AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

Nam June Paik's Who's Your Tree is a monumental, site-specific video installation that has been a centerpiece of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's contemporary collection since its creation in 1996. The artwork is a large-scale tree-shaped video installation composed of 31 thirteen-inch cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs to make up “leaves and branches” and three twenty-five-inch CRT TVs for the “trunk.” The video contents feature iconic symbols and representations of Indiana including drag races, the state flag, native wildlife, and residents of the Hoosier state. The videos mirror the Indiana state flag with 19 stars and torch images and provides a familiar entry for Hoosier audiences to engage with TBM.  

Despite its significance, Who's Your Tree was entombed in a walled-off gallery for more than thirteen years due to frequent breakdowns of the TVs and limited spaces where the fifteen-foot-tall installation can fit within the galleries. Without thorough documentation, institutional lore about the condition and functionality teemed with contradictions. But, in the autumn of 2021, the artwork was selected as a high-priority inclusion for an exhibition of contemporary art at the museum. With less than two years to undertake the needed preparations, and scarce monetary resources, it was clear that collaboration with colleagues throughout the IMA and beyond would be critical to successfully treating this important work for the collection. 

As TBM ages, conservation teams without TBM specialists may be tasked with addressing the issues posed by these multifaceted objects. This talk will explain how, with few resources and little time, the IMA built a team to address these challenges and ultimately succeeded in getting this important work back on view. The talk will address the essential nature of collaboration to this effort and the complex stories of the artwork’s place in the IMA’s collection for nearly 3 decades.  Lastly, this talk will discuss the many possible futures for this work include digitizing the three video files to be able to play them on media players instead of DVD players as well as continue researching and testing possibilities for the eventual retrofitting of the original CRT technology with updated screens within the current monitor based on precedents from several other ground-breaking Nam June Paik treatments at other institutions.

This presentation explores the power of collaboration in preserving and understanding three seminal electronic artworks by Alan Rath in the Denver Art Museum's collection: "Looker II" (1990), "Family" (1994), and "Sky Watcher" (1990-91). These complex pieces, incorporating Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors, custom circuitry, and Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM) chips, embody not just technological innovation but also the artist's unique vision. Our conservation approach demonstrates how engaging a range of voices and expertise can enrich our understanding of an artwork's history, meaning, and preservation needs.

At the heart of these artworks lie the EPROM chips, a now-obsolete technology that poses unique conservation challenges. These chips store custom software and image data essential to the artworks' functionality. However, their UV-sensitive nature renders the data vulnerable to erasure if exposed to light, making them a fragile link to the artist's original programming and intent.

Our preservation efforts centered on two key collaborations. Joshua Eveland of Nolara Conservation Services LLC, who worked closely with Rath in his later years, provided crucial insights into the artist's philosophy and technical practices. Eveland shared valuable information about the artworks' construction and potential emulation strategies, offering guidance on CRT preservation and circuit board documentation.

Equally vital to our efforts has been the expertise of the artist Jim Campbell, a contemporary and friend of Rath. Campbell's deep understanding of EPROM technology and its use in electronic artworks has been crucial in addressing the technical challenges we face. He shared his extensive experience with EPROM technology, discussing the types of chips used in Rath's work and explaining the risks associated with data loss.

This collaboration will culminate in a planned visit by Campbell to the museum in October 2024, where he will use an EPROM reader to access and migrate the fragile data to the museum's cloud storage, ensuring long-term preservation of Rath's original programming and image files. Campbell's expertise has also been crucial in navigating the potential pitfalls of data recovery, including the possibility of "uncopyable" chips made by the artist.

In recognition of Eveland’s and Campbell's significant contributions to this project, we plan to invite them to be co-authors of this presentation and any subsequent publications. This co-authorship acknowledges the vital role that artists and technicians can play in the conservation of their peers' work, bringing unique insights and technical expertise that complement traditional conservation approaches, as well as the indispensable nature of interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of electronic art conservation.

By engaging with those who knew Rath and his work intimately, we gained insights into his creative process and the intended viewer experience that inform our preservation strategies. Collaborating with another artist  not only enhanced our technical understanding but also deepened our appreciation of the artworks' cultural and historical significance in seeing it through Campbell’s eyes. Our presentation will highlight how these collaborations shaped our conservation methodology, from documentation and maintenance planning to the ethical considerations of component replacement and potential future emulation. In addition to the successes, we will  discuss the practical challenges of this collaborative model and how we navigated them.

Sam Owens and Cass Fino-Radin present the outcome of the latest collaboration between Glenstone and Small Data Industries: the debut of a new user-friendly app for automating and managing fixity checks and uploading incoming acquisitions in media collections. This ambitious project was only possible thanks to a foundation of many years of collaboration. It exemplifies what is possible when trust between conservation, IT, and outside consultants has been actively cultivated.

