This symposium took place on Nov. 12, 2003. Watch this page for upcoming online video of the event.

Archiving the Avant-Garde: Preserving Digital / Media Art
A Free Public/Professional Symposium
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
PFA Theater, UC Berkeley

Works of digital and Internet art, performance, installation, conceptual, and other variable media art represent some of the most compelling and significant artistic creations of our time. These works constitute a history of alternative artistic practice, but because of their ephemeral, technical, or otherwise variable natures, they also present significant obstacles to accurate documentation, access, and preservation. Without strategies for preservation many of these vital works - and possibly whole new genres such as early Internet art - will be lost to future generations. Long term strategies must closely examine the nature of ephemeral art and identify core aspects of these works to preserve. Will the future experience these works as physical traces and documentation? Emulated media artifacts? Dynamic cultural events re-performed? All of these? This one-day public symposium is the first west-coast venue in a series of national forums on preserving media art. This symposium will introduce early collaborative efforts and strategies for preserving these art forms, as well as provide a feedback forum combining presentations by leaders in the field with structured audience discussion.

10:30-10:40
Introduction and Welcome

Kevin Consey Director, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive


10:40-12:00
Introduction to Archiving the Avant-Garde showcasing new ideas, tools, and case studies of digital art

Richard Rinehart Director of Digital Media, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive & Instructor, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley, artist
Jon Ippolito Assistant Curator Media Arts, Guggenheim Museum & Professor of New Media, University of Maine, artist
Ken Goldberg Professor of Engineering and Computer Science, UC Berkeley, artist


12:00-1:00
LUNCH ON YOUR OWN


1:00-2:30
New directions and tools from performance art and approaches to documentation

Martha Wilson Director, Franklin Furnace Archive
Michael Katchen Archivist, Franklin Furnace Archive
Alain Depocas Director, Centre for Research and Documentation, Daniel Langlois Foundation
Thomas Mulready Director, Cleveland Performance Art Festival and Archive


2:30-4:00
Emulation and other preservation paradigms from related communities: video, audio, and managing preservation in museums

Jeff Rothenberg Rand Corporation
Joanna Goldfarb Bay Area Video Coalition
Carl Haber & Vitaliy Fadeyev Senior Scientists, Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Jill Sterrett Head, Collections, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art


4:00-5:00
Creative solutions to ownership, copyright & intellectual property issues with implications for digital art and the long-term

Neeru Paharia Assistant Director, Creative Commons
Greg Niemeyer Professor, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley, artist


Contact: Richard Rinehart, rinehart@berkeley.edu. Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving Digital/Media Art is a consortium project of the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Cleveland Performance Art Festival and Archive, Franklin Furnace Archive, and Rhizome.org, and is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.