Scart - a website on audiovisual heritage by packed - oe

Obsolete Equipment: a research project on the preservation of obsolete equipment in audiovisual art

emanuel — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 14:33:05 +0000

Author: Emanuel Lorrain (PACKED vzw)

Published in 'Digital Art Conservation. Preservation of Digital Art: Theory and Practice' (Ambra, November 2013)

De relatie tussen de artistieke intenties en de gebruikte uitrusting is een essentieel onderdeel van de conservatie van mediakunst. De steeds kortere levensduur van technologie is hierbij een grote uitdaging. Onder andere om de conservatieproblemen verbonden aan het in onbruik raken van elektronische apparaten in installaties beter te behandelen, heeft PACKED vzw samen met het Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst (NIMk) het onderzoeksproject Obsolete apparatuur: Het behoud van afspeel- en weergaveapparatuur voor audiovisuele kunst (01/07/2009 – 30/06/2011)1 opgezet. Het project steunt op achttien gevalstudies komende uit de collecties van vijf Belgische en Nederlandse instituten.2 De ethische en technische problemen die zich bij de conservatie stellen, werden hierin grondig onderzocht. Onder de gevalstudies waren er twaalf over video-installaties en zes over computerinstallaties. Tijdens het onderzoeksproces werden specialisten van ZKM (Karlsruhe), Tate (Londen), iMAL (Brussel) en van de Hochschüle der Kunste Bern uitgenodigd om hun kennis te delen en het project met feedback te ondersteunen.

De volgende tekst herneemt elementen uit een presentatie op het colloquim Digital Art Conservation: Practical Approaches op 24 november 2012 aan de École supérieure des arts décoratifs in Straatsburg. Hij gaat eerst in op de context en de doelen van het project, waarbij wordt stilgestaan bij de manier waarop het digitaliseringsproces waarin de collecties betrokken zijn een verschuiving veroorzaakt in het conserveren van analoge werken naar werken die born digital zijn. De tekst concentreert zich vervolgens op de verschillende aspecten van het bewaren van computerapparatuur. Enkele onderzoeksassen en resultaten van het project worden toegelicht, net als de gevalstudie over I/Eye van Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten.

1. Het doel van dit project is het verbeteren en verzekeren van de digitalisering en bewaring op lange termijn wan werken die bedreigd worden door obsolete lees-en toonapparatuur. Meer info over het project: http://www.obsolete-equipment.org
2. Het gaat om het Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst – Amsterdam (NIMk), het Instituut Collectie Nederland – Amersfoort (ICN), het Kröller-Müller Museum - Otterlo (KMM), het Stedelijk Museum – Amsterdam, het Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst – Anterpen (M HKA) en het Stedelijke Museum voor Actuele Kunst - Gent (S.M.A.K.)

Een project in twee fasen

De analoge video-apparatuur en computerapparatuur bezitten een groot aantal gemeenschappelijke elementen (bijvoorbeeld voeding, plastiek behuizingen, chemische condensatoren, enz.) en stellen conservatoren voor gelijkaardige problemen door hun intensief gebruik, de natuurlijke veroudering van de onderdelen of externe risico’s die onstaan bij bewaring en tentoonstelling. Het project Obsolete Apparatuur werd in twee opeenvolgende fasen uitgevoerd. De eerste concentreerde zich op video-installaties en de tweede op installaties met informatica-onderdelen delen. De onderzoeken van de eerste fase lieten een natuurlijke overgang toe naar de meer specifieke problemen die zich stellen bij de conservatie van zogenaamde ‘digitale kunstwerken’. Naarmate het snel in onbruik raken van technologische onderdelen noopt tot het vinden van oplossingen om de werken te kunnen blijven tonen, vervaagt immers de technische grens tussen ‘videowerken’ en ‘digitale werken’ steeds meer. Of het nu gaat om het digitaliseren van het analoge signaal of - waar mogelijk- om de vervanging van de originele apparatuur en dragers door hedendaagse substituten, de strategieën voor de preservering van (analoge) videokunst verlopen vandaag meestal via een gedeeltelijk of volledig migratieproces naar digitale technologie.

Insert Coin - Highway Car, een werk van de Belgische kunstenaar Hans Op de Beek bestudeerd tijdens de eerste fase van het project, levert de ideale illustratie van de conserveringsstrategie waarbij het analoge systeem omgezet wordt naar een digitaal systeem. Deze interactieve videosculptuur uit 1999 werd door het M HKA in 2000 verworven en bestaat uit een groen meubel met een 15-inch beeldbuismonitor dat eruitziet als een arcadespeelkasten uit de jaren ‘70 en ‘80. Zoals bij deze laatsten, nodigt een video met de titel van het werk (Insert Coin) de toeschouwer uit om een muntstuk in de gleuf van het meubel te steken. Als de toeschouwer een muntstuk inwerpt, verschijnt een tweede video die een droevig ogend kind op een kermisauto3 toont. De oorspronkelijke versie functioneerde met behulp van twee VHS-videospelers die verborgen zaten in het meubel en die simultaan en constant de twee verschillende cassettes afspeelden. Daarbij kwam een op maat gemaakt elektronisch circuit dat toeliet om van één speler naar de andere over te schakelen als er een munt werd ingeworpen. In 2009 verving het museum het originele systeem door een Flash-kaartlezer met twee videobestanden die met behulp van een klein programaatje en een fotogevoelige sensor de functies imiteert. De door het M HKA gekozen migratiestrategie heeft het mogelijk gemaakt om de logistiek die noodzakelijk is om het werk te tonen drastisch vereenvoudigd; het is bijvoorbeeld niet meer nodig de VHS kopieën te vervangen wanneer ze versleten zijn). Tegelijkertijd kon het museum zich ook ontdoen van een verouderd en moeilijk te onderhouden systeem. Maar net daardoor moet men nu rekening houden met nieuwe aspecten die eigen zijn aan het bewaren van digitale media: codecs, bestandsformaten, licenties, opslag, corrupte gegevens, enz.

