What if the Only Legacy of New Media is a Static Image? The Curatorial Struggle in Preserving New Media's Aesthetics and Art Practices1

Abstract

The preservation and exhibition of computer and new media artworks is affected by the necessity to present a traditional and objectified image to the viewers. New media practices and computer arts are characterized by evolutionary processes and technological supports that contribute to shaping and defining the aesthetic. If ‘migration’ and ‘emulation’ represent a curatorial strategy or methods for collections’ management, preservation and display to deal with the obsolescence of computer and media-based artworks, the strategy of ‘extrapolation and objectification’ may represent another opportunity to address some of the difficulties presented by the immateriality of these art forms.Perhaps the methodologies of display should be changed and the possibilities of new media technologies exploited for new curatorial approaches even when they challenge the authority of both the author and the curator by focusing on the representation of the environmental interaction and the importance of multiple media formats of circulation of contemporary digital cultural expressions.