About
This is a blog for artists, researchers, and organisations interested in linking and sharing information and media relating to video art in the past present and future. It was established during the Video Art Archive Network Forum held at Gallery Loop and Yonsei University, Seoul in November 2007.
November 14, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Netherlands Media Art Institute
Preservation
Since video emerged as an artist’s tool in recent decades, an explosion of media formats have served as the catalyst for a broad array of independent media and art. With each new artistic or technical development comes a preservation challenge. Exhibition formats and media rapidly become obsolete with evolving technologies and as the worlds of art and media change, the preservation and conservation worlds change with them.
Preservation refers to all activities and functions that are undertaken in order to create an efficient and safe context for the long-term storage and access of collections, with a guarantee for maximum integrity. Due to it’s relatively new nature, however, preservation of media art still has very few consistent standards or criteria, nor a clear vocabulary of definitions.
The preservation process of media art generally includes:
Creating and inventory
Selection
Clearing the rights
Establishing a preservation strategy
Validation
Recording metadata
Cleaning, restoration, transferring
Storage
Registration and access
Management
With the constant evolution of new technologies, strategies for media art preservation can be implemented to tackle the obsolescence of a particular medium.
Strategies for preservation of media art include:
Storage
Migration
Emulation
Reinterpretation
For extended definitions of these terms, please refer to the Glossary, under the Documentation section of this site, or visit the Variable Media Network.
Preservation can also be broken into the two broad sub-categories of active preservation and passive conservation. While active preservation involves the physical duplication and restoration of works, passive conservation involves:
Storage of tapes and equipment
Development of specific criteria for successful conservation
Judgements and decisions to make the active conservation.
Artist interviews
Documentation
A responsible approach to documentation, presentation and preservation also requires gaining an insight into the artist’s intention and the significance of the technology used for a particular work (particularly for media art installation). Technology used in media artworks plays part of a larger (social) context and impacts the meaning and perception of the work. Within this area of preservation there is still a huge lack of information. We seldom know if the technology used is part of the intention behind creation of a work, and therefore should be preserved as well. For complete preservation this information is required in order to know how to handle an artwork in the long term.
Best Practice
Video Art
Media Storage Conditions
Equipment Storage
Video Art Preservation Strategies
Assessing the Risks
Migration Basics
Digital Media
Inspection
Data Storage
Equipment Storage
Assessing the Risks
Digital Media Preservation Strategies
Emulation Questions
Media Art Installation
Media Art Installation Preservation
Archival Formats
Assessing the Risks
Identifying Aesthetic, Historical and Conceptual Significance of Equipment
Emulation Questions
Video Art
Media Storage Conditions
Storage conditions vary between tapes which will occasionally be viewed, and those which are purely being preserved.
For optimal preservation the information stored on a tape should be transferred to another carrier within seven, or at the very most ten, years. To prevent the tapes from blocking and oxidation, they should be wound and rewound once a year. For optimal conservation and control, the ideal temperature for storage of tapes which are occasionally viewed is 18°C (+/- 1°C ) and humidity level 40%RH (+/- 5%). The ideal temperature for solely preserved tapes is approximately 10°C , with 40% relative humidity (RH). In both instances stability of conditions are most important. Tapes will wear when they are used, so where possible copies should be made and used for presentation purposes.
Additional considerations also include:
Store videotape on metal shelving in cool, dry, stable conditions.
Store tapes upright, like books (or upright with the case opening seam down – to prevent dust entering the case).
The storage space should be as free of dust as possible, and situated away from sunlight. Containers should be kept clean and dust-free.
Make sure there is no acidic plastic or paper inside videotape containers; it could accelerate decomposition.
File valuable paper materials found inside the case separately from the tape, but note their existence and location in the relevant catalogue record.
Record temperature and humidity levels regularly to make sure environmental conditions are not fluctuating over time.
At the same time check your collection on a micro level-take care that the tape containers are free of debris and dust.
