Translations through time: Conservation of born-digital art by Robyn Ho

Translations through time: Conservation of born-digital art

Abstract

Interactivity typifies born-digital art, instilling diffusivity and ephemerality to the art form. These characteristics challenge the traditional conservation frameworks regarding authenticity, change and agency. Technological obsolescence threatens preservation and implores conservators to develop new theories and ethics to guide conservation practice. The Whitney Museum of American Art’s conservation of Douglas Davis’s internet-based born-digital work, The World’s First Collaborative Sentence, 1994, is discussed as a case study. This paper proposes that existing conservation skills in materials, holistic value-centred methodology and risk assessment will be valuable in the complex digital environment. The new role of ‘translator’ is also suggested to reposition conservation practice to authentically preserve the integrities of born-digital art.

ASSIGNMENT 2 KEY PRESERVATION ISSUES CUMC90026 CONSERVATION PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES

Student Details | Robyn Ho (Student No: 672025) Date | 08.04.2016

Introduction

Digital technologies are ubiquitous in contemporary society and born-digital art could communicate how artists have critiqued technological culture to future generations. Born-digital art has suffered from being considered immaterial or too problematic, neglected by collections management. Institutions are increasingly acquiring born-digital works and technological obsolescence requires the quick response of conservation to act. However, the unique challenges to conservation require a reconceptualisation of the principles that guide practice to faithfully preserve the integrity of born-digital art.

Born-digital art

Originating in the 1960s, born-digital describe works of contemporary media art produced in a digital format from the outset and which depend exclusively on digital technologies for its implementation (Serexhe 2013, p. 599). The computational processes of computers is used as an interface to produce the work and is a designation used to distinguish it from the generic term of media art (Dietz 2005; Innocenti 2012, p. 71). Borndigital art includes practices termed as new media art, computer art, software art, Internet art and some hybrid media forms of installation art.

Interactivity Dietz (2005) describes three qualities of born-digital art: connectivity, computability and interactivity. These behaviours could be related to a range of modern art histories, but it is the behaviour of ‘interaction’ that distinguishes born-digital art (Graham 2013). Lopez (2009) makes a clear distinction between born-digital and installation art based on interactivity (Figure 1). Installation art

Born-digital art

Work = Experience + Display

Work = Display Experience

Experience

Figure 1 | Comparison of the role of user interactivity in the behavior or installation art and born-digital art (Reproduced from Lopez 2009, p. 41). In born-digital art, input from the user is vital to generate the artistic output in born-digital art. Interactive inputs vary, for example, web links, live events, data sets and user action. Born digital art ‘…requires the creation of platforms of exchange that are manifest through technological devises and aim to stimulate a two-way interplay ASSIGNMENT 2 KEY PRESERVATION ISSUES CUMC90026 CONSERVATION PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES

Student Details | Robyn Ho (Student No: 672025) Date | 08.04.2016

between an individual (or indeed a group of individuals) and a given artwork’ (Popper, in Konstantelos 2012, p. 19). It is the two-way interaction of these inputs with the algorithmic interface of the computer which transforms it into an aesthetic output in real time (Dietz 2005; Lopez 2009).

Douglas Davis’s The World’s First Collaborative Sentence, 1994 is a good example of the innate interactivity to generate born-digital works. Acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art (the ‘Whitney’) ,and ‘located’ on the internet, the work is an ongoing textual and graphic online ‘performance’ whereby visitors may type in their own contributions on any subject to the webpage (Davis 1994). The only stipulation is that the work is infinitely expanding with no contribution to end with a period. Without user interaction with the interface of the computer and webpage, ultimately the Sentence would lose an integral generative aspect of the work. Dynamic interactive behaviours distinguish born-digital art and present many conservation dilemmas.

Conservation challenges

General challenges of contemporary art also prevail in born-digital art, but manifest in digital mediums in unique ways. Issues in contemporary art are twofold: first is the loss of a distinct bounded object; the second, the challenges posed by non-traditional and ephemeral media (Laurenson 2014; Wharton 2005). The lack of a contained irreproducible object and the ephemerality of the work’s behaviour and rapidly changing technologies ensures born-digital artworks are ‘…becoming victims to their own volatile intent’ (Rinehart 2007, p. 181).

