The variable media paradigm pairs creators with museum and media consultants to imagine potential futures for works in ephemeral formats, including digital media, performances, and installations. The initiative aims to define each of these case studies in terms of medium-independent behaviors and to identify the best strategies for preserving work with the help of an interactive questionnaire.
The Variable Media Network proposes an unconventional preservation strategy based on identifying ways that creative works might outlast their original medium.
This strategy emerged from the Guggenheim Museum’s efforts to preserve its world-renowned collection of conceptual, minimalist and video art. The growth of the Variable Media has been supported by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, and subsequently promoted by the Forging the Future alliance. The aim of this diverse network of organizations is to develop the tools, methods and standards needed to rescue creative culture from obsolescence and oblivion. |
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These are among the dozens of case studies examined by the Variable Media Network. | ||||
Jan Dibbets A White Wall, 1971. Photo collage. more |
Mark Napier Net Flag, 2001. Web site. more |
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Ken Jacobs Bitemporal Vision: The Sea, 1994. Film performance. more |
Bruce Nauman False Silence, 1975. Audio installation. more |
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Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991. Interactive installation. more |
Nam June Paik TV Garden, 1974. Video installation. more |
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Robert Morris Site, 1964. Performance. more |
Meg Webster Stick Spiral, 1986. Installation. more |
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Stan Douglas Der Sandmann, 1995. Film installation. |
John F. Simon, Jr. Color Panel v. 1.0, 1999. Digital sculpture. |
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Jenny Holzer Untitled (Selections from Truisms, ...), 1989. Electronic installation. |
Robert Smithson Hotel Palenque, 1969. Slide installation. |
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Grahame Weinbren and Roberta Friedman The Erl King, 1982-85. Interactive video installation. |
The variable media paradigm looks at artworks not in terms of mutually exclusive technologies like film or video, but in terms of overlapping medium-independent behaviors that need to be preserved for the essence of the artwork to remain viewable. To uncover these behaviors, it helps to compare artworks created in entirely different mediums that present similar preservation challenges. | ||
Meg Webster's
installation Stick Spiral (1986), bears no
obvious resemblance to a performance such as Robert
Morris's Site (1964). Nevertheless, installing
Stick Spiral requires not merely re-creating the appearance of the original,
but also following a definite procedure—in this case filling a room with
recently cut branches from the nearby area pruned for a reason
other than the exhibition. In this sense, Webster's installation is
performed. While Site is performed by a male and female dancer manipulating plywood boards
and other props onstage, Stick Spiral is performed by curators and museum staff in
the act of gathering materials necessary to recreate the installation. Both works require
archiving instructions or a score for these
performances to be reenacted in the future—a shared behavior. |
In another comparison
of two artworks created in different mediums, Felix
Gonzalez-Torres's Untitled (Public Opinion) (1991) would seeing
to have little in common with Mark Napier's net.flag (2001). The former is a candy spill in a museum, while the
latter is an image of a flag on a Web site. However, both works are based
on interchangeable parts: mass-produced commodities on the one hand and digital
files on the other. Both works are also meant to be interactive, since
visitors can take free candies from the Gonzalez-Torres and online visitors
can modify Napier's flag by adding or subtracting parts of flags of various
nations. Because of these similarities, re-creating these works will raise
similar questions, such as how to re-create the work once its technology
of duplication is obsolete and whether traces of previous visitors should
be erased or retained in future exhibitions of the work. |
contained | ||||
In the variable media paradigm, even paintings and sculptures can provoke prickly questions when some aspect of their construction alters or requires an intervention. Such works are "contained" within their materials or a protective framework that encloses or supports the artistic material to be viewed. To account for these alterations in otherwise stable mediums, the Variable Media Questionnaire asks questions such as whether a protective coating is appropriate, whether surface qualities such as brushwork or gloss are essential to the work, or whether an artist-made frame can be replaced. | ||||
Examples of contained works | ||||
Jan Dibbets A White Wall, 1971. Photo collage. more |
John F. Simon, Jr. Color Panel v. 1.0, 1999. Digital sculpture. |
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installed | ||||
