Dear List,
First of all, thanks for inviting me to this discussion, I consider that this is a very interesting topic, although it is usually overlooked as new media art keeps being identified as the perpetual new and evolving art form which is more about research than producing artworks (in fact we usually call these "projects").
Very interesting things have been already said, so I'd like to start by agreeing with Domenico's statements about the fact that new media art is collected and that there are also many examples of unstable art being collected. To mention one example I saw recently, the Maramotti Collection in Reggio Emilia (Italy) owns a sculpture by Mario Merz (La frutta siamo noi, 1988) partly made of fresh fruit which has to be replaced every week. The instability of this work is not a problem for the owners of a large collection of paintings, some sculptures and just one video (if I am not mistaken), so I wonder if the problem is not that the art is unstable but that it is digital.
The reproducible nature of digital files, as Domenico states, may also be a problem if we follow the usual scarcity=value model that is usually applied in the art market. But there are ways to create this scarcity. Among the different ways in which the mainstream art world is looking for new models of selling art using technology, an interesting example is [s]edition <http://www.seditionart.com/> which, as you know, sells digital copies of artworks by blue-chip artists to the masses (we may call that high art for the Long Tail). In some way, sedition achieves what Wolf states as a possibility, to have one's art collection at the tip of one's fingers, on any screen. Yet instead of distributing digital art, they create digital versions of sculptures, installations, paintings, videos, etc. and sell them at a (relatively) low price. By keeping these "artworks" in a centralized "vault" and making it accessible to your iPhone, iPad or TV, they control the number of copies and even give you a certificate.
I think this could be a good platform for new media art, but it has been applied to good old contemporary art, which is quite understandable, because it seems reasonable to try such a risky business model with something as attractive as selling Damien Hirst for 9€. So I think that, as Wolf suggests, we are already living in a nomad culture and we are working in more flexible ways, ready to buy online and own digital content that only appears on our screens. But most people still do not understand new media art as art in the same terms of mainstream contemporary art, as Christiane has pointed out, so the main issue might be to get collectors to understand the art, and then think about how it will be stored, maintained or eventually migrated.
In a conversation some time ago, Wolf mentioned Tino Seghal, whose work exists only through oral transmission, and I think that this is a very good example. Seghal's work exists because there is a whole system supporting it, based on the fact that performance and conceptual art have been sanctioned by the art world. And this is precisely what new media art hasn't yet achieved.
Thanks for reading this far!
Best,
Pau
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Pau Waelder Laso
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Site: www.pauwaelder.com
skype: pauwaelder
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