Waarom apparatuur bewaren?

Migratie biedt zoals in het geval van Insert Coin - Highway Car een bevredigende oplossing en het vergemakkelijkt het tonen van de werken. Waarom moet men zich dan nog bezig houden met het bewaren van apparatuur? Een artistieke collectie heeft per slot van rekening geen mandaat om een technologiemuseum te zijn.

Het werk van Hans Op de Beeck biedt een eerste gedeeltelijk antwoord op deze vraag. Terwijl de videospelers van Insert Coin - Highway Car konden vervangen door hedendaags materiaal, is er voor de oude beeldbuismonitor geen migratie naar een modernere technologie mogelijk. Tot op vandaag heeft de industrie de conservatoren geen bevredigend alternatief geboden voor het verdwijnen van het 4:3 formaat noch voor de specifieke eigenschappen van het beeld dat een kathodebuis produceert. Een beeldbuisscherm vervangen door een LCD-scherm is geen valabele optie om het uitzicht van het werk van Hans Op de Beeck te behouden. Toen de originele monitor teveel gebruiksslijtage vertoonde, was de enige oplossing voor het M HKA het vinden van een nieuwe monitor met een even grote kathodebeeldbuis. Bij audiovisuele installaties is de weergavetechnologie, het scherm, meestal het moeilijkst te vervangen element wanneer zij defect of in onbruik raakt. In tegenstelling tot de afspeelapparatuur (voor digitale kunst is dat de computer) is het scherm, behalve in uitzonderlijke gevallen, altijd zichtbaar en als dusdanig een belangrijk deel van het werk. De gevalstudies en interviews met kunstenaars afgenomen tijdens het project tonen dat vaak (maar niet altijd) het vervangen van afspeelapparatuur een minder grote invloed heeft op het werk dan het vervangen van een scherm.4

Naast de pure functionaliteit, speelt de apparatuur ook een belangrijke rol in de historische verankering van het werk. Ze vertelt ons iets over de techno-culturele context waarbinnen het werk ontstaan is en geproduceerd werd. Deze context is soms een essentieel element in het begrijpen van de betekenis van het werk en zelfs van de artistieke kwaliteit. Voor installaties die elementen met een bijzonder design omvatten, of die bestaan uit een hack of een aanpassing die een specifieke eigenschap van een apparaat blootlegt,5 gaat een vervanging altijd gepaard met een zeker verlies. Het blijft dus noodzakelijk om een aantal als kritisch apparaten en vervangstukken te verzamelen en in stand te houden die essentieel zijn om de integriteit van de werken te vrijwaren. Voor elk werk moet de functionaliteit, het voorkomen en de historiciteit onderzocht worden. Ondanks alle mogelijke inspanningen, zal er altijd een moment komen waarop een apparaat volledig versleten is en het vervangen door een identiek model onmogelijk zal zijn. Desondanks moeten conservatoren niet te vlug het bewaren opgeven ten voordele van andere conservatiestrategieën zoals migratie of emulatie. De originele versie van een werk zal altijd de referentie zijn die het mogelijk maakt om te beoordelen of migratie of emulatie geslaagd is of niet. Voor het uitvoeren van een dergelijke vergelijking is het bezit van het origineel en functionerend materiaal vaak onmisbaar.6

"Ik denk dat je een inschatting moet maken van de waarde van die technologie voor het kunstwerk. En eens dat je die inschatting hebt gemaakt, dan zeg je eigenlijk dat als je de band van de technologie voor het werk niet kan behouden, je iets belangrijks zal verliezen. Vervolgens moet je beslissen hoe hard je zal werken om dit verlies te voorkomen. Het is hetzelfde als mensen die echt heel hard werden voor hun schilderijencollecties om te verhinderen dat stukjes verf verloren gaan of om het verbleken van een aquarelschilderij te beperken. Het is belangrijk om te weten waarin je energie te stoppen, wat de belangrijke dingen zijn die je moet proberen te behouden. Dit leer je uit ervaring, maar je moet niet te snel opgeven." 7 Pip Laurenson

De situatie van de collecties

Een eerste vaststelling van het project is dat het verzamelen en bewaren van apparaten te lang verwaarloosd werd door de instellingen die mediakunst bezitten. In het ideale geval dat de apparaten verworven werden op het moment dat het werk de collectie binnenkwam, werden de originele onderdelen vaak slecht bewaard, verloren of zelfs gebruikt voor andere doeleinden dan het tonen van het werk. Voor verzamelingen die ervaring hebben met het bewaren van traditionele artefacten (bv. schilderijen en beeldhouwwerken) en daarvoor reeds sinds lang goede bewaringsstrategieën hanteren, is het verzamelen en bewaren van apparaten nog een nieuwe taak die soms ver verwijderd lijkt van de traditionele rol van een kunstconservator. Toch vraagt het behoorlijk bewaren van apparatuur niet meer inspanningen dan bij klassiekere objecten. De meeste bedreigingen voor elektronische apparaten zijn dezelfde als voor andere types objecten die bewaard worden in een museum: de ouderdom (het verlies van eigenschappen van de onderdelen), opslagomstandigheden (vochtigheid, temperatuur, stof, enz.), andere omgevingsfactoren zoals zonlicht (vergelen en verkleuring van oppervlaktes), zuurstof (ontbinding van rubbers), of fenomenen zoals roest of oxidatie van metalen.