Diffuse boundaries Utilising interactivity in the creation of art has expanded the relationship between audiences and artists, blurring the assumption of the contained authored art object. Born-digital artworks are contingent on the contribution of external factors, sometimes not created by the artist such as interactive inputs and proprietary software / hardware. The interaction of the multitude of components to comprise an artwork is common to many contemporary works, but in born-digital art, it is a constructed system with highly diffuse boundaries open to diverse external dependencies (Fino-Radin 2011; Laurenson 2014, p. 8). Digital artworks have challenged ‘…traditional museological approaches to documentation and preservation because of their ephemeral, documentary, technical and multi-part nature’ (Rinehart 2007, p. 181). In born-digital art, the viewer is no longer a spectator, but contributes to the work’s creation through various levels of interaction: navigation, participation, conservation and collaboration (Dixon 2007, p. 597; Graham 2013; Lopez 2009, p. 39). The changeability of these external dependences results in the diversity of outputs with each rendition of the work, akin to

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Student Details | Robyn Ho (Student No: 672025) Date | 08.04.2016

performance. It is the inherent performativity that characterises the behaviour of much of contemporary art generally, and operates in a magnified extent in born-digital art (Dietz 2005; Innocenti 2012, p. 76; Muñoz-Vinas 2010).

The ability of digital information to be copied and operate concurrently across multiple contexts, such as the internet and art gallery, questions the spatial and temporal territories of the artwork (Konstantelos 2012, pp. 1920; MacNeil & Mak 2007, p. 45). ‘A lot of new-media art, especially network-based work, doesn’t have spatial dimensions per se, but nodes and levels of connection’ (Dietz 2005, p. 89). Born-digital artworks are no longer discrete authored art objects, but are dispersed networks that operate with multiple and simultaneous identities, behaviours, contexts and presences in time and space. Traditional boundaries of authorship, what constitutes the authentic artwork and the physical and/or virtual spaces in which the artwork resides are fluid and multiple when applied to born-digital art. Interactivity in born-digital art that utilises user-centric communication models has ‘…eradicated the notion of artworks as self-contained monoliths’ (Almeida 2011, p. 7).

Ephemeral intent and content Technological environments pose many challenges for conservation. Rapid innovation has ensured the shorter ‘half-life’ of born-digital works where digital technologies can have usability of less than ten years (Serexhe 2013, p. 24). Technological obsolescence can be more difficult to monitor and are harder to predict compared to other deterioration factors. The interdependent multi-component nature of the digital environment can incorporate various hardware, code, plug-ins, operating systems and software applications. The breakdown of a single component can prevent the whole system from functioning, magnifying the risk of failure (Graham 2014, p. 89). Technological obsolescence invites impermanence with its fast rate of change.

Ephemerality is also actively invited by using interactive modes of communication. In born-digital art, the chosen digital medium may not wholly represent the artist’s intent, but it is the ‘medium-independent behaviours’ that characterise the work (Depocas, Ippolito & Jones 2003; Ippolito 2010). The computer code can sometimes be the object or alternatively, considered as an auxiliary tool to achieve certain behaviours. The conventional direct correlation between the original materials (in this case, digital information) to faithfully represent the artist’s intent is uncertain as variable concepts, behaviours and processes become the principle artistic intent (Graham 2014; Scholte & Wharton 2011; Wharton 2005). The use of digital technologies challenges conservation in its ephemerality as a medium and as an intended aspect of the artist’s intent.

