ERPANET Workshop on the Preservation of Born Digital Art
Glasgow, Scotland 8th October 2004

ERPANET is pleased to announce a workshop on the preservation of born
digital art. This one-day event, co-sponsored by the Centre for
Contemporary Arts (CCA), will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, on the 8th of
October 2004.

Digital technologies are a ubiquitous presence in contemporary art
practice, from production through to presentation and preservation. Born
digital art employs technologies as its very own medium, exploring their
inherent properties, conventions, contents, contexts, and potentials for
interaction and participation. They may take the form of an installation
or digital environment; a website or web intervention; custom software; or
an attachment to an email. New media galleries and organizations have
engaged in commissioning, facilitating, presenting, and, vitally,
archiving digital artworks and projects. Indeed, several have formed
on-line databases or assembled physical collections, which have in turn
prompted international debate and research into issues of documentation,
longer-term preservation and access. The challenges of the medium are
many: hardware, software, operating systems, and browsers are threatened
by obsolescence and supercession. There are also the difficulties of
documenting such works, of reasserting their interactivity, and of
recreating a specific context or environment. The Internet itself is an
unstable medium subject to constant change and its own potential
vulnerabilities. More recently, some museum and private collections have
begun to acquire born digital artworks and face the task of developing
plans or strategies for their long-term care. For the majority, however,
acquisitions remain highly selective: what they can commit to is dictated
by the long-term functionality, resource and maintenance implications that
such artworks, particularly those with a ‘network-dependency’ or
interactive element, can bear. The question of what is possible – across a
range of collecting contexts - is only just being determined.

Benefits from Attendance One of the major aims for this workshop is to
provide an international forum to exchange information about born digital
art collecting and archiving practices across different institutional and
national contexts. This workshop is aimed at all people involved in the
creation and management of born digital art.

The aims of this seminar are:

· To identify some of the challenges that the ‘permanent retention’ of
born digital artworks, particular those that are ‘network-dependent’ pose.
· To identify key platforms, operations, users, contexts of presentation
and experiences with born digital art
· To consider selected current collecting policies for born digital artworks
· To review selected current accessioning and documentation procedures for
born digital art
· To consider selected current storage and long-term access/care
procedures for born digital art
· To identify precedents for standards in
collecting/accessioning/storage/long-term care policies and procedures
across the ‘permanent retention contexts’

Seminar Format
During this workshop, presentations will explore the preservation of born
digital art from the perspective of both the artist and the collecting
organisation. A panel discussion will examine issues arising from the
presentations, such as developing specific collecting policies, addressing
technical issues, managing born digital resources, and enabling long-term
access to born digital art. During this session, workshop participants
will have the opportunity to share their own experiences.

Speakers include
-Frances McKee (artist, CCA)
-Susan Collins (artist, senior lecturer, UCL, London)
-Sandra Fauconnier (archivist, V2, Rotterdam)
-Peter Ride (CARTE, University of Westminster)
-Nikolett Eross (c3, Budapest)
-Simon Faithfull (artist, lecturer, UCL, London)
-Oliver Grau (Database of Virtual Art, Humboldt University,
Berlin)

Venue
This workshop will be held at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA). This
stunning building is located in the heart of Glasgow’s city centre. The
CCA have generously invited participants to attend the opening of their
latest exhibition on Icelandic art following the close of the workshop.
The opening will feature live performances, music and refreshments.
ERPANET is extremely grateful to the CCA for its generous support in the
delivery of this event. For more information, please see
http://www.cca-glasgow.com.

Registration
To Register on-line, go to
http://www.erpanet.org/events/2004/glasgowart/index.php. The registration
fee is 65 GBP and will include lunch.

For more information contact british.editorerpanet.org or
tinalouisefiskeaol.com