ernest Gusella on a recorder from the eighties, she was forced to diagnose the tape as a total loss. Yet the same tape played with a seventies device produced an almost noise-free picture. But what constitutes »almost noise-free« can only be judged by someone whose visual memory reaches back far enough to know what the work should look like. Therefore, whenever the artist is not available for consultation, it is important that there be some sort of documentation of the central characteristics essential for the aesthetic functioning of the work.

The Kunstmuseum Bonn is also applying to the DFG with a research project for preserving the 397 titles in its collection, not in use today for the most part for reasons of conservation. The chosen target format is DigiBeta. Plans are also being made for a new presentation concept designed to afford visitors access to the works without the need for assistance.

1,600 video titles and about 400 audio CDs are housed in the Mediathek at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, playable on a jukebox in the outdated MPEG-2 half D-1 compression codec. Although suitable for viewing purposes, this system is not appropriate for conserving the artworks. A backup copy of U-matic tapes is made in analog BetaSP format. DVDs are used for exhibitions. The Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) in Frankfurt/Main also backs up the data on its approx. 150 tapes and films in both analog and digital form. The general assumption is that analog formats will probably survive longer than digital media, for which there is always uncertainty as to whether the next software will use the same compression parameters. Besides, small scratches on an analog tape do not lead to such severe problems as they do on a digital disc.

In the case of multimedia objects and installations, it is important to preserve the works in their original condition if at all possible, according to Carmen Beckenbach from the Medienmuseum at the ZKM. When the laser disc player in Lynn Hershman's interactive installation »Lorna« (1979-84) broke down, the decision was made in consultation with the artist to use a comparable device. When after another four-and-half years a problem occurred with the data disc, Hershman burned the data onto DVD and integrated a DVD player into the artwork instead. She placed the old device in a glass case within the installation.

The conclusion that concepts designed to preserve material simply cannot remain viable in the long term was also reached by medien_kunst_netz dortmund in its EU-sponsored case study for the reconstruction of a video installation by Diana Thater, as presented at the conference this summer. But placing one's faith completely in documentation that allows for a »rematerialization« is not the solution either. Because the very technology that holds the work together and gives it its form is also a part of the cultural moment.

404 Object Not Found – What remains of media art?, 19 to 22 June 2003, Dortmund; organized by medien_kunst_netz_dortmund
http://www.404project.net

 

 

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