Small Data developed the app to meet the specific needs of Glenstone's team. As with many art museums, Glenstone faced challenges in identifying tools that were both easy for collections staff to use and cost-effective. Existing tools in the digital preservation field were designed mainly for libraries and archives. As such, they are often either too complex, requiring advanced technical expertise, or prohibitively expensive because they were intended for large-scale institutional use. Glenstone needed a solution that would be accessible, capable of handling the specific needs of its collections staff, and scalable for future growth. 

This app offers a streamlined approach to collections staff interaction with, and oversight, of digital collections storage. It is manageable for institutions of all sizes and requires minimal technical expertise to implement while offering robust, scalable features for those who need it. 

Key aspects of the presentation will include discussion and exploration of:

1. The context of the project at Glenstone and the needs that were to be addressed
2. The collaborative process including the importance of long-standing professional relationships and effective communication in the design and software development projects.
3. The challenges and rewards of such collaborations within the context of art museums, including insights for institutions considering similar projects.
4. Live demonstration of the app, providing an overview of its functionality and user interface.
5. Reflection on the history and sustainability of software development in cultural heritage contexts.

Our presentation will share insights into how this project has met Glenstone's specific needs, providing solutions for accessible digital preservation in an art museum context. We will reflect on the collaborative design and software development process, the history of solving similar challenges in the cultural heritage space, and details on the public release.

By sharing this experience, we hope to introduce this new tool to attendees and also inspire institutions that may be considering collaborative projects involving software development in the context of collections management. We'll emphasize how such projects can lead to solutions that not only solve immediate problems but also contribute to the broader field of digital preservation in art collections.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) formed the Architecture and Design curatorial department in 1988, focusing on works of graphic design, product design, furniture and architecture. In the context of modern and contemporary art museums, SFMOMA has adopted the shared practices to collect and display design objects as aesthetic objects without its functionality. In 2014, SFMOMA, along with support from the Adrew W. Mellon Foundation, launched four-year Artist Initiative to develop a series of interdisciplinary research projects. Acknowledging the limitation of traditional display methods, SFMOMA investigated new approaches to collect, display and conserve design in the 21st century. In-use video was one of the strategies responding to the transformation of design with complex digital elements and interface. By producing in-use videos for two exhibitions (2015 & 2018), SFMOMA was able to present various functions in use that could not be understood by static display formats, and helped make the hidden world accessible without turning on the object while on display.   

During the two-year preparation for Art of Noise (2024), an exhibition dedicated to audio technologies, we have observed an interest shift to actively acquire and present design object's functionality. To show playback functions of media players in the exhibitions, incoming accessions and selected collection objects were studied, tested, serviced and repaired for the filming of in-use videos. To address the emerging interests and challenges, we have been revisiting our institutional policies and lay out our mission, resources, and timelines it may require to care for functional design objects. Additionally, we spoke to our colleagues in the other institutions to learn if they have experienced a similar shift to present the full lifecycle of object functions and provided insights into the potential landscape change in collections care. 

The aims of our endeavor are two-fold––addressing the evolving focus and the additional expertise and workload for ongoing and future activations. We started by asking the following questions: what happens if functionality becomes an element to be acquired? How can we test and keep track of its maintenance requirement? How does the desire to show functionality influence our conservation practice and what’s the proper scope?  Through collaborative whiteboard exercises, we worked on disentangling layers of decision-making by different stakeholders and defined several sets of categories for design objects with electronic functions. As modern devices are often designed to be multi-purpose, we further identified groups of functions and their needs of care. Starting from the pre-accession process, we continue to reshape the process by introducing the in-take form and activation record which led to defining a terminology that can be agreed upon. In this paper, we would like to share our efforts to construct a holistic approach and initiate conversations with the community as we continue to refine our practices to care for functional design objects.

In recent years, image-based 3D reconstruction has become an important tool for documenting heritage objects. In the case of time-based media artworks (TBMA), the inherent complexities of their ephemeral and technological nature present unique challenges in their documentation. These artworks only exist in their installed state, meaning their components and configurations may change with each iteration. In this context, 3D reconstruction can complement current documentation systems and provide an innovative way to capture detailed information and process the interaction between audiovisual, sculptural, and equipment elements. 

As part of my conservation fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution, specifically within the Time-based Media and Digital Art Working Group (SI-TBMA), my research focused on the exploration and application of 3D models to document and reconstruct TBMA. The goal was to assess both the potential benefits for conservation processes and the limitations of these techniques. The research methodology involved selecting four case studies from three Smithsonian museums and proposing a workflow for the digital reconstruction of each artwork. I utilized photogrammetry and solid geometric modeling techniques to create accurate and detailed models. 