ASSIGNMENT 2 KEY PRESERVATION ISSUES CUMC90026 CONSERVATION PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES

Student Details | Robyn Ho (Student No: 672025) Date | 08.04.2016

Redefined frameworks for conservation

The dilemmas raised by born-digital art require the reconceptualisation of values that underpin conservation. Muñoz-Vinas (2005) describes the historical origins of the conservation discipline, rooted in the Classicism of the nineteenth century. ‘For classical theories, conservation is a ‘truth-enforcement’ operation. It can be safely said that the goal of conservation is to reveal and preserve an object’s true nature or true condition’ (Muñoz-Vinas 2005, p. 91). Conservation has become the recovery of an authentic state, linked to its original physical condition (Muñoz-Vinas 2005; Wharton 2005). Laurenson (2006) summarises the impact of classical concepts on conservation: ‘…[A]rt works are commonly conceived as unique physical objects. In conservation the prevalent notion of authenticity is based on physical integrity and this generally guides judgements about loss. For the majority of traditional art objects, minimising change to the physical work means minimising loss, where loss is understood as compromising the (physical) integrity of a unique object’ (Laurenson 2006). Conserving born-digital works requires a paradigm shift. New guiding theories of authenticity, change and agency are required to reflect the artistic intent and technology operating in born-digital art.

Authenticity With fine art objects, value is determined by the notion of authenticity based on the unequivocal attribution to an original author, time and culture, primarily established by materials examination (Laurenson 2006; Weyer 2010, p. 21). The issue is that born-digital art actively circumvents aspects of undisputed authorship. The demise of the ‘artist’s hand’ has been a consistent theme in contemporary art making as artists have delegated aspects of production or realisation (Buskirk 2003). In born-digital works, the process of delegated authorship is integral to the work, which can result in multiple and simultaneous authentic renderings. The aim to preserve the immutable ‘true’ nature of the object based on its original appearance becomes problematic when dealing with born-digital artworks which exhibit diverse ‘authentic’ conditions and incorporate non-material aspects.

Goodman (1969) discusses authenticity in art based on a distinction between autographic arts, such as paintings and sculpture, and allographic works which include performed works. For Goodman, allographic works maintain their authenticity by their amenability to a notation to transmit through time the artist’s original intention for a performer to produce an authentic performance. Roeder (2004) further elaborates on Goodman’s analysis, identifying autographic arts that are based on ‘nominal authenticity’ that are assessed via material and aesthetic aspects, and allographic arts based on ‘intentional authenticity’ that is faithful to the creator’s intentions.

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Considering the innate performativity of born-digital art, classifying born-digital arts as allographic may be more appropriate.

Laurenson (2006) makes a comparison of time-based media artworks, a general term that includes born-digital art, and allographic works like music. Referencing the work of philosopher Stephen Davies, Laurenson suggests authenticity is assured by the faithful performance of the composer’s work-determinative instructions recorded in the score, and identifying and documenting similar ‘work-determinative’ features can preserve the artwork’s authenticity. These ‘work-determinative’ features are the artist’s intentions made explicit. Performance details can be ‘thickly’ or ‘thinly’ prescribed and therefore, open to variability and yet considered authentic (Laurenson 2006). A shift in the concept of authenticity is required, one that is based on ‘work-determinative’ features that prescribes the artist’s intentions rather than material-based notions.

Change If the artist’s intention is to be the guiding principle for preserving authenticity in conservation, then traditional negative correlations between change and loss requires reframing. Not all change is loss. Born-digital works are open-ended systems and are designed to change and evolve over time (Laurenson 2014). Commonly, the artistic motivation to utilise digital media is to challenge the concept of the static timeless museum object by using the transformative processes of software. To uphold the performativity inherent in contemporary art presents a dichotomy for conservation, which has long been tasked to arrest and stabilise change (Muñoz-Vinas 2010). ‘For digital culture, fixity equals death’ (Ippolito 2008).

A conceptual turn in the concept of authenticity may reconcile these conflicts. MacNeil and Mak (2007) discuss the subjective constructions of authenticity in art that is in a continuous state of becoming. As the objects ages, its value is resituated and recontextualised in society. According to MacNeil and Mak, authenticity is a changeable construct, which can apply to both the autographic and allographic arts. ‘[I]f we accept that a work of art supports different intentions over time, we must also admit the possibility that such work can possess different authenticities over time’ (MacNeil & Mak 2007, p. 33). By admitting that all art changes values over time, the intentional changes that are central to the integrity of born-digital art may be more comfortably accepted by conservation practice.

