Symposium - Archiving the Arts

Archiving the Arts: addressing preservation in the creative process Saturday, October 13, 2012 9:00 AM–5:00 PM Michelson Theater NYU Tisch School of the Arts Department of Cinema Studies 721 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY 10003 Presented by: Association of Moving Image Archivists Student Chapter at NYU and Independent Media Arts Preservation (IMAP) Archiving the Arts unlocks dialogue concerning preventive preservation, the creative process, and where the two concepts intersect. Unlike corporate or policy-based content, independent media art evolves and is often born from fleeting processes, creative approaches, and undocumented methods. Its unique development deserves to be addressed by both its makers and those who fight for its welfare after creation. Our primary goal is to straddle an antiquated divide. Instead of finite responsibilities dictated by title, archivists and artists must learn to work collaboratively in the complex independent media environment. Join us on October 13 as we bridge the gap! Register at: http://www.imappreserve.org/join/membership.html Archiving the Arts is part of New York Archives Week, which is organized by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York. www.nycarchivists.org. 9:00 AM Registration Opens/Breakfast Reception 9:45 AM Welcome Jeff Martin - Executive Director, IMAP Kathryn Gronsbell - Moving Image Archiving & Preservation, NYU and President, AMIA @ NYU 10:00 AM Preventive Preservation Moderated by Seth Anderson - Digital Preservation Consultant, AudioVisual Preservation Solutions Collaborative Curation: Designing for Preservation Ben Fino-Radin - Digital Conservator, Rhizome at the New Museum In the collection and preservation of born digital works, often the most effective methods of preservation are enabled by decisions made by the artist during the creative process. This presentation will explore cases of born-digital works from the collection of the Rhizome ArtBase, that were designed in a manner that affords effective and unobtrusive collection and preservation, as well as new modes of institutional collaboration with the creators of web platforms employed by artists. Partnering to Promote Best Practices to Preserve Independent Media Art Michele L. Wozny - PEAR Writing Studios Media artists and artist-run centres across Canada are actively strategizing how best to develop partnerships between funders and stakeholders, including archives, distributors and collectors, in order to promote long-term access and thereby stimulate the preservation of independent media artworks. This presentation will explore recommendations for such a life-cycle model that involve AMAAS (Alberta Media Art Alliance Society), AFA (Alberta Foundation for the Arts) and the Provincial Archives of Alberta. ArtLog: an online participative archive facilitating artists to self document their artistic process Yvonne Desmond - Dublin Institute for Technology The presentation will discuss the elements of artistic process and the possibilities for documentation. The development of the archive is also a means of averting the threat to the loss of trace evidence of artistic process inherent in the mass adoption of technology in the 21st century. 11:00 AM Technically Speaking: The Archivist, the Artist, and the Digital Realm Architecting the World's First Fine Art Digital Conservation Repository at the Museum of Modern Art Kara Van Malssen, Senior Consultant, AudioVisual Preservation Solutions Digital artworks are uniquely complex, often having multiple dependencies, such as operating systems, software, libraries, programming languages, and various types of hardware. Artists write custom software, create custom hardware, and use ephemeral online data sources. Even seemingly simple works, such as single channel video, depend on specific video and audio codecs for playback. Recognizing the requirements associated with the long-term conservation of these works, the Museum of Modern Art is developing a flexible, dedicated environment for digital collections management, the first of its kind in the world. This presentation will discuss work to date on the repository, next steps, and future plans. Intangible Interactivity: Tracing the History of an Art/Tech Program 1979-Present Matt Epler and Kate Watson - Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), Tisch School of the Arts, NYU A summary of the genesis and ongoing efforts to archive thesis projects at the nation's pioneering program in technology and media art. Housing almost every imaginable format of media, the collection represents a unique look at how technology has developed alongside culture and economy in the past 3+ decades, with an emphasis on experimentation and alternative use. 11:45 AM Lunch 1:15 PM Discussion Forum - Selections from the Studio to the Archive This session will serve as the basis for an upcoming IMAP workshop on issues raised at Archiving the Arts. We invite you to an informal, open-format discussion addressing preservation in the creative process. Presenters and attendees will tackle issues encountered by professionals and amateurs on both sides of the content divide. Special guests to be announced. 2:30 PM Audiovisual Documentation of Transitory Works Moderated by Erica Titkemeyer - Moving Image Archiving & Preservation, NYU Archives and the afterlife of ephemeral works of art Megan McShea - Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art Traces of ephemeral arts sometimes surface in surprising ways in the archival repository. McShea will share a few examples of archival audiovisual media and other documentation of ephemeral art forms from the pre-digital era, and use those examples as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the variety and qualities of art documentation that may exist for artworks that no longer exist, at least in the form in which they were initially presented by the artist. How can the creators and keepers of these records, including artists and other documentarians, ensure that it will persist into the future? Creating Something Out of Nothing - documenting the short-lived on a shoestring Paul Bryan - photographer/videographer/artist, art studio owner Jason Flowers - photographer/videographer/sound artist Holly Stevens - art historian/archivist What are the best practices for documenting transitory or ephemeral works of art? This discussion will focus on practical solutions to identifying and preserving transitory, interactive, ephemeral or site-specific works of art. Capturing a New York Minute Aliee Chan/Bettina Katie Warshaw-Writers/Performers The cast and creative partners of the FringeNYC 2012 show Aliee & Bettina’s (sort of) Grown-Up Sleepover discuss the climate of off-off Broadway theatrical community members in relation to self-preservation and the idea of ‘the archive’ in the performance community. 4:00 PM Create / Restore / Migrate / Preserve - Media Arts Theories and Practices Before I Got My Eye Put Out: The Cynthia Maughan Archive Jonathan Furmanski, Associate Conservator for audiovisual materials at the Getty Research Institute Between 1973 and 1980 the artist Cynthia Maughan (b. 1949) created upwards of three hundred discrete video works, most no longer than a few minutes each. While she was included in several high profile exhibitions of the 1970s, only a few of these works exist outside of her personal archive now housed at the Getty Research Institute. An examination of this remarkable and quirky artist will introduce topics ranging from tape degradation, transfer techniques, cataloging and metadata protocols for digital access to file based video storage, the mourning rituals of small twigs, explaining incarceration to cats and the probability of miniature skeletons made from toothpicks. Practicing Preservation For and With Video Artists Desiree Leary , Media Art Collection Manager at Electronic Arts Intermix For the past four decades Electronic Arts Intermix has fostered the creation, exhibition, distribution and preservation of media art. Over the years EAI has has preserved several key works of media art including the works of Carolee Schneemann, Lawrence Weiner, Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, and Joan Jonas. This presentation will discuss EAI’s current preservation practices and projects, which include restoring the work of Tony Ramos, revising EAI’s Media Art Resource Guide and efforts to help artists become more aware of best practices in preserving their work. An Artist’s Perspective Peter d’Agostino - Professor of Film and Media Arts, Temple University, Philadelphia This presentation explores the process of creating new work and reviews exhibition, distribution, and archival preservation methodologies. D’Agostino will review projects from the 1970s to 2010s including: The Walk Series (1973-74) video ’documentation / performances’ of walks in San Francisco; CHUNG: Still Another Meaning (1977) a photo / text / video installation; coming & going: PARIS [Metro], a film / video / text installation (1978); and, video / web projects (1973- 2012) on www.peterdagostino.com. 5:00 PM Farewell and adjourn -- Kristin MacDonough