First all, I thank Karin for organizing this discussion and gathering 
you/we all.

Interestingly i am aware that i am the only [net] artist invited? with 
connections to many of you curators on this list.

Let me flash my memories, naviagate through my own (after)lives -

John G. Hanhardt was chief curator who commissioned 'Brandon' while 
still at the Whitney museum. Brandon (1998-1999)
was brought to the Guggenheim Museum Soho as John relocated. This was 
the time that Guggenheim was planning the virtual museum (Hani Rashid / 
Asymptote). Matthew Drutt, then the associate curator for film and media 
took over the realization of the project who "views Brandon as the 
foundation for
the next Guggenheim, the cyber equivalent of Bilbao". (Village Voice, 
1998). The major partner for Brandon is Waag Society (then Society for 
old and new media) in Amsterdam. Marleen Stikker who remains the 
director of Waag supported the project wholeheartedly. Brandon's two 
major interface Theatrum Anatomicum and Panopticon was developed and 
produced at Waag Society over a year's time with many designers, 
programmers involved, with year long residency supported by Amsterdams 
Fonds voor de Kunst.  In Waag Society, there remains Theatrum Anatomicum 
(built in 1691) where Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes 
Tulp guided the building of this amphitheater for anatomical lessons. A 
trip to Arnhem Koepel Prison which was built according to Panopticon 
Principle and remained functional helped created the panopticon 
interface. Way before streaming media, the opening of Brandon at the 
Guggenheim museum Soho was beamed from Theatrum Anatomicum with still 
images shuffling between New York and Amsterdam.

But then before Brandon, there was Bowling Alley (1995, commissioned by 
Walker Art Center), a net based installation that connected an actual 
Minneapolis bowling lane with Walker Art Center's gallery and WWW. There 
was at the end some issues with the museum who asked for 
filtering/editing certain online/live texts input.  The work was mostly 
'kicked' out of the museum. I have only Steve Dietz to thank for taking 
in the website to the gallery 9. I should also mention how later Steve 
and Sarah Cook as curators  included Brandon at the exhibition "The Art 
Formerly Know As New Media" (2005) held at the Banff Center (part of its 
10th anniversary exhibiition) where I started HTML coding for Brandon 
back in 1997.

I then need to thank Michael Connor who was courageous to show Kingdom 
of Piracy (an online curatorial project with  Armin Medosch and Yukoko 
Shikata) to open FACT's then brand new media lounge in 2003 right after 
its Ars Electronica run in 2002 and after it's being terminated by ADAC 
(Acer Digital Art Center) who first commissioned it in 2001. KOP 
[Kingdon of Piracy] website/workspace, however, is somehow lost now 
somewhere in Germany. (it hurts).

(sorry, feel like i am retrieving personal history, but hope somehow 
these notes would help me get to some points)

Still, I was part of ARTPORT platform initiated and curated by 
Christiane Paul.
But then, another commission from Annet Dekker to compost skor.nl 
archive as part of my composting the net (2013) project 
[http://compostingthenet.net]
also disappeared when Skor (foundation for art and publis space) was 
shut due to Dutch budget cut in recent years.

So, good to meet all of these people I respect and love dearly here.

I do question Dr. Matthias Kampmann's arguement for "centralised world 
wide data base, working in a way of standardised critiria" after reading 
his own painstaking preservation works on certain art works.  if we can 
agree with Hanhardt's "being in a museum should not normalize the 
artwork", can we possible devise 'centrailized' 'standardised" methods 
on preservation?

Much thanks to Hanhardt for bringing up Brandon... to tell the 
preservation of Brandon would take another posting. Indeed, Brandon 
lives (not after).


best
sl


About the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag in Amsterdam