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Agency of the conservator The contemporary emancipation of art from its bounded definitions has also freed the conservator. Acceptance of change inherent in born-digital works provides agency to think beyond minimal intervention and traditional aversions to restoration that has guided conservation ethics. Muñoz-Vinas (2005, pp. 15-21) describes conservation as involving both preservation which retains a current state, and restoration which imposes a better idealised state. In the later twentieth century, the notion of ‘minimal conservation’ became the quintessential ethic for conservation (Caple 2000, pp. 63-5; Muñoz-Vinas 2009). However, technological obsolescence pragmatically necessitates a rethinking of conservation ethics.

Preserving born-digital art pragmatically necessitates intrusive interventions that could be objectively considered unethical. There are currently four main approaches to ensure long-term access and display: static preservation, emulation, migration, and reinterpretation (Dell'Aquila, Ferronato & Lampo 2012; Rinehart 2000; Serexhe 2013, pp. 599-602). Static preservation retains objects in their original form. Emulation provides a layer of software that mimics the functionality of the outdated platform so that original source code may function. Migration means to copy and adapt digital information from unsupported hardware and/or software to function on current formats. Reinterpretation involves modern remaking of functional elements. Many of these methods would be deemed counter to ‘minimal intervention’ and classed as restorations – the conserved object now being in a better functioning state that it has not historically existed in. Elements of delegated authorship and digital technology have sanctioned varying degrees of authorship for conservators.

Potentials for conservation

If born-digital art poses such fundamental challenges to conservation principles, it begs to question: Are conservators still relevant? If so, what role should the conservator take?

Valuable conservation skills Having little materiality is far from having no materiality at all. Digital information requires mechanisms that reside in the material world to translate the 0’s and 1’s. Depending on how original equipment contributes to the conceptual, aesthetic and historical integrity of the piece, material objects used to store, access and display the artwork can be crucial (Laurenson 2005; Lorrain 2013). Conservators are highly trained in diagnosing and treating material deterioration and it is an exclusive specialisation of the conservation profession due to‘…its

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closeness to the conservation object and its specificity’ (Muñoz-Vinas 2005, p. 10). Specialist material knowledge is an asset for conservators which could benefit the preservation of born-digital art.

Contemporary practice has evolved into ‘value-led conservation’, based on the analysis of the multiple values an object possesses for different stakeholders (Avrami, Mason & de le Torre 2000; Muñoz-Vinas 2005, pp. 3-12). Conservators are trained to assess the web of tangible and intangible aspects imbued in material objects (Appelbaum 2007). Enshrined in many professional conservation codes of practice, all actions ‘…must be governed by an unswerving respect for the physical, historic, aesthetic and cultural integrity of the object’ (AICCM 2002, p. 3). This value-led philosophy ‘…mandates that conservation should enhance or preserve the preferred meanings of the object while impairing as little as possible its ability to convey any other meanings’ (Muñoz-Vinas 2009, p. 56). This holistic and intergenerational foresight characterises conservation and be considered sympathetic to the complex material and intangible systems of that comprise born-digital works.

Conservators hare trained to assess risk over time. Particularly with the pressing threat of obsolescence and the indeterminate external dependences of born-digital works, risks that can adversely affect the function of the piece are multiple and complex (Laurenson 2014). Preventive conservation has become an important discipline in conservation and risk assessment tools have been developed to predict and assess unrealised risks in the complex collections system (Keene 2002). It is the conservation skills to assess risk and clearly prioritise conservation activities that can be utilised when dealing with the unpredictability of born-digital art.

Expertise in materials, value-led and holistic thinking, and risk assessment approaches are valuable qualities to possess in the face of rapid change posed by born-digital art. The task then falls on the profession to advocate for the specialised knowledge of conservators and their benefits to born-digital art conservation.