De reden voor de geringe aandacht voor de conservering van apparaten is te vinden in de vertraging waarmee men de apparatuur als integraal onderdeel van het kunstwerk beschouwde. Het gebrek aan begrip van de complexiteit van de verbanden en afhankelijkheden tussen een digitaal werk en de verschillende elementen die de technologische context vormen heeft bijgedragen tot de late bewustwording van problemen die verbonden zijn aan de technologische obsoletie bij werken. Nog meer dan voor videokunst, is de werking en integriteit van digitale kunst verbonden met een groot aantal specifieke kenmerken van de apparatuur waarvoor ze geproduceerd werd. De digitale kunst had lang te lijden onder vooringenomenheden als zou het om een immateriële en virtuele creatievorm gaan die enkel uit nullen en enen bestaat en waarbij de apparatuur louter een verwisselbare factor is. Het preserveren van een werk met informaticadelen is echter niet enkel het bewaren van gegevens maar ook van de software en de hardware die de ervaring opnieuw mogelijk maken. Software bestaat inderdaad uit lijnen code, maar nagenoeg altijd is ze geschreven in functie van een aantal technische voorwaarden en precieze materiële criteria. Als die niet meer beschikbaar zijn, zal het werk zich waarschijnlijk anders gedragen of zullen de gegevens helemaal onbruikbaar worden.

De opslag van apparatuur

Eén van de doelen van het project was een lijst opstellen met eenvoudige aanbevelingen voor artistieke collecties voor het bewaren van elektronische apparatuur.8 Gebaseerd op een aantal interviews (met conservatoren, verzamelaars, ingenieurs en elektromechanici) en de documentatie van fabrikanten, konden een aantal goede en slechte praktijken geïdentificeerd worden. Deze aanbevelingen zijn vanzelfsprekend altijd het gevolg van een compromis tussen het ideale en het binnen een bepaalde context haalbare. In de meeste gevallen berusten ze op gezond verstand. De vier volgende voorbeelden zijn daarvan goede voorbeelden.

In het algemeen verhogen warmte en bruuske temperatuurwisselingen het risico op falen van apparatuur. Warmtepieken veroorzaken een belangrijke stress voor alle onderdelen van elektronische apparaten. Ze dragen onder andere bij aan de aantasting van de soldeerpunten, de verkorting van de levensduur en de versnelling van chemische uitwisselingen binnen in de apparaten. Een stabiele opslagtemperatuur rond de 18-20°C is een goed compromis.
Een te hoge vochtigheid bevordert de hydrolyse van materialen zoals plastic, het verschijnen van roest op metalen en de condensatie binnen in apparaten en hun onderdelen. Een te droge omgeving doet statische elektriciteit ontstaan die kan leiden tot het uitwissen van de inhoud van de Eprom op het moederbord. Een relatieve vochtigheid van 45% in de opslagruimte is een goed compromis.
Stof en andere partikels in de lucht kunnen vocht aantrekken en de thermische uitwisseling met de omgeving verhinderen door de door de fabrikant voorziene verluchting en ventilatie te verstoppen. Als stof binnen in het apparaat dringt, bedekt het de componenten waardoor ze sneller en meer opwarmen. Apparaten afgedekt op rekken plaatsen of in dozen bewaren, zal ze beschermen tegen stof.
Sommige gevaren komen uit het binnenste van de apparaten zelf. Het verwijderen van batterijen en accumulatoren is een onmisbare preventiemaatregel om te vermijden dat ze andere delen beschadigen door lekkage (bijvoorbeeld op circuits van printplaten). Restauratie achteraf zou anders hierdoor moeilijk of onmogelijk worden. Een dergelijk maatregel moet echter voorzichtig gebeuren omdat sommige batterijen op moederborden bijvoorbeeld de computer toelaten om de parameterinformatie van de BIOS9 te bewaren. Die moet in dit geval vooraf opgeslagen worden.

Dergelijke eenvoudig uit te voeren maatregelen zijn het vertrekpunt voor een efficiëntere bewaring van elektronische apparatuur dan tot nog toe het geval was in de collecties. Naast de opslag zijn er natuurlijk nog veel andere maatregelen die steunen op gezond verstand en die moeten worden gerespecteerd wanneer men de apparatuur gebruikt, bijvoorbeeld het gebruik van het gepaste voltage10 of van goede kabels. Maar zelfs zonder onder spanning gezet te worden en onder perfecte bewaaromstandigheden worden bepaalde onderdelen instabiel en verouderen ze. Daardoor kunnen ze de oorzaak worden pannes veroorzaken. Hoe dan ook, goede bewaaromstandigheden en regelmatig onderhoud helpen om pannes en een vroegtijdig einde van een apparaat te voorkomen.

Procedures van het onder spanning zetten

Tijdens tentoonstellingsperiodes en als de apparatuur gebruikt wordt, is het verslijten het grootst en verkleint de verwachte levensduur die door de fabrikant is vooropgesteld drastisch. Alhoewel het niet-gebruiken de levensduur verlengt van onderdelen (bijvoorbeeld de beeldbuis van monitors), kunnen bepaalde problemen ontstaan als gevolg van langdurige opslag en niet-gebruik. Er zijn weinig gegevens beschikbaar over pannes veroorzaakt door langdurig niet-gebruik maar informatie die gedurende het project werd verzameld geeft aan dat het zeer zinvol kan zijn om de apparaten regelmatig onder spanning te zetten. Dat laat toe om van gevoelige onderdelen zoals condensatoren hun eigenschappen langer te behouden en pannes te vermijden. De mechanische onderdelen van harde schijven of de aandrijfriemen van bepaalde diskettelezers hebben hier ook baat bij omdat het helpt bij het behoud van hun vorm en beweegbaarheid.

