In the Digital Art preservation field, we are in the middle of a crisis. This is contents versus containing. This is a crisis of substance, material substance opposing to conceptual/intentional substance of the artwork. What do we want? That all resources be directed towards to the preservation and storage of the original devices? Or, that each time it is exhibited, the artwork be constantly updated and adapted to new versions of hardware and software ? In other word, should we preserve the material (hardware/software) or the intent?
There is no answer, yet. Or, if there are answers, they are as multiple than artworks.
That’s why we saw the emergence of new hybrid forms of conservation and restoration in museums. Indeed, more and more museums take the initiative, with the consent of the artist, to make new versions of digital work. They provide a unique incarnation of the concept of the work. In many cases, the original work is preserved with strategies such as migration or storage, and the museum makes in parallel a new installation based on the intent of the initial installation.
This hybrid form of preservation reveals the envy in the profession of new dynamic practices, by putting aside the practical called “frozen time” in favor of the “dynamic time” and therefore of dynamic preservation.
The ZKM museum has experimented this new strategy for its last exhibition. [>>]
Which is the oldest human record?
Richard Rinehart, co-author with Still Water’s Jon Ippolito of the forthcoming MIT book New Media and Social Memory, presents conclusions from the book at the POCOS/HATII symposium on Software Art in Glasgow on 11 October.
To coincide with 
For the last several years, Still Water Co-Directors Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito have been working with 20 other families to found an ecovillage on the coast of Maine. Now 
Drawing on the forthcoming book New Media and Social Memory co-authored with Richard Rinehart, Jon Ippolito speaks on “Wind, Rain, and Ambient Preservation” at ISEA 2011 in Istanbul. 
