Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a method and national collection

The early years of Australian digital media arts heritage are at risk. Working with key cultural institutions, this project will conserve key media art case studies from the archives of media arts organisations, and develop a best practice method for the preservation of our digital media arts heritage.

Partners

Australian Centre for the Moving Image
The Trustee for Art Gallery of NSW; State Library of South Australia
Experimental Media Arts
Australian Network for Art and Technology
dLux Media Arts Incorporated
UNESCO PERSIST
Rhizome
Griffith University Art Museum

This research is funded by the Australian Government though the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Program (LP180100307)

Investigators

Helen Stuckey (RMIT)
Nick Richardson (ACMI)
Carolyn Murphy (AGNSW)
Andrew Piper (SLSA)
Angela Goddard (Griffith)
Jonathan Parsons (Experimenta)

The early years of Australian digital media arts heritage are at risk. Australians were significant contributors to the development of media arts internationally, as well as making and exhibiting work nationally, yet only a tiny portion of the digital artwork by Australian artists has made it into institutional collections. 

Deteriorating disks and reliance on obsolete hardware and software mean that innovative digital preservation and access solutions are needed if these artworks are to be saved. Working with key cultural institutions, this project will conserve key media art case studies from the archives of media arts organisations, and develop a best practice method for the preservation of our digital media arts heritage.