Het hoofdargument tegen een dergelijke handelswijze is echter de bijkomende manipulatie van de apparaten die het risico op ongelukken vergroot. Het regelmatig in werking stellen blijft niettemin een goed middel om te achterhalen of een toestel onderhoud nodig heeft of simpelweg vervangen moet worden door een identiek model voor dat het te laat is. Regelmatige controles laten ook toe ergere of blijvende schade te voorkomen doordat een defect onderdeel wordt opgemerkt in een vroeg stadium. Er bestaat geen enkele wetenschappelijke basis voor een dergelijke procedure, noch exacte cijfers over de aanbevolen frequentie en de duur van het aanzetten. De aanbevelingen verzameld in interviews met ingenieurs en technici variëren van één keer per maand tot één keer per jaar voor de frequentie en van een half uur tot een halve dag voor de duur van de inwerkingstelling. Een dergelijke becijfering blijft altijd een compromis tussen het maximale aantal gebruiksuren van een apparaat en het risico dat er pannes ontstaan te wijten aan lange periodes van niet-gebruik. Als een instelling beslist een dergelijke routineprocedure in te voeren voor haar apparatuur, bepalen de beschikbare tijd en personeel waarschijnlijk het succes ervan.

Herstel en kennis van de toestellen

De technologische obsoletie maakt dat men zich tot de tweedehandsmarkt moet richten wanneer de vervanging van een origineel toestel noodzakelijk is. Websites als eBay vergemakkelijken de zoektocht maar de toestand van de verworven apparaten varieert sterk. Vaak moeten ze gecontroleerd en onderhouden worden door een technicus voor ze een intensief gebruik kunnen doorstaan zoals tijdens een tentoonstelling. De politiek van de fabrikanten die eerder de voorkeur geven aan de aankoop van een nieuw model in plaats van het te repareren, heeft als nefast gevolg dat steeds meer reparatiediensten verdwijnen, en dus ook de technische kennis over de apparatuur. Het wordt dan moeilijk voor een collectie die intern niet over deze kennis beschikt, om mensen te vinden die nog de nodige competenties hebben om het onderhoud en de herstelling van verouderde elektronische apparaten te doen.11 Bovendien kan een geroutineerde technicus een toestel pas herstellen als hij toegang heeft tot de nodige informatiebronnen12 en wisselstukken. Het bewaren van zo veel mogelijk apparaten, ook al zijn ze beschadigd, is in bepaalde gevallen nuttig omdat er met die onderdelen herstellingen kunnen uitgevoerd worden. Hedendaagse apparaten hebben circuits die altijd complexer en kleiner zijn, zodat een herstelling op niveau van de onderdelen niet langer mogelijk is. Het herstellen van een modern elektronisch apparaat bestaat vaak uit het vervangen van een hele module (bijvoorbeeld een moederkaart of voedingsblok).

In het kader van dit project was het niet mogelijk een analyse te maken van de pannes bij elke categorie van video- en computerapparatuur. De diversiteit van de nodige technische kennis, de soorten apparaten in een collectie en het groot aantal variabelen waarmee men rekening moet houden (zoals bijvoorbeeld ouderdom, model en gebruiksduur) laten dit niet toe. Het opstellen van een lijst om pannes te voorkomen en onderdelen aan te duiden die prioritair bewaard moeten worden, is enkel mogelijk als men elk werk afzonderlijk bekijkt. Ook al is de informatie niet gecentraliseerd, dergelijke kennis over computerapparatuur bestaat; computerverzamelaars, retro-gaming verenigingen en groepen van gepassioneerden rond een bepaald toestel hebben een brede kennis opgebouwd over de zwaktes van apparaten.13 Een groot deel van deze informatiebronnen bestaat enkel op het internet, verspreid over diverse fora en websites, waardoor de toegankelijkheid op lange termijn onzeker is. Door het ontbreken van initiatieven om deze kostbare kennis duurzaam te maken, komt die taak toe aan diegenen die de werken verzamelen en bewaren.

Het voorbeeld I/Eye van Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten14

Om te illustreren hoe de resultaten van het project gevoed werden door een reeks gevalstudies, is dit deel gewijd aan het werk omtrent de installatie I/Eye (1993/2011) dat verricht werd door Hanna Barbara Hölling (NIMk) in samenwerking met de kunstenaar.

Dit werk van de Nederlander Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten bestaat uit een (voor het publiek onzichtbare) computer, een sokkel met een videomonitor met daarop een camera. Die registreert de beweging van de mensen voor het werk en het schermvullend (zwart-wit) beeld van een oog dat hen volgt. De kunstenaar keert het paradigma werk/kijker om en plaatst de kijker in de rol van degene die bekeken wordt. Sinds het eerste toonmoment in de vitrine van Montevideo in Amsterdam, onderging I/Eye vele verbeteringen en versies (kleur, hoge resolutie, enz.). Het initiële programma werd in de taal BASIC V Assembler geschreven voor een Acorn Archimedes 410 computer draaiende op RISC OS. Tijdens de periode dat I/Eye in Montevideo wrd getoond, werd ook een Acorn Risc PC 600 gebruikt. Deze twee computers werden echter nooit exclusief aan het werk toegewezen. Nadien gebruikte Bill Spinhoven Van Oosten ze ook voor andere installaties.15Hij voegde modules toe aan de Archimedes 410 en 'kannibaliseerde' hem vervolgens toen hij kapot ging. Rekening houdend met de slechte toestand en de doorgevoerde veranderingen, werd het onmogelijk om deze computer in zijn originele staat te herstellen. Er werd beslist een Acorn Risc PC 600 te gebruiken bij de reconstructie van het werk. Die was in betere staat maar had twee defecte onderdelen waardoor hij niet correct functioneerde. De moederkaart was beschadigd door een lekkende batterij van het CMOS-geheugen en een captatiemodule waarmee het beeld van de camera gedigitaliseerd wordt, was stuk.