By collaborating with different museums of the Smithsonian Institution, I was able to implement 3D documentation methods across these four case studies: Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii by Nam June Paik (1995), Cloud Music by Robert Watts, David Behrman, and Bob Diamond (1974–1979) from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Four Talks by Laurie Anderson from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and An Atlas by Es Devlin from the Cooper Hewitt Museum. Each of these artworks presents distinct challenges, from their creation and exhibition to their installation and long-term preservation, providing a diverse range of technical insights. 

Based on the analysis of these case studies, I developed a guide that compiles strategies and workflows for 3D documentation of TBMA. The guide addresses the selection of scanning tools, image-based 3D reconstructions tools, the processing of 3D models, metadata management, and key questions to adapt these techniques to different types of installations. It also includes recommendations for implementing this type of documentation in other settings and for other artworks that share complex technological features. 

3D documentation complements existing traditional methods and is especially useful in installations that integrate multiple components, both audiovisual and sculptural. It also provides a deeper technical understanding of specialized equipment and complex systems, facilitating decision-making during installation, iteration, and technological change during the artwork's life. Adding animations to the 3D models offers a visual and interactive experience that can be helpful for preserving and restoring TBMA.

The Transfer Data Trust project exemplifies the power of collaboration in addressing the critical challenge of preserving born-digital artworks. This innovative initiative brings together six time-based media conservators, two developers, five pioneering digital artists, and the founder of TRANSFER Gallery to create an open-source system architecture and toolkit for a webring of artist-owned repositories. Initially focused on a decade of digital art exhibitions from TRANSFER Gallery (2013-2023), the project aims to develop a scalable model that any artist, institution, or collective can adopt to establish private networks of redundant storage for the long-term preservation of digital cultural heritage.

The importance of this project lies in its novel approach to tackling persistent problems in digital art conservation: obsolescence and long-term sustainability through distributed storage. By involving artist studios directly in the preservation process and combining the knowledge of conservators, technologists, and curators, we're exploring how interdisciplinary collaborations and cooperative stewardship can reshape our approach to media art preservation in the 21st century. This project is particularly significant as it addresses the urgent need for innovative preservation strategies outside of museums. 

Our methodology, co-designed by this diverse team, combines conservation practices with innovative technology. The first year will include condition assessment and documentation of 15+ international art series, development of a redundant storage network across international artist studios, implementation of content-addressed versioned file storage, creation of detailed metadata schemas, and establishment of a time-banking system for pooling conservation expertise. The project's initial phase focuses on the works of five pioneering digital artists: Carla Gannis, Lorna Mills, Huntrezz Janos, Eva Papamargariti, and Rosa Menkman. Their diverse practices, ranging from glitch art to complex virtual environments, offer a rich testbed for our collaborative preservation strategies. Artists have been paired with many conservators involved in the Electronic Media Group at AIC including Sasha Arden (Guggenheim Museum), Eddy Colloton (previously Denver Art Museum and Hirshhorn Museum), Taylor Healy (The Art Institute of Chicago), Regina Harsanyi (Museum of the Moving Image), and Claudia Roeck (Haus der Elektronischen Künste).

Preliminary results from our prototype phase are promising. We have successfully set up a private network between network-attached storage drives in each artist studio and organized artist projects into artist information packages stored redundantly across the network. We've developed a standardized condition reporting template for born-digital artworks that is adaptable to various media types. A user-friendly interface for artists to manage their repositories has been created by Ryan Betts and Andrew Vivash, empowering them in the preservation process. Additionally, we've established partnerships with organizations like Gray Area Foundation and NYU Tandon School of Engineering, expanding our collaborative network. The project's significance has been recognized with funding from the Knight Foundation's Tech Expansion Fund, supporting our ongoing research and development.

Our findings suggest that this collaborative, distributed network approach can significantly extend the lifespan of digital artworks by reducing reliance on centralized storage and starting the documentation process much earlier in the lifecycle of these artworks. It empowers artists to participate actively in the long-term preservation of their work, facilitates more efficient sharing of conservation resources and expertise across institutions, and provides a scalable, open-source model for others to establish their own distributed repositories. Importantly, it has the potential to shift the artist's relationship to equity in their work, reminiscent of the historic Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement of the 1970s, but updated for the digital age.

This project contributes to the field of conservation by demonstrating how collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts can produce practical, scalable solutions for digital art preservation. By open-sourcing our methodologies and tools, we aim to benefit the broader artistic community and advance the field of time-based media art conservation. It challenges us to rethink traditional conservation roles and institutional boundaries.