Conservators in museums face the same issues with video art and installation art. The video equipment becomes obsolete and breaks down. The light bulbs are no longer made (an art-prep person for a recent MOCA retrospective had to drive a van from LA to Arizona to lay hands on the last available batch of a certain type of florescent tube). With some minimalist installations, just changing the bulbs can make a huge difference.
Here's a little piece on conservation challenges with a piece by Nam June Paik, who pioneered wall-size video installations:
"In the case of Internet Dream, the splitting system was the Achilles heel of the installation. The video splitter used since 1994 was produced by the South Korean manufacturer DASH. Since the manufacturer helped Paik with the technical realization of many of his works (including Megatron/Matrix in 1995), it is likely that this device was specially constructed for the installation. By 2008, the device’s shutdown function had become problematic, probably a sign of more serious loss of function to come."
You see the same dichotomy between fine-art creators versus conservators, as you see between video game artists and emulator designers: "whatever works in the moment" freedom versus obsessive attention to detail.
Conservators in museums face the same issues with video art and installation art. The video equipment becomes obsolete and breaks down. The light bulbs are no longer made (an art-prep person for a recent MOCA retrospective had to drive a van from LA to Arizona to lay hands on the last available batch of a certain type of florescent tube). With some minimalist installations, just changing the bulbs can make a huge difference.
Here's a little piece on conservation challenges with a piece by Nam June Paik, who pioneered wall-size video installations:
http://www.digitalartconservation.org/index.php/en/exhibitio...
"In the case of Internet Dream, the splitting system was the Achilles heel of the installation. The video splitter used since 1994 was produced by the South Korean manufacturer DASH. Since the manufacturer helped Paik with the technical realization of many of his works (including Megatron/Matrix in 1995), it is likely that this device was specially constructed for the installation. By 2008, the device’s shutdown function had become problematic, probably a sign of more serious loss of function to come."
You see the same dichotomy between fine-art creators versus conservators, as you see between video game artists and emulator designers: "whatever works in the moment" freedom versus obsessive attention to detail.