Before putting a cassette on the shelf, disable the record tab to prevent accidental erasure in the future.
Please see the article, Control and Preservation of Videotapes, for an introduction to the handling, storage and conservation of analog and digital videotapes.
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Equipment Storage
Being able to wind and transfer tapes properly is dependent on maintaining functional equipment. It can be as important to preserve equipment in your collection as it is to preserve tape, though it should be noted that the media is more likely to outlive the technology.
Keep the following things in mind when determining equipment needs:
Buy the best quality equipment available.
Machinery must be kept clean and properly aligned so it will not damage tape or cause playback errors.
In particular, keep tape path and heads clean.
If you plan to keep tapes for many years after the format becomes obsolete, you should keep the service manuals and a stock of spare parts and/or spare decks.
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Video Art Preservation Strategies
Preservation refers to the overall process by which the content of an item is saved, and its long-term viability ensured. Part of the preservation process is migration which involves duplicating a videotape to a new, archival format in order to keep the content accessible in the long term.
To migrate an artwork involves upgrading equipment and source material. The major disadvantage of migration is that the original appearance of the artwork is likely to change in its new medium.
Archival Formats
There are a variety of analog and digital videotape formats that have been manufactured to serve specific user needs. In preserving videotapes, there has been no official designation of a standard archival tape stock. However, videotapes that are recommended as good archival formats are those that are ubiquitous and widely supported in the broadcast and production industries, on professional tape stocks that are thick and strong. It is not acceptable to use a consumer tape format in generating a preservation master.
In the report from January 1999 Montevideo/TBA they put forward a list of “Criteria for Archiving Formats”:
Theer should be no visible change of image of image compared to the original.
There should be as much possible compatibility with industrial standards.
The system must be able to process Betacam SP, U-matic and VHS tapes, while preserving the best possible quality.
Montage and editing must be possible.
The stored material must have a long to very long life span.
The stored material must be able to be copied into any desired (tape) format without any appreciable loss of quality.
The system must guarantee the possibility of transferring the preserved material to newly designed carriers, in the 21 st century.
In view of these criteria, and a test with different formats/carriers, Montevideo/TBA came to the conclusion that currently “Digital Betacam is the most suitable option for archive purposes”. As a digital format, this sturdy and reliable stock has a number of benefits: it can provide the best quality video image available; there is no generation loss of content when re-mastering from Digital Betacam because it is an exact digital clone of the original. However, a drawback in using this tape stock is that it is a costly format. Playback equipment is expensive and predominantly available only in professional production environments.
Betacam SP-an uncompressed analog format that is very durable, reliable, and, through migration, able to maintain the maximum level of information compared to most tape stocks. However, because it is an analog stock there can be generation loss on subsequent tapes made from this master.
Digital Files
At this point, there is no general consensus within the archival community regarding a digital file format that is appropriate for the long-term preservation of video images. The advantages are the ability to replicate digital files with no generational loss-theoretically. There are also cost and space advantages related to storage: digital file storage continues to decline in price and will do so for the foreseeable future.
However, there are a number of variables that come into play when digitizing video; among them are issues of compression, codecs, and file compatibility. These issues have yet to be resolved among archivists, though there have been recent exciting developments in this area.
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Assessing the Risks
To initiate and maintain a preservation program, you will need to identify the tapes that require immediate attention and develop a plan for the resources you can commit to the project. Prioritise which tapes to preserve first based on their physical condition and provenance. These are the two main factors that will determine the costs and time needed to preserve your holdings. In addition:
Before migrating a tape, determine if another organization has an original or high-quality version of the work that might be a better source-or if the work has already been preserved by another agency, thus avoiding duplication of resources.
Migrate the first-generation original or the generation closest to the original in order to get the highest quality preservation master possible (unless a subsequent generation is significantly less deteriorated, which is sometimes the case.)
Note that there can be multiple masters and multiple definitions of the term “master,” so it may be necessary to consult with the artist and play back multiple tapes to compare image quality.
