ISEA 2024, 29th International Symposium on Electronic Art, 21-29 June 2024, Meanjin, Australia
This paper discusses a novel approach to media art preservation led
by Australian artist-archivist group Teaching and Learning
Cinema, using the field of expanded cinema as a case study.1
Works of 1970s expanded cinema (which combine celluloid film
projection with live performance) are typical of the inherent
“lossiness” of much 20th and 21st century media art.2 While
offering richly embodied experiences in their moment of
enactment, expanded cinema’s ephemerality means that it risks
falling out of circulation and thus becoming unavailable for future
experience. Teaching and Learning Cinema, over the past 20 years,
has evolved a methodology for preserving works of expanded
cinema, featuring three overlapping approaches. First,
intergenerational transfer is attempted: in this phase, younger
artists learn about the work from its originators, and produce live
re-enactments. During the second phase, a users manual is
assembled, encoding the artwork as a set of instructions with the
intention of making it available for future generations of
performers and audiences. Thirdly, the archived material from
phases one and two is stored on synthetic DNA, with a view to
transmission into the deep future (perhaps 1000 years). While the
first two phases are urgent, preventing the work’s immediate
extinction, the third phase is speculative, broadening the enquiry to
explore the question of cultural heritage across much longer
timeframes.
Type:
Conference
City:
Meanjin
Date:
2024-06-25
Department:
Data Science
Eurecom Ref:
8045
Copyright:
© EURECOM. Personal use of this material is permitted. The definitive version of this paper was published in ISEA 2024, 29th International Symposium on Electronic Art, 21-29 June 2024, Meanjin, Australia and is available at :
See also: