Foreword
Gaby Wijers, Netherlands Media Art Institute, August 2010
Version 0.5
As the Obsolete Equipment project, this essay on changes and challenges facing the conservation of media art – and more specifically, obsolete equipment – is a work in progress. This preliminary version, written in August 2010, is comparable to the first phase of the project, which was dedicated to the preservation of video-based art. The second version, which will be written in August 2011, will, like the second phase of the project, also take computer-based art into consideration.
This essay is divided in three sections. After an introduction, the first section focuses on ethical issues relating to the preservation of media art, (Ethics of Media Art Conservation), while the second section provides further insights into our practical approach to realising our case studies on video-based artworks in public collections in the Netherlands and Flanders (On Changes and Challenges).
I would very much like to thank my Obsolete Equipment colleagues. Special thanks go to Rony Vissers for his feedback and Mark Poysden for his editing.