Take care in playing back older, deteriorated tapes as it can cause permanent damage.
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Migration Basics
Migration requires a balance of short-term and long-term planning. Here’s an outline of the basic procedure:
Create a preservation master by re-mastering or migrating tapes onto an archival format.
Create more than one master and keep the duplicate copy in an off-site storage space in case of disaster.
At the head of the tape, the preservation master should have one minute of color bars and tones, which are reference signals that can be used to ensure the aesthetic integrity of the original tape’s content.
Make sure that a timecode is generated on your preservation master. This signal provides a timing reference and aids in the accurate synchronization of the video content.
Make at least one screening copy of the work on VHS or DVD for viewing purposes.
Take care that the archival master stored off-site is never played unless it is for inspection or for creating new clones for archival or display purposes.
SOURCES
Electronic Arts Intermix
Independent Media Arts Preservation
Netherlands Media Art Institute
Variable Media Network
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Digital Media
Inspection
Inspection is the process of gathering detailed information about a file, in preparation for migration to new formats, as well as to check the status of works already preserved or yet to be preserved.
In the analog realm, works are regularly inspected in order to detect signs of deterioration in the physical objects. In the context of digital media, inspection of elements consists of checking regularly for operability. It is important to ask, for example, if the software and operating system are functional and still able to maintain the integrity of the work. These kinds of inspection tests cannot be performed without the appropriate hardware. Hardware devices also need to be inspected for operability to ensure that equipment is fully functional. Inspection reveals what conservation and preservation actions are needed.
The following characteristics or basic attributes of computer-based artwork should be examined and described in the catalogue during inspection:
Operating speed of piece; does navigation of piece appear sluggish or fast? (Be mindful that the piece can be intentionally programmed by the artist to run at a specific speed.)
Arrangement of images and/or text
Readability of images and/or text
Functionality of hyperlinks
Calibration of display device
Rapidly changing technologies and the threat of obsolescence necessitate regular inspection and evaluation of the integrity of a computer-based artwork-the work as an interoperable system of data, data formats, software, and physical hardware.
It is hard to quantify how often items should be inspected. Often, software upgrades do not provide backward compatibility, thereby rendering large amounts of digital information obsolete in a short amount of time and without advance warning.
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Data Storage
Storing digital media on a system of redundant independent hard disks, or on a server duplicates your data and keeps it relatively secure, provided it is well managed. This is the most expensive option.
As cost per megabyte has decreased, a single external hard drive is an affordable solution and is reliable enough to store the components of a digital work.
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Equipment Storage
Like hard drives and disks, computer equipment and monitors should be kept consistently cool and dry and free from airborne contaminants.
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Assessing the Risks
Using an item-level inventory, assess each component in terms of risk of deterioration or obsolescence. Distinguish file formats as proprietary or open source. Who developed the standard, when, and who owns it now? What software is needed to read/view the file? Is the format still supported?
Similarly, assess hardware requirements to “run” the work. Is the software application still supported? Are special installations or plug-ins required? What is the hierarchy and overall infrastructure of the work? What are the requirements for display? Describe the “look” of the work. What are the formal qualities (image content and image quality)? What are the artist’s installation instructions?
What is the functionality of the work? Describe the “feel” of the work. How does the user interact with the work? What are the variables? Focus initial preservation efforts on works that have physically deteriorated or include proprietary components that are no longer active or supported in the industry.
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Digital Media Preservation Strategies
Migration : To migrate an artwork involves upgrading equipment and source material. The obsolete Umatic tape could be upgraded to digital betacam tape, for example. There are several levels of migration. Maintaining the original integrity and functionality of the work, you can transfer hardware and software to a new operating system or you can transfer an obsolete file format to a new format.
