More information

Continuing to build on a long history in the production and presentation of video and installation art since 1992, NIMk carries out a research program on the preservation and documentation of media art. Including video art, installations and live art/performances, NIMk facilitates research in order to identify and understand what it is that needs to be preserved, and to develop new methods, tools, language and services to deal with this. NIMk carries out national projects to preserve and present (and to experience), both today and tomorrow, the Dutch media arts heritage and holds the main media art collection in the Netherlands. Besides active preservation, research and practice, passive preservation is also a central focus of the Netherlands Media Art Institute: the exertion, storing and registration of media art. The Institute, also the national repository for video art, develops models and guidelines for the registration of media artworks and advises nationally and internationally on the subject. NIMk’s preservation team is also well-known for initiating and participating in case study based research, (inter)national collaborative research projects and transfer-of-knowledge in the field of media art documentation and preservation.

Media art works are often created for site, platform and time specific occasions, and demonstrate specific vulnerabilities in terms of the contexts and technologies on which they are dependent. Contemporary (digital) artworks are often dynamic (not static), object-based end products, similar to variable performances. These artworks can be understood as 'artistic events,' characterized by generative processes and changing time. In order to be able to present these works in the future it is important to understand what is important to preserve and how to capture, define and transmit the ‘core’ of the art work. Inspired by the /Variable Media Network/ in media art preservation, we understand this 'core' or ‘essence’ of a media art work more and more in terms of its behaviours and in the effects these behaviours produce, rather than the material nature of its components. Where visual arts preservation mainly deals with objects, material and the notion of authenticity and originality, media art preservation is not based mainly on physical manifestation, but increasingly deals with ephemeral technological components. Furthermore the original 'authentic' state often varies greatly through the concept, or course of a work's different presentations. This challenges the traditional fine art preservation concepts of authenticity and originality.

Projects involved in: