A scholar's crux: Methods of documentation through the lens of archive theory

Abstract

Since the Archive of Digital Art (ADA) was founded in 1999, several methods of documentation were developed on this database for the conservation and presentation of media art. This research on archival strategies was highly influenced by the discourse on how to define media art and how to analyse its most essential attributes, which centers on both the technological conditions of media art (digital technologies as subject and medium-carrier) and relating art historical research topics such as performativity and installation. Questions of archival practices like documentation and preservation are intricately connected to these definition(s) of media art, or to say it in other words: The methods of archiving are intertwined with the principal research in media art because the technicality of this new art form has set art historical questions of materiality, object and interaction on a new level. Over the years, archive projects have developed differentiating and sometimes experimental methods to preserve this multifarious art in all of its aspects. Media art archives need to document the technological condition as well as the aesthetic experience, both of which are varying and multifarious, and therefore need a more dynamic structure than art historical online archives. By presenting methods of documentation on ADA, the complex discourse on defining media art will be analysed in its effect on archival practices. ADA strategies from gaining data and metadata to visualizations and audiovisual documentation will be critically analysed in regard to this discourse.