The major disadvantage of migration is that the original appearance of the artwork will probably change in its new medium
Emulation
To emulate a work is to devise a way of imitating the original look of the piece by completely different means. Emulation involves the re-creation of the technical environment required to view an object. This is achieved by maintaining information about the hardware and software requirements so that the system can be reengineered by future systems to emulate the original environment. This approach means you do not need to migrate files, but emulators must be created for every software and hardware configuration, which can be expensive. Possible disadvantages of emulation include prohibitive expense and inconsistency with the artist’s intent.
Encapsulation
Encapsulation groups a digital object with all components that are necessary to provide access to that object. In encapsulation, physical or logical structures called “containers” or “wrappers” provide information about the relationships between all data and software application components. Encapsulation aims to overcome the issue of obsolete file formats by including details on how to interpret the original information and possibly re-create the original work.
It is critical to document all preservation actions and experiments in the catalogue. Although the archivist should avoid making changes that compromise the overall functionality or “look and feel” of the work, any changes that occur, if at all, should be thoroughly documented and explained.
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Emulation Questions
What you think the benefits and drawbacks are of reconstruction and emulation as a preservation/exhibition strategy?
How do you gauge the success of such endeavors, and what criteria do you (should we) use to evaluate the results?
What is lost in terms of the viewer experience and historical context?
How do you (should we) compensate for these losses (types of documentation, interviews)?
What are (should be) the roles played by the various stakeholders in the process, i.e. artists, conservation professionals and technical assistants and collaborators?
What knowledge and expertise is required and where is it found?
SOURCES
Electronic Arts Intermix
Independent Media Arts Preservation
Netherlands Media Art Institute
Variable Media Network
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Media art Installation
Preservation of Installation Art
Preservation refers to the overall process by which the content of an item is saved and its long-term viability is ensured. With respect to installation art, the preservation assessment of all distinct components that make up an installation artwork should be done concurrently in order to maintain, as best as possible, the authenticity of the original piece. Thorough documentation of the original will inform your preservation methodology and process.
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Archival Formats
The preservation process involves migration, or duplicating videotape to a new, archival format in order to keep the content accessible in the long term.
Archival Videotape Formats
There are a variety of analog and digital videotape formats that have been manufactured to serve specific user needs. In preserving videotapes, there has been no official designation of a standard archival tape stock. However, videotapes that are recommended as good archival formats are those that are ubiquitous and widely supported in the broadcast and production industries, on professional tape stocks that are thick and strong. Consumer videotape formats are manufactured for the layperson for general purpose videotaping. These videotape stocks are usually not robust and can be small in size, with thinner tape grades than professional stocks. It is not acceptable to use a consumer tape format in generating a preservation master.
The most commonly used formats for videotape preservation are:
Digital Betacam (or DigiBeta) – In the archival community, this low compression digital format is widely considered the best choice for a preservation master. As a digital format, this sturdy and reliable stock has a number of benefits: it can provide the best quality video image available, and there is no generational loss of content when using it to re-master because it allows for exact digital clones of the original. However, this tape stock and its playback equipment are expensive and predominantly available only in professional production environments.
Betacam SP – an uncompressed analog format that is very durable, reliable, and-through migration-able to maintain the maximum level of information compared to most tape stocks. However, because it is an analog stock there can be generational loss on subsequent tapes made from this master.
Archival Born-Digital Media Formats
At this point, there is no general consensus within the archival community regarding a digital file format that is appropriate for the long-term preservation of video images. One major advantage to storing files in a digital format is the ability to replicate the files with-theoretically-no generational loss. There are also cost and space advantages related to digital file storage, as it continues to decline in price and will most likely do so for the foreseeable future.
However, there are a number of variables that come into play when digitising video; among them are issues of compression, codecs, and file compatibility. These issues have yet to be resolved among archivists-though there have been exciting developments in this area recently.