Conservator as translator The technical needs of born-digital art require multi-disciplinary support. Expertise can come from programmers, manufacturers, artists, technicians, archivists, and retired professionals knowledgeable of obsolete technologies (Depocas, Ippolito & Jones 2003; Laurenson 2014). There are well-connected gaming hobby groups that could also be recruited. An example is the recovery of Andy Warhol’s computer art from 1985, stored on obsolete Amiga floppy disks. With the collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Club, files could be extracted to reveal images that were inaccessible for decades (D'Agostino 2014; Dewey 2014). Digital platforms can also provide conservation solutions with crowdsourcing cited as a potential to pool expertise, to produce

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audience generated documentation, and fix software functionality through open-source code (Graham 2013, p. 257; Konstantelos et al. 2012, p. 95; Wharton 2015, p. 189). In this collaborative environment, the role of translator between areas of expertise is emerging (Laurenson 2014, p. 90). ‘Sustaining the work involves not a single type of expert by a collection of expert individuals…. [U]seful knowledge becomes distributed across an array of practitioners. The trick becomes gathering it up and distributing it’ (Wharton & Molotch 2011, p. 219). There exists an opportunity for conservators to occupy this space and to be the conduit for a dispersed network of expertise.

The term ‘translator’ as a person who interprets from one language to another casts an alternative role. As with notation in allographic works, there is the potential for conservation to develop similar systems through documentation. Conservators are well-skilled in documentation, forming a fundamental activity for professional conservation (AICCM 2002, p. 8). Institutionally supported conservation initiatives include The Variable Media Network , Matters in Media Art project, DOCAM, and the Rhizome ArtBase. These groups have explored the documentation of various aspects born-digital art: artist’s intent through questionnaires and interviews; artwork behaviours and installation through documentation standards, and; identification of the multiple integrities of the work through decision making guidelines. Rinehart (2007) proposes a model for a propositional Media Art Notation System (MANS) to create a machine-processable ‘score’ that would function as a working model of the work. Though the aims are fragmented, all these activities point to the need to extract and translate integral ‘work-determinate’ properties of born-digital works.

Translation in action Let’s return to Douglas Davis’s work The World’s First Collaborative Sentence, 1994. In 2012, the Whitney undertook conservation of the Sentence which had since become non-functional. A historic static version using emulation was kept, whilst a second live version was migrated to maintain functionality. The source code was opened to the public to fix unresolved technical issues in displaying the Korean script. Both versions of the work, original documentation, artist’s statement, description of the conservation, and articles discussing the work can be accessed via the Whitney’s website (Whitney Museum of American Art 2016). The two versions of the Sentence are simultaneously available; both designated the same creation date. Each version is considered authentic in both cases of the term: ‘the original’ and faithfulness to the intent. Migration involved drastic alteration of the code to regain functionality in the live version, accepting change to the original condition. Agency for conservation was increased by allowing fixes to the source code to be submitted by the public. New concepts of authenticity, change and agency were already in operation that facilitated conservators to act as

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translators and the website to serve as a translation of the work. Similar to how language operates, it is through synthesising various symbols (in this case, photographs, versions of the work, articles etc.) that an accurate interpretation can be created by the present-day visitor. The performative nature of the Sentence has necessitated this multi-modal documentation approach to faithfully uphold the multiple historical, conceptual and aesthetic integrities. This example shows that conservators are already engaging with new theoretical frameworks to guide translations of born-digital art for future interpretations.

Conclusion

Interactive and performative behaviours, complex interdependent systems, and rapid technological obsolescence in born-digital art pose many challenges to conservation practice. Conservation needs to rethink long-standing principles of authenticity, change and agency to guide practice. The existing skills of conservators in materials knowledge, holistic value-led methodologies and risk assessment can still be valuable with such complex artworks. Reframing the role of the conservator as a translator may prove useful, both as a communicator between dispersed experts, but also as an interpreter that can document these works. The critical issue will be the rigour and accuracy in which conservators translate born-digital works to ensure the authentic performance can be faithfully transmitted through time.

ASSIGNMENT 2 KEY PRESERVATION ISSUES CUMC90026 CONSERVATION PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES

Student Details | Robyn Ho (Student No: 672025) Date | 08.04.2016

References

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ASSIGNMENT 2 KEY PRESERVATION ISSUES CUMC90026 CONSERVATION PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES

Student Details | Robyn Ho (Student No: 672025) Date | 08.04.2016