For the purposes of variable media guidelines, to say that a work must be "installed" implies that its physical installation is more complex than simply hanging it on a nail. Examples of artworks with this behavior are works that scale to fill a given space or make use of unusual placement such as the exterior of a building or a public plaza. For such works, the Variable Media Questionnaire tracks issues of site-specific placement as well as scale, public access, and lighting. | ||||
Examples of installed works | ||||
Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991. Interactive installation. more |
Nam June Paik TV Garden, 1974. Video installation. more |
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performed | ||||
In the variable media paradigm, "performed" works include not only dance, music, theater, and performance art, but also works for which the process is as important as the product. For such works, the Variable Media Questionnaire ascertains instructions that actors, curators, or installers must follow to complete the work, in addition to more conventional performance considerations such as cast, set, and props. | ||||
Examples of performed works | ||||
Robert Morris Site, 1964. Performance. more |
Meg Webster Stick Spiral, 1986. Installation. more |
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interactive | ||||
While the word is most commonly applied to electronic media such as computer-driven installations and Web sites, interactivity also describes installations that allow visitors to manipulate or take home components of a physical work. The Variable Media Questionnaire tracks such considerations as the type of interface; the method by which visitors modify the work; and the form in which traces of such input are recorded. | ||||
Examples of interactive works | ||||
Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991. Interactive installation. more |
Mark Napier Net Flag, 2001. Web site. more |
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reproduced | ||||
In the variable media paradigm, a recording medium is "reproduced" if any copy of the original master of the work results in a loss of quality. Such media include analog photography, film, audio, and video. | ||||
Examples of reproduced works | ||||
Stan Douglas Der Sandmann, 1995. Film installation. |
Robert Smithson Hotel Palenque, 1969. Slide installation. |
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interchangeable | ||||
To say that some aspect of a work can be interchangeable (also called "duplicated") implies that a copy could not be distinguished from the original by an independent observer. This behavior applies to artifacts that can be perfectly cloned, as in digital media, or to artifacts comprising readymade, industrially fabricated, or mass-produced components. | ||||
Examples of interchangeable works | ||||
Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991. Interactive installation. more |
Jenny Holzer Untitled (Selections from Truisms, ...), 1989. Electronic installation. |
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encoded | ||||
To say that a work is encoded implies that part or all of it is written in computer code or some other language that requires interpretation (eg. dance notation). In the case of works with nondigital components, this code can sometimes be archived separately from the work itself. | ||||
Examples of encoded works | ||||
Jenny Holzer Untitled (Selections from Truisms, ...), 1989. Electronic installation. |
Mark Napier Net Flag, 2001. Web site. more |
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networked | ||||
A networked work is designed to be viewed on an electronic communication system, whether a Local Area Network (LAN) or the Internet. Networked media include Web sites, e-mail, and streaming audio and video. | ||||
Examples of networked works | ||||
Mark Napier Net Flag, 2001. Web site. more |
The Variable Media Questionnaire is an interactive form linked to a database and designed to assist creators and preservationists in writing variable media guidelines. The questionnaire is not intended to be exhaustive, but is intended to spur questions that must be answered in order to capture creators' desires about how to translate their work into new mediums once the work's original medium has expired.
Now available as a free Web service built by the Forging the Future alliance, the third-generation Questionnaire introduced a shift from the previous two versions by viewing the fundamental unit of an artwork as not the artwork itself, but the parts that are fundamental to its operation. In an attempt to capture as many impressions of the work as possible, questions about those components are posed to not just the artist whose name is on the wall next to the piece but also the curators, conservators, assistants, and even viewers who have experienced the work.
That said, the modern reality of art is that it is not enough to treat an artwork as just a collection of physical parts, and so the third-generation Questionnaire also recognizes environments, user interactions, motivating ideas, and external references as aspects to be surveyed and considered when preserving or recreating the piece. Expanding the scope of the data collected by the questionnaire often influences the way that artists, collectors, and scholars approach the artwork that it catalogues.