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Assessing the Risks
To initiate and maintain a preservation program, first identify the installation work that needs immediate attention and develop a plan based on the resources you can commit to the project. Prioritising which installation to preserve first should take into account provenance, physical condition, and the level of threat of obsolescence of the work’s media format(s), equipment, and other materials. It is helpful to ask the following questions: Is any component of the equipment no longer easily available? Is the media format no longer supported? If so, is it acceptable to replace the part or format? Ultimately, the preservation decision is a matter of balancing the needs of the total system. Other things to keep in mind:
Before migrating a tape or file, determine if another organisation has an original or high-quality version of the work that would be a better source-or if the work has already been preserved by another agency, thus avoiding duplication of resources.
Migrate the first-generation original or generation closest to the original-or for digital files, the original or version closest to the original-in order to create the highest quality preservation master (unless a subsequent generation or version is significantly less deteriorated, which is sometimes the case).
Note that there can be multiple masters and multiple definitions of the term “master,” so it may be necessary to consult with the artist and play back multiple tapes or files to compare image quality.
Take care in playing back older, deteriorated tapes, as it can cause permanent damage.
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Identifying Aesthetic, Historical and Conceptual Significance of Equipment
A responsible approach to documentation, presentation and preservation also requires gaining an insight into the artist’s intention and the significance of the technology used for a particular media art installation. Technology used in media artworks plays part of a larger (social) context and impacts the meaning and perception of the work. Within this area of preservation there is still a huge lack of information. We seldom know if the technology used is part of the intention behind creation of a work, and therefore should be preserved as well. For complete preservation this information is required in order to know how to handle an artwork in the long term..
The significance of display equipment to a time-based media installation depends on how it is used. There are two categories:
Equipment that has purely functional value
Equipment that is significant for reasons over and above its functional role.
A ‘yes’ to both of the following questions indicates that the equipment has purely functional value to the installation:
Is the equipment hidden from the viewer?
Can the function of the equipment be accurately mapped so that substitution with equipment of the same function brings about no discernible change?
If the answer is ‘no’ to either of the above questions then the considerations given below are applicable.
These questions are designed to identify relevant considerations in determining aesthetic, conceptual or historical significance of equipment and to be understood within a contemporary art context. Conceptual integrity refers to the relationship of the work to the process or technology employed and the spirit in which the work was made. Aesthetic integrity relates to the look and feel of visible components and the outputs of the system (i.e. qualities of the sound and image). Historical integrity refers to links made by the visible components and discernible outputs of the system to the time the work was made.
Questions used to identify significance in equipment whose value is not purely functional:
Artist Involvement
Was the artist actively involved in the specification of the display equipment for the work?
Is the artist specific about the equipment used?
Visibility and Impact
Is the equipment visible and has it been modified by the artist?
Does the equipment form a highly visible part of a tableaux created by the artist in the presentation of the work?
Relationship to Context and History
Is the look of the equipment or its outputs distinctive and highly visible and does it place the work as belonging to a particular time or relate to the context in which the work was made?
Does the context of the work make explicit reference to a particular technology or piece of equipment that is mirrored in the equipment used for display?
Is the significance of the technology linked to contemporary use of that technology? (For example ,reference to the dominance of television in the home.)
Does the equipment relate to the spirit in which the work was made? For example was it a familiar piece of technology meant to be ubiquitous rather than rare?
Qualities produced
Is the equipment currently unavailable or set to become so in less than 1 year
> 1 year but 5 years but 1 years but 20 years but < 50 years etc.
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Emulation Questions
What you think the benefits and drawbacks are of reconstruction and emulation as a preservation/exhibition strategy?
How do you gauge the success of such endeavors, and what criteria do you (should we) use to evaluate the results?
What is lost in terms of the viewer experience and historical context?
How do you (should we) compensate for these losses (types of documentation, interviews)?
What are (should be) the roles played by the various stakeholders in the process, i.e. artists, conservation professionals and technical assistants and collaborators?
What knowledge and expertise is required and where is it found?
SOURCES
Electronic Arts Intermix
Independent Media Arts Preservation
Netherlands Media Art Institute
Variable Media Network
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