Door contact met Acorn-fans die de juiste wisselstukken bezaten, wist de kunstenaar de twee defecte delen te vervangen door identieke stukken. Na een onderzoek van de verschillende harde schijven en diskettes in het atelier van de kunstenaar, werd een versie van het programma van I/Eye teruggevonden die was geschreven voor de Acorn Risc PC. Na het samenbrengen van de diverse hard- en software tot een functionerend geheel, heeft de kunstenaar een simulatie van het werk gemaakt. De kracht van recente computers verbetert de gegevensverwerking waardoor een oud programma te snel wordt uitgevoerd. Omwille van de zeer nauwe band tussen de gedraging van het werk en de originele hardware, werd beslist de ARM-processor (in C# taal) waarvoor het programma oorspronkelijk geschreven werd, te emuleren. De kunstenaar hoopte zo een versie van het werk te bekomen die zo dicht mogelijk het origineel benaderde. Om zeker te zijn dat deze versie gedurende de komende jaren stabiel en operationeel blijft, moest de afhankelijkheid van specifieke hardware beperkt worden. Daarom werd ze geïmplementeerd op een virtuele machine die verzekert dat het werk op bijna om het even welke computer met x86-64 architectuur16 kan draaien. In het kader van het project heeft NIMk To Transfer or To Transform17 georganiseerd (24/02/2011), waar de gerestaureerde versie van I/Eye en die met de virtuele machine naast elkaar getoond werden.

Het belang van documentatie

Voor enkele werken die werden bestudeerd tijdens het project was ‘een computer’ of ‘een CD-Rom’ de enige beschikbare informatie in de inventaris van hun onderdelen. Om de complexiteit van een digitaal werk te begrijpen en de bewaring te verzekeren, is echter een nauwkeurige beschrijving van de hard- en softwareconfiguratie noodzakelijk, en dat vanaf het moment dat het werk in de collectie wordt opgenomen. Als de originele apparatuur ontbreekt kan enkel een volledige documentatie als referentie dienen voor het herinstalleren, restaureren, heropbouwen en herprogrammeren van een werk. De resolutie van een beeldscherm of de snelheid van een processor spelen een grote rol bij het uiterlijk en het gedrag van een werk. De werking, het uiterlijk, het gedrag maar ook de onderlinge afhankelijkheden die bestaan tussen de verschillende hard- en softwareonderdelen moeten daarom gedocumenteerd worden. Die informatie is cruciaal wanneer beslissingen omtrent de preservering moeten worden genomen. Om dit werk uit te voeren is de medewerking van een externe technicus of van personen die meegewerkt hebben aan de productie van het kunstwerk een belangrijke hulp voor de collecties waar de nodige technische kennis vaak ontbreekt.

"[…]de documentatie is echt een werkinstrument. Het doel is niet enkel het kunstwerk te documenteren om die documentatie later ter beschikking te stellen, af te leveren of te communiceren. De documentatie helpt je ook om een kunstwerk van dichtbij te bestuderen en om zijn verschillende componenten te identificeren. Het documentatieproces geeft je een beeld van wat de volgende stappen en mogelijkheden zijn voor het kunstwerk."18 Tabea Lurk

Projecten zoals DOCAM,19 Matters in Media Art20 en Inside Installations21 hebben het interview gepromoot als een instrument en daardoor wordt het nu door vele collecties gebruikt. De deelname van de kunstenaar, de programmeur - als het iemand anders is -, assistenten enz. verbetert aanzienlijk het begrip en de documentatie van het werk. Als er in de nabije of verre toekomst iemand anders op het werk moet ingrijpen om het te preserveren, bespaart toegang tot een dergelijke documentatie hem het lange en moeizame ontcijferingswerk. Tijdens het documenteren vat men ook beter de essentie van het werk, hoe ze evolueert over verschillende versies en hoe ze verloren kan gaan of net integendeel behouden kan worden dankzij een bepaalde technologie. Zoals we zagen bij I/Eye, hebben werken met informatica-onderdelen een dynamische levenscyclus. Ze veranderen van technologie en vormen om te eindigen met het obsoleet worden van hun onderdelen en vereisen hierdoor een specifieke documentatie.

"[…]Later kan men zich het gebruik van documentaire elementen inbeelden als een soort compensatie om de diverse ‘verliezen’ of degradaties van het werk op te vangen die veroorzaakt werden door het in onbruik raken van de technologische bestanddelen. Uiteindelijk wordt de documentatie hetgene dat het werk overleeft. Het wordt er de historische getuigenis van, samen met enkele fragmenten en relicten." 22 DOCAM

Het project Obsolete Apparatuur liet toe om de aandacht van partnercollecties te richten op de urgentie die de conservatie van de apparatuur van de werken vereist waarvoor zij verantwoordelijk zijn. Ze moeten de nodige middelen voorzien om op een efficiënte manier hierop te reageren. De in deze tekst aangehaalde problemen worden nog pregnanter voor de werken die vandaag gemaakt worden. Het ‘ingebouwde’ verouderen en de impact van de reductie van fabricagekosten op de kwaliteit van de onderdelen zorgen voor technologieën die niet gemaakt zijn om te blijven. Werken gecreëerd voor mobiele toepassingen of met tactiele interfaces zullen hun onderdelen nog veel sneller zien verouderen dan vroeger. Voor recente werken waar kunstenaars moedwillig oude en verouderde technologie23 gebruiken, wordt obseletie zelfs een essentieel aspect van het werk. Tegenover het groeiende aantal en de toenemende complexiteit van digitale creaties binnen collecties, zal men een proactieve houding moeten aannemen zodat de preserveringsmoeilijkheden geïdentificeerd en geanticipeerd worden vooraleer het werk verworven wordt.

