Digital Preservation Coalition

Kate Jennings and Pip Laurenson (Tate): Collecting, conserving and managing digital art-an institutional perspective

Notes by Kristy Davis ...The Tate has approximately 400 time-based artworks in its collection that are primarily installation-based and the video works have been archived. Standards of practice have been established as times changed. At the time of acquisition of any time-based artworks they ask why an artist chose that medium, what are acceptable and unacceptable risks and possible changes in the work. Questions on media (how it’s made, production path, what is the master and exhibition format) and display (ask artist how they want their work to be shown) were discussed. Referred to the Internal and External Collaborative Workshop: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/majorprojects/mediamatters In the Internal, there is a departmental working group established to work on web-based art, and in the external, it deals with matters in media arts and what does a digital repository need to look like and what software is needed. A video was shown of an interview, part of an AHRC project, with David Rokeby on how software is the core of his work and discussed issues on documented specifications, philosophy, aesthetics, etc. Noted that the Tate has a close working relationship with artists and their programmers to work on the preservation of time-based media; however, they need more strategies to deal with this. Discussion on the benefits of working with digital work programmers early to explore the process of the future of the work and to learn from the process and how documenting code and interviews with artists are necessary to better understand work. The Tate is active in research and is responsible for developing standards for software-based work.

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