Documenting digital art: re-thinking histories and practices of documentation in the museum and beyond

文献是博物馆实践的核心，但多年来，创建文献的方法几乎没有发展。书面描述、完整的调查问卷、静态照片和视频记录仍然是以传统方式创作的，但艺术品已经发生了根本性的变化。尤其是数字艺术的增长，其性质往往是非常短暂的，体验非常主观，为了确保未来的艺术史研究以及艺术品本身的可持续性，迫切需要扩大文献工作。这个项目将专注于数字艺术，这是最不稳定但也是最具创新性和最受欢迎的艺术形式之一。主要目的是开发理解艺术品的创新方法和创建文件的新方法，这些文件将影响艺术品的保护和管理，否则这些艺术品很可能会过时。考虑到文献是保护这些艺术形式的主要解决方案，该项目将概述扩大对文献的理解对保护人员和策展人、学者、艺术家和政策制定者的重要意义。为此，它将分析文献如何应对捕捉现场事件、游客体验和不断演变的艺术品的内在挑战，并将文献的意义和功能视为数字艺术的唯一遗迹。该项目将在威尼斯双年展的一个展览中测试这些想法，使用在那里举行的第一次计算机艺术展的文件来展示公众在重新定义我们对这些艺术形式的理解方面所扮演的角色。以此为出发点，该项目还将分析公众在利马艺术品制作和重新诠释中的作用，特别是研究一系列创作文献的技术的价值。该项目反映了文件的价值，包括“未经授权的文件”，并扩大了受众文件的概念，将探讨文件的热潮和分散给该部门带来的潜力和挑战。特别是，它将产生一个框架，定义在与利益攸关方协商后制定的术语和做法，指出记录数字艺术的参数可能是什么。在探索当代的记录方法时，该项目还将解决摄影技术的变化，这些技术对艺术史的实践至关重要，展示了从谷歌艺术项目到Instagram，相机现在是一个联网但也是分散的计算设备，它继续通过社交媒体调解我们对艺术的体验，特别是在线艺术。在摄影无处不在，并与自我表达和文化消费密切相关的时代，该项目将专注于观众对数字艺术的记录。与摄影师画廊数字计划合作，该项目将产生关于摄影作为数字艺术实践的媒介和记录工具的双重作用的新知识，还将审查众包记录的伦理和与这方面的数据保护有关的问题。最后，该项目将分析这些扩大的文献做法如何影响记录事件或艺术品的价值和体验，并研究这反过来又如何影响博物馆作为用于未来参考、历史意义或文化记忆的文献的创作者的传统权威。在这样做的过程中，该项目将探索博物馆如何确定和开发新的方法，以保持代表文化价值的策展权威，同时授权用户生产新的内容和价值。这些发现可能会激励博物馆重新审视他们的文献做法，重新评估文献的价值以及参观者在数字艺术展览和保护中的作用。

Documentation is at the core of museum practices, but over the years methods to create documentations have evolved very little. Written description, completed questionnaires, static photos and video recordings are still created in conventional ways, and yet artworks have changed radically. Given the increase of digital art in particular, whose nature is often very ephemeral and experience highly subjective, and to ensure future art historical research as well as the sustainability of the artworks themselves, there is an urgent need for an expanded practice of documentation. This project will focus on digital art, one of the most precarious yet also most innovative and popular art forms. The main aim is to develop innovative ways to understand and new ways to create documentation that will impact the conservation and curation of artworks which are otherwise likely to become obsolete. Considering documentation as the main solution to preserving these art forms, this project will outline the significance of an expanded understanding of documentation for conservators and curators, academics, artists and policy makers. It will do so by analysing how documentation can address the inherent challenges of capturing live events, visitor experiences and evolving artworks, and value the meaning and function of documentation, as the only remains of digital art. The project will test these ideas in an exhibition at the Venice Biennale, using documents of the first computer art show held there to show the role of the public in re-defining how we understand these art forms. Taking this as a point of departure, the project will also analyse the role of the public in the production and re-interpretation of artworks at LIMA, looking specifically at the values of a range of technologies for the creation of documentation. Reflecting on the values of documentation, including 'unauthorised documentation', and expanding on the idea of audience documentation, the project will explore the potentiality, as well as challenges, that an upsurge and a dispersion of documentation cause to the sector. In particular, it will generate a framework that will define terms and practices developed in consultation with stakeholders, indicating what the parameters for documenting digital art may be. In exploring contemporary methods of documentation, the project will also address shifts in photographic technologies that have been central to the practice of art history, showing how from the Google Art Project to Instagram, the camera is now a networked but also dispersed computational device, which continues to mediate our experience of art, particularly online, through social media. The project will focus on the documentation of digital art by its audiences in an age where photography is both ubiquitous and intimately linked to self-expression and cultural consumption. In collaboration with The Photographers' Gallery digital programme, the project will generate new knowledge concerning photography's dual role as both a medium for digital art practice and an instrument of documentation, looking also at the ethics of crowdsourced documentations and problems pertaining to data protection in this context. Finally, the project will analyse the way these expanded practices of documentation are impacting the value and experience of the documented event or artwork and look into how this in turn affects the traditional authority of the museum as creator of documentation used for future reference, historical relevance or cultural memory. In doing so, the project will explore how museums might identify and develop new ways of maintaining curatorial authority over representing cultural value whilst empowering users to produce new content and value. These findings are likely to inspire museums to revisit their documentation practices and reassess the value of documentation and the role of the visitor in the exhibition and conservation of digital art.