Skip to main content

How can digital art created on obsolete platforms be preserved?

As the lines between art and technology continue to blur, digital art experiences become more commonplace. Already, you can visit a virtual reality museum or display artwork on a digital display that looks incredibly like a real canvas. But all these developments are raising an important question for art conservationists: How should digital artworks be preserved?

It might seem like digital artworks are some of the easiest to preserve — after all they can be copied an infinite number of times and will not suffer degradation from environmental factors which affect physical art such as temperature and humidity. But in fact digital works can be remarkably fragile because they usually depend on a specific set of software and hardware in order to be displayed as the artist envisioned. When operating systems change and software updates, it becomes much harder to preserve digital artworks — not to mention the challenge of working with obsolete hardware such as floppy disks.

To address this issue, the Guggenheim Museum and New York University have established a joint project to preserve key digital artworks. “As part of conserving contemporary art, conservators are faced with new challenges as artists use current technology as media for their artworks,” Deena Engel, a member of the project and professor of computer science at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, said in a statement. “If you think of a word processing document that you wrote 10 years ago, can you still open it and read or print it? Software-based art can be very complex.”

The works covered by this project include those such as Shu Lea Cheang’s Brandon (1998-99), Mark Napier’s net.flag (2002), and John F. Simon Jr.’s Unfolding Object (2002), all of which were originally released online. These online works have interactive elements such as the ability to manipulate the colors and shapes of the flag in net.flag, making it part of a movement called “networked art.” Eventually, once restoration is complete these works will be made available on the Guggenheim’s website. Brandon was restored between 2016 and 2017 and is available to view on moderns browsers on its own site.

Restoration sounds like an odd word to use for digital art, but the process of conservation for digital works is surprisingly similar to physical works. “The principles of art conservation for traditional works of art can be applied to decision-making in conservation of software- and computer-based works of art with respect to programming language selection, programming techniques, documentation, and other aspects of software remediation during restoration,” Engel explains. “For example, if we migrate a work of software-based art from an obsolete programming environment to a current one, our selection and programming decisions in the new programming language and environment are informed in part by evaluating the artistic goals of the medium first used.”

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Don’t buy the Meta Quest Pro for gaming. It’s a metaverse headset first
Meta Quest Pro enables 3D modeling in mixed reality.

Last week’s Meta Connect started off promising on the gaming front. Viewers got release dates for Iron Man VR, an upcoming Quest game that was previously a PS VR exclusive, as well as Among Us VR. Meta, which owns Facebook, also announced that it was acquiring three major VR game studios -- Armature Studio, Camouflaj Team, and Twisted Pixel -- although we don’t know what they’re working on just yet.

Unfortunately, that’s where the Meta Connect's gaming section mostly ended. Besides tiny glimpses and a look into fitness, video games were not the show's focus. Instead, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted to focus on what seemed to be his company’s real vision of VR's future, which involves a lot of legs and a lot of work with the Quest Pro, a mixed reality headset that'll cost a whopping $1,500.

Read more
Meet the game-changing pitching robot that can perfectly mimic any human throw
baseball hitter swings and misses

Who’s your favorite baseball pitcher? Shane McClanahan? Sandy Alcantara? Justin Verlander? Whoever you said, two of the top sports-tech companies in the U.S. -- Rapsodo and Trajekt Sports -- have teamed up to build a robot version of them, and the results are reportedly uncannily accurate.

Okay, so we’re not talking about walking-talking-pitching standalone robots, as great a sci-fi-tinged MLB ad as that would be. However, Rapsodo and Trajekt have combined their considerable powers to throw a slew of different technologies at the problem of building a machine that's able to accurately simulate the pitching style of whichever player you want to practice batting against -- and they may just have pulled it off, too.

Read more
The best portable power stations
EcoFlow DELTA 2 on table at campsite for quick charging.

Affordable and efficient portable power is a necessity these days, keeping our electronic devices operational while on the go. But there are literally dozens of options to choose from, making it abundantly difficult to decide which mobile charging solution is best for you. We've sorted through countless portable power options and came up with six of the best portable power stations to keep your smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other gadgets functioning while living off the grid.
The best overall: Jackery Explorer 1000

Jackery has been a mainstay in the portable power market for several years, and today, the company continues to set the standard. With three AC outlets, two USB-A, and two USB-C plugs, you'll have plenty of options for keeping your gadgets charged.

Read more