Creative Understanding, Saving and Preserving of Time Based Media Art

forthcoming

The National Gallery of Iceland in collaboration with key European cultural institutions across Europe, is launching a groundbreaking initiative to address a critical challenge within contemporary visual art institutions: the preservation of time-based media artworks. As technology advances currently at an unprecedented pace, museums and galleries struggle to adapt to the evolving mediums employed by innovative artists working with complex digital and multimedia formats. The preservation and conservation methods required to maintain time-based artworks, including the conservation of artworks based on digital media, must be continually reassessed and updated to remain relevant and effective. Museum professionals must acquire new knowledge and competencies, ensuring that they can apply methods that are specifically suited to the mediums on which the different artworks are based, and the dialogues that affect the ongoing preservation efforts related to time-based media must continue to be relevant through the life-cycle of the artwork. This applies to conservators, registrars, preservation specialists, curators, installation specialists and anyone else involved in acquisitions and accessioning.