Voetnoten:

3. Een Kiddie car in het Engels.
4. Het project heeft ook voorbeelden opgeleverd waarbij de afspeelapparatuur een centrale plaats inneemt in het werk. Dat is het geval voor Oratorium voor een geprepareerde videoplayer en acht monitoren van Frank Theys dat werd bestudeerd tijdens de eerste fase van het project (https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/anatomie-van-het-analoge-het-behoud-v...).
5. We verwijzen hier naar werken zoals Prepared Game Boy Reboot van Gijs Gieskes en Eat Shit van Nullsleep die te zien waren tijdens de tentoonstelling Playlist in iMAL (Brussel) van 4 juni tot 21 augustus 2010. Zie het interview met Yves Bernard (iMAL) in het kader van het project Obsolete Apparatuur (https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/interview-met-yves-bernard-imal). De (analoge) videokunst omvat ook veel van dit soort werken.
6. Het enige alternatief voor functionerende apparatuur is de toegang tot gedetailleerde documentatie over het werk, zijn gedragingen en alle onderdelen. Spijtig genoeg is dergelijke documentatie maar zelden beschikbaar.
7. Fragment uit een interview met Pip Laurenson in het kader van het project Obsolete Apparatuur. (https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/interview-met-pip-laurenson-tate).
8. De volledige lijst aanbevelingen is te vinden op de site van het project Obsolete Apparatuur (http://www.obsolete-equipment.org).
9. Bijvoorbeeld: datum en uur, het type harde schijf en diskettelezer, de bijhorende hard- en software, de opstartschijf, enz.
10. Hierbij dient te worden opgemerkt dat de spanningsnorm in Europa van 220 V naar 230 V gegaan is in de loop van de jaren ‘80. Dat betekent dat de onderdelen voorzien voor een spanning van 220 volt vandaag 10 volt meer moeten verwerken, wat hun levensduur kan beperken.
11. Het onderwijs over elektronische componenten verdwijnt geleidelijk uit de opleiding van technici en ingenieurs ten voordele van het aanleren van digitale technologieën.
12. De elektronische schema’s, gebruiks- en onderhoudshandleiding, enz. die veel informatie bevatten voor het uitvoeren van het onderhoud of de herstelling van een toestel.
13. Zie het interview met Mathieu Charreyre van de vereniging WDA in het kader van het project Obsolete Apparatuur. (https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/interview-met-mathieu-charreyre-wda).
14. Dit deel is grotendeels gebaseerd op gevalstudies gerealiseerd door NIMk (https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/case-study-rapport-ieye-19932011-bill...), en op de tekst Versions, Variation and Variability: Ethical Considerations and Conservation Options for Computer-Based Art van Hanna Barbara Hölling die zal verschijnen in Electronic Media Review, EMG/AIC.
15. In die tijd was een dergelijke uitrusting een belangrijke investering. Het was daarom gebruikelijk dat kunstenaars eenzelfde computer gebruikten voor de creatie van verschillende installaties.
16. Sinds zijn lancering in 1978, bedraagt de penetratiegraad van deze architectuur op de PC-markt meer dan 95%. De hypothese van Bill Spinhoven was dat deze massale aanwezigheid en het belang van de financiële investeringen een garantie vormen dat er gedurende vele jaren altijd een virtuele machine zal zijn die dit materiaal kan simuleren.
17. Zie http://nimk.nl/eng/to-transfer-or-to-transform/to-transfer-or-to-transfo...
18. Uit het interview met Tabea Lurk en Jürgen Enge in het kader van het project Obsolete Apparatuur project. (https://www.scart.be/?q=nl/content/interview-met-tabea-lurk-en-juergen-enge)
19. Zie http://www.docam.ca
20. Zie: http://mattersinmediaart.org/ en http://www.tate.org.uk/
21. Zie http://www.inside-installations.org/home/index.php
22. Uit het Modèle Documentaire van DOCAM.(http://www.docam.ca/en/documentation-model.html)
23. 8-bit computers en spelconsoles zoals de ZX Spectrum, de Commodore 64, de Nintendo Nes etc. of oude analoge apparaten zoals audiocassettespelers.

Case study report: Mondophrenetic™ (2000, Herman Asselberghs, Els Opsomer, Rony Vissers)

emanuel — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:08:39 +0000

Artists: Herman Asselberghs, Els Opsomer and Rony Vissers

Title: Mondophrenetic™

Year of creation: 2000

Type: Interactive computer-based installation

Collection: Artists' archive

Researcher: Emanuel Lorrain (PACKED vzw)

