Past, Present and Future of New Media Conservation: Learning from a Historical Overview

Paula Fernández Valdés
Electronic Media Review, Volume Eight: 2023-2024

ABSTRACT

Media art is part of contemporary heritage and is present in many museum collections. Consequently, conservators must face the adjacent challenges of technological devices, mainly affected by obsolescence, and the possibilities of change and variability of the artworks, which

require new ways of thinking and different ethical approaches from traditional conservation. Multiple international projects have been developed since the 1990s to offer solutions to these issues from different perspectives. This presentation presents a comparative overview of a selection of the most relevant projects developed between 1996-2022 and offers an insight into the development of research over time. It comprises an analysis of the institutions’ diversity, their origin, the networks created between them, and the subjects of their investigations. The most significant advances are discussed through decade-by-decade narration, making connections among different projects in order to assess what we have learned from previous experiences, and decide what is still to be researched.

AUTHOR

Paula Fernández Valdés
Becaria Predoctoral FPI-UPV
Departamento Escultura / Instituto Restauración Patrimonio
Universitat Politècnica València
paulafvaldes@gmail.com