Hello all!

Thanks for inviting me and my colleagues into such a terrific
discussion.  It's one that we think about often, and are now very deeply
involved with as we work on the San Jose Airport project as well as
three "permanent" installations:  an interactive 20' obelisk-like donor
wall for the Royal Ontario Museum that has a responsive surface and
glows with internal LEDs, a camera-tracking/LED/net-based installation
built into a wall at university, and a large-scale outdoor steel and LED
piece that is solar- powered and telematic via the net:
www.solarcollector.ca).

On the subject of maintenance, we have often compared our work to
fountains or photocopiers in order to educate clients about maintenance,
and we always have maintenance clauses in our contracts. Unfortunately,
we have still been in situations where once installed, the owner of a
piece neglects their maintenance responsibility (and what are we to do,
sue them?).  This can be a very difficult situation for the artist - to
see their work degrade and have others see it 'out of order' because of
shoddy upkeep or lack of replacement projector lamps.  When it comes to
public art commissioned by municipalities, this can be even trickier
because the ones commissioning the work are rarely the property owners.
In fact, there have been instances (including the Diller+Scofidio
Facsimile piece if I'm not mistaken) of tensions between a building
owner/property manager and the city arts council over a maintenance-
heavy artwork that has been commissioned for their building as part of a
2% program.  Even when everyone is in complete agreement at the time a
work is comissioned, city councils change and building ownerships change
(as with the Diller+Scofidio JumpCuts piece), resulting in unanticipated
neglect or even hostility towards a piece in the future.  It is very
important to design the piece with a good awareness of the human systems
involved at a particular location: what existing relationships and
building maintenance responsibilities can we design around so that our
artwork becomes part of the living systems of the building?  Can the IT
department maintain the network connections and virus updates?  Can the
nightly rounds take care of glass-cleaning and the occasional hard-
boot?  Is it someone's job to check the sculpture's motors on a regular
schedule along with the building elevators?

We also use the term "graceful degradation" in speaking about our
work.  We like to design in layers, so that if a network connection is
someday no longer maintained or LED brightness fades, the piece itself
will not appear "broken".  For example, our Lileo Light Fountain piece
(http://www.gorbetdesign.com/lightfountain) is still a beautiful object
while it awaits a lamp replacement; the donor sculpture we are creating
for the ROM will be made of carved Corian so that even if the technology
fails or is disconnected for some reason, the names are still elegant
and visible and there is no trace of broken technology. Similarly, our
net-based pieces log data and carry on with archived data if there is
ever a disconnection.

<M>











On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:31:23 +0100, "Sarah Cook"
<[log in to unmask]> said:
> Hi all,
>
> I look forward to our guests and others introducing themselves and
> sharing their experience in relation to this month's topic. The
> impetus (in part) for this discussion was a conversation I had
> recently with a curator who indicated that artist Mark Wallinger was
> suggesting (bragging?) that his commissioned video installation for
> the crypt of the cathedral in Milan (the piece is called Via Dolorosa)
> was the first work of permanent new media art, as he intends it to
> remain there 'forever'. [I am increasingly interested in how the
> mainstream art world engages with technology  -- it only makes sense
> that video installation has moved from the gallery to the city and
> might hence be historicized in its own self-contained way.]
>
> I think one thing that perhaps distinguishes public works of new media
> art (and yes, I know we should also have a debate about _where_ public
> space is!) is that they often have elements which function or work or
> vary or interact in some way (they don't necessarily sit there like
> lumps of bronze). A parallel, at least in terms of preservation and
> maintenance, could be drawn with public fountains/art works, which
> invite a kind of constant interactivity. The Walker Art Center's
> famous Oldenburg Spoonbridge (http://garden.walkerart.org/artwork.wac)
> fountain was the first major commission (so I understand) to include
> in its acquisition agreement a dedicated investment fund for its
> conservation (repainting and managing the pond, etc.).
>
> Like commissioned fountains, we are also increasingly used to seeing
> works of public art made from light (NewcastleGateshead is full of
> such projects and a new one has just been announced, see
> http://www.tyneandwearmetro.co.uk/news_detail.asp?NewsID=710) - but as
> those works aren't necessarily exhibiting the characteristics of being
> variable or connected or interactive (even if they do need their bulbs
> changing often), i'm not sure how they enter into the debate here.
>
>  From fountains to lighting, it might be interesting to hear from Ben
>  Coode Adams too, who has recently completed a large clock for the
>  middle of a town green here in the UK. While the piece is made mostly
>  from metal and has mechanised bells, it is actually running its
>  programme off a computer, and the code is written in such a way that
>  other musicians/composers could create new chime sequences for the
>  clock to 'perform'. Will the town ever undertake that? It's unlikely.
>  The artist's project allows for it, but the clock doesn't need to
>  have that element 'maintained' in order for it to meet its intended
>  function and aesthetic presence.
>
> Let's talk about some more new media examples and projects which are
> public but perhaps question the idea of permanence at all...
>
> Sarah