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

文档是博物馆实践的核心，但多年来创建文档的方法几乎没有发展。文字描述、完成的调查问卷、静态照片和视频记录仍然以传统的方式创作，但艺术品已经发生了根本性的变化。特别是数字艺术的增加，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，迫切需要扩大文献实践。该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流行的艺术形式之一。其主要目的是开发创新的方式来理解和创建文档的新方法，这些方法将影响艺术品的保护和策展，否则这些艺术品可能会过时。考虑到文献是保护这些艺术形式的主要解决方案，该项目将概述对文物保护者和策展人，学者，艺术家和政策制定者扩大理解的重要性。它将通过分析文档如何应对捕捉现场活动、游客体验和不断发展的艺术品的固有挑战来实现这一目标，并重视文档的意义和功能，因为文档是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，利用第一届电脑艺术展的文件，展示公众在重新定义我们如何理解这些艺术形式方面所扮演的角色。以此为出发点，该项目还将分析公众在LIMA艺术品的制作和重新诠释中的作用，特别关注一系列技术在创建文档方面的价值。反思文件的价值，包括“未经授权的文件”，并扩大观众文件的想法，该项目将探讨的潜力，以及挑战，文件的激增和分散导致该部门。特别是，它将产生一个框架，定义与利益相关者协商制定的术语和实践，指出记录数字艺术的参数可能是什么。在探索当代记录方法的过程中，该项目还将讨论摄影技术的转变，这些转变对艺术史的实践至关重要，展示从谷歌艺术项目到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介导我们的艺术体验，特别是在线艺术体验。该项目将专注于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，观众对数字艺术的记录。该项目与摄影师画廊数字项目合作，将产生关于摄影作为数字艺术实践媒介和文献工具的双重作用的新知识，同时还将研究众包文献的道德问题和与此背景下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实践如何影响记录事件或艺术品的价值和体验，并研究这反过来如何影响博物馆作为未来参考，历史相关性或文化记忆的文献创造者的传统权威。在此过程中，该项目将探索博物馆如何识别和开发新的方式，以保持策展权威，同时赋予用户创造新内容和价值的能力。这些发现可能会激励博物馆重新审视其文献实践，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.