Language of the case study report: English

Introduction

1. General description of the work

2. History of the work

3. Components of Mondophrenetic™

3.1. Exhibition space

3.2 Lightning

3.3 Furniture

3.4 Equipment

3.4.1. Computer equipment

3.4.2. Projection equipment

3.4.3. Audio equipment

3.4.4 The floppy disks and CD-ROMs

3.5 Software components

3.5.1. The application

3.5.2 Director

3.5.3. The behaviour of the application

3.5.4 The interaction

3.5.5. The screensavers

3.5.6 The behaviour of the screensavers

3.6 The sound elements

3.7 The media files

4. Exhibition history

5. Documentation of the work

5.1 Pictures of the work

5.2 Reviews

5.3 Electronic mail

5.4 Installation plans

5.5 State of the documentation

6. The website

6.1. General description

6.2 Structure of the Mondophrenetic™ website

6.3 Technical aspects

7. Versions and modifications of the work

7.1. The exhibition rooms

7.2. The furniture

7.3. The equipment

7.3.1 The monitor

7.3.2 The computer mouse

7.3.3 Sound speakers

7.4. The application and the number of pictures

7.5. The carrier of the screensavers

8. Current state of the work and conservation issues

8.1. The equipment

8.1.1 The monitor

8.1.2 The computer

8.2. Software-based elements

8.3. The website

9. Preservation strategies for Mondophrenetic™

9.1. Preservation strategies for the installation

9.1.1 Keep a 'historical' version of the work

9.1.2 Use contemporary equipment

9.1.3 The use of an emulator

9.1.4 Migration

9.1.5 Virtualizing the work

9.1.6 Recode the work

9.1.7 Describing the application

9.1.8 The floppy disks

9.2 Strategies for the screensavers

9.3 Possible restoration of the website

10 Should Mondophrenetic™ be preserved?

11 Conclusion

Introduction

Mondophrenetic™ is a multimedia installation that was created in 2000 by three Belgian artists: Herman Asselberghs, Els Opsomer and Rony Vissers. David Toop created the music and the soundscapes for Mondophrenetic™. Andreas Kratky took care of the development of the interactive concept and programming as well as being technical advisor. The installation was produced by incident vzw, in coproduction with bruxelles/brussel 2000 and with the support of the Flemish Community Commission of the Brussels Capital Region, the Flemish Visual Arts Commission, the Film in Flanders Fund of the Flemish Community and the Belgian National Lottery. Mondophrenetic™ comprises a multimedia installation with different types of hardware and software elements, pieces of furniture and also a website. Although no collecting institution acquired this work, the varied nature of its components made it an interesting subject for a case study in the Obsolete Equipment project. Moreover, the various challenges that the obsolescence of its components poses for its preservation encompass a lot of problems presented by other computer-based installations

1. General description of the work

In its ideal state, Mondophrenetic™ is installed in two separate rooms. In the first room where the visitor enters the installation space, a computer monitor, a computer mouse and speakers are installed on a table. Designer chairs, floor lamps, a coffee table and (often) a vase with flowers give the visitor the impression of being in a lounge room. Being in this first room feels at the same time both cosy and alienating.

The exhibition visitor sitting at the table can watch the monitor and interact with the work by using the computer mouse (clicking and dragging). In front of him/her, a random series of colour photographs of buildings and residential blocks are displayed at a slow pace, sometimes interspersed by monochrome colour screens with short texts that seem to be extracts from a diary, statistical information or short excerpts of Jean-Luc Godard’s film Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle. From time to time a cursor appears on the screen. At that moment the exhibition visitor can click to change the course of the work. Music and soundscapes accompany the images and sequences. The soundtrack creates atmospheres that are suggestive of buildings as living organisms, creatures with nervous systems. It is a kind of ‘easy listening’ or ethereal mix that is detached from any recognisable source, and is sometimes briefly interrupted by sound glitches. In this lounge room the exhibition visitor can also consult documents related to the Mondophrenetic™ installation: a text by the artists on their work, a user’s manual, some biographical information on the artists, press reviews, etc.

From this first room the visitor can walk into a second one (almost always adjacent). In this darkened room a large screen projection mirrors what is happening on the computer monitor of the first room. Large foam seats allow visitors to sit back, watch the projection and listen to the soundtrack. The projection in this second space mirrors in real time what the exhibition visitor / user is watching on the computer monitor and is doing with the computer mouse, except for one detail: the exhibition visitor can only see the cursor on the computer monitor, not on the projection screen.

The visitor's experiences in the two rooms are meant to be completely different. In the second space the sound is louder and the room darker than in the first one. In the first room the exhibition visitor can interact with what he/she is seeing and hearing by moving and clicking the computer mouse, in the second room he is a passive viewer. While watching the computer monitor is more like a home or office experience, watching the projection is closer to a cinema experience.

Floppy disks (or in a later version CD-ROMs) containing a screensaver are hung against one of the walls of the first room and the exhibition visitors are invited to take one home when they leave the exhibition. When this screensaver is installed on a computer at home or at work, a part of Mondophrenetic™ lives on outside its original exhibition context.

The artists describe their Mondophrenetic™ installation as follows:

“On entering the room you find yourself in an utterly different place. On a desk, there is a regular PC with images and text. The photographs show huge apartment blocks in the outskirts of big cities, anonymous places, where people live and work. An efficient and straight-lined architecture, built en masse, created by builders and real estate developers rather than architects. The great blocks have been photographed from a distance.

In the large series of images (over 500 photos) one can hardly see any passers-by, it is as if the world were empty. The order of the pictures seems arbitrary, but is in fact guided by computer software carefully designed not to convey any sense of direction. Using the mouse, anyone can find his/her own way through the material, but there is no map. And, as opposed to clear (predictable?) navigation through a CD-ROM or web-page, here there is no way back, there is no back or home, no new beginning. You keep on searching for clues to a possible orientation, and the feeling you get is not unpleasant at all. Day and night images follow one another, flow ad infinitum.  All these concrete blocks look alike. One moment you seem to be in Brussels, New York, Beijing, Helsinki, La Coruña, Paris, Sarajevo, Bombay, and the next you are back in no man's land again, any suburb on the periphery anywhere in the world, anywhere and nowhere. The ever-growing flow of images is regularly interspersed with texts. They are fragments of a fictional journal. They tell their tale about distant galaxies, about thinking of your lover while he/she is out. Tales of billions of years gone-by, about waiting on the platform at central station, about the taste of vanilla flavored salve on your lips, about products and trademarks around us, about the moment that you become the world and the world becomes you... Brief notes, consciously playing with and mixing the concepts of alienation and engagement, of public and private. They could have been written by the anonymous woman (she) or the anonymous man (he) who wander through the nonexistent narrative. Perhaps, there are several men and women. What is clear is that it is impossible to find out where they took their notes, for in these times of faxes, modem, gsm and other means of communication which have lessened the importance of geography, time is more important than place. And it is equally clear that their individual views are confronted with the 'objective' data and statistics that surround us in the society of information.  So it is with this multimedia installation where population growth rates, and figures of tourism, and multinational companies can tell everything and nothing at the same time.

