Hi everybody
I think Ana is quite right to bring up the question of metadata,
standards and concepts of variable media. I suppose the question that
the last in particular brings up for me is what exactly is it that is
being standardised in standards, defined by metadata and preserved in
variable media structures. The (non-digital) example that Pip Laurenson
of Tate sometimes quotes is that of a Dan Flavin sculpture in which one
of the neon bulbs has worn out. Is it better to replace it or to leave
the dead but original bulb (always supposing a substitute can be found).
This is a crude example, but its basic problem also applies to digital
media, especially when considering strategies such as migration and
emulation. The issue is thus quite complex. What is it that we are
actually most interested in preserving, the objector the concept behind
it? How can this be best reflected in our metadata, standards and
variable media definitions? How will we know that what we think is most
important will be so considered in the future? (We won't. This is again
a question of our responsibility towards the archive being a
responsibility towards an unknowable future). Is one strategy to cease
considering digital art work to be obejects but more like performance
art, as something that can only properly be preserved in documentation?
Charlie
Ana Boa-Ventura wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Without wanting to shift the discussion on taxonomies aways from the
> practical
> examples Grant is encouraging, I d like to go back to what someone
> (Vuk Cosic?)
> earlier brought up on standards.
> A lot of the discussion has been based on competitions categories. I
> think
> they're relevant but they can also be misleading... by being too
> culturally
> based (or not enough, for that matter)... by self-serving particular
> institutional directions, etc. etc.
> Standards, and metadata are (another) important direction in this
> discussion.
> I'd really like if we could spend some time on that topic that was
> brought up
> earlier.
>
> My thoughts after talking about metadata with other folks is that
> there are 2
> main positions: some think that by discussing metadata for digital
> art you re
> condemning it to be frozen in time and that that is contradictory to
> its
> nature - net/ digital art should be an exception to this effort of
> standardization& Others (me included) believe that archiving and
> preservation
> are vital. I quote Richard Rinehart "With digital art, & if you don't do
> something to preserve it within a span of five years, it's not going to
> survive.[&]"Some works of digital art are already gone. Our time frame
> is not
> decades, it's years, at most."
>
> BAck to the insight that metadat can bring to taxonomies: specifically
> in what
> concerns digital art, how does the Dublin Core, the CDWA and the MARC
> map to
> one another? What are the essentials of the standards the Getty team
> is coming
> up with? Last but not least, how do these reflect (and may have an
> impact in)
> the taxonomies of digital art? What metadata schemas are out there
> that, while
> categorizing digital artworks, may equally accommodate legacy systems of
> analogue works?
>
> Best to all,
> Ana Boa-Ventura
>
>
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