The installation soundtrack is made to measure. The three artists asked the musician and composer David Toop to write music that is as tangible as audible, and to make sure that the highly technological music sounds very natural. He had to have in mind as well that this music could not have a linear order. The composer of a soundtrack for a multimedia installation must know that he will sooner or later lose control over it: its creators and the computer engineer, in the first place and eventually the user, determine in turn how the music is going to be used. This is no exception;, some musical fragments get mixed and overlap in inexplicable ways;, with a single mouse click you can (without even noticing) cut them beforehand and make them start again. This ambient soundscape does not work as a regular music theme, but it does not lend itself to be classified background music either. Making use of familiar concrete sounds such as cell-phone and modem sounds, the composer creates various environments which on the whole evoke a building with a central nervous system, a building as a living organism. This is presently the music of tomorrow, music that evokes globalization, somekind of purpose-made easy listening suited forthe transnational flux in which all the cultures of the world become absorbed.

After experiencing usage you move on to experiencing seeing (the other way round is fine as well). A film is being projected in the adjoining room. Or not exactly, image and sound seem to be glued as if in an actual setup, but they are not. The large-screen projection shows what is happening on the computer screen close-by. On the large screen, however, there is no disturbing mouse so that you don't seem to be looking over somebody's shoulder, here the work seems to live its own life. It is a film, with no beginning and no end: combinations of image, word and sound are constantly changing. Those who want to take experience them all, will have to stay for more than two hours. Even then, it is impossible to come up with the same combination twice. The computer chooses at random among the stored photographs, texts, and music, with a little help from the creators and the computer engineer.

The point of this group work was to find the appropriate rhythm, everything flows gently mixing and moving at an easy speed, just as an alien's breath. You leave the room and go back home or to work, and you take a small piece of the installation with you - a screensaver for your own computer. This is what you have taken with you on a floppy disk (for Mac or PC). No, no, not a CD-ROM but a true floppy, one of those modern objects upon which we already look back with nostalgia. Even iMac users, despite having no disk unit, can treat themselves with this screensaver, which can also be found on the project's web page: www.mondophrenetic.com. Thus, Mondophrenetic™ reaches out for the globe.”1

2. History of the work

The original idea behind Mondophrenetic™ emerged from a previous work by Els Opsomer, Desire/at last, made in 1997. This work consists of the projection of about three hundred colour slides that were shot in various cities, each portraying 'un grand ensemble', a large block of flats on the outskirts of a city.

After the creation of Desire/at last, Els Opsomer wanted to make a CD-ROM project with her photographic images, and Herman Asselberghs, whom at the time was known as a critic, proposed to link them to Jean-Luc Godard's film, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, which takes as its setting one of the great ensembles of the suburban areas of Paris. Together they invited Rony Vissers who had been working as a producer of video and film artworks2 to join them. While they kept the original idea of interactivity and non-linearity they soon decided to create Mondophrenetic™ as a multimedia installation instead of a CD-ROM.

The artists describe this process as follows:

“First came the slide installation 'desire/at last'. This consisted of the projection of about three hundred colour slides shot between 1995 and 1997 in various cities [including Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, New York, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Budapest, Istanbul and Prague] on three continents [Europe, Asia and North America]. Each photo is a portrait of 'un grand ensemble', a large block of flats on the outskirts of the city: the everyday setting for equally everyday activities which are immensely similar all over the world but at the same time could not be more thoroughly different. This is a global catalogue of the banal, in which alien and familiar constantly change place. A catalogue of abstract architectural exercises and urbanisation plans which as a whole evokes a well-nigh endless collection of actual stories that tell us about the building and its residents, and about the city and our transnational age.

Then came the multimedia installation project. The slide presentation was intended to emphasise the transient nature of viewing and reinforce the impression of disorientation. The multimedia installation naturally lends itself even more to the evocation of this ambiguous and simultaneous feeling of displacement and security. In a single photo a block of flats seems to be everywhere and nowhere [in many cases it is impossible without prior knowledge to distinguish between photos from, for example, Prague and Brussels], but in the rhythmic succession and repetition of a large number of digitalised images this confusion [or is it an invocation?] can be boosted even more. On a disk and as part of the installation, the photo is no longer of importance as an artefact [if they were it would be better to frame them and hang them on the wall of a gallery to be looked at one by one], rather the accumulation of apparently banal images that continually delay their definitive interpretation. Furthermore, the multimedia installation offers the advantage of showing the images in a different order each time one looks, so that the sequence not only invites one to look again and receive new impressions, but also provides another view of the same material.

And then there is a film, a source of inspiration, which we cannot pass over.  In 1967 Jean-Luc Godard made 'Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle', a film set in a Paris suburb. Against this background we see a series of lyrical and philosophical reflections on life in and around 'les grands immeubles', the big blocks of flats. More than thirty years later it is no exaggeration to label Godard's film experiments of the sixties as the first adventurous steps towards a narrative structure that now seems perfectly fit for an interactive, digital setting. Even back then, Godard said that he too thought a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. Moreover, in his approach to characters, and therefore to actors, he attempts systematically to eliminate every unequivocal point of view and every one-dimensional narrative angle. In 'Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle' the result is a flow of associative images and sounds without a true central point, an audiovisual flow of ideas that can turn in a new direction at any moment. We now call this hypertext, and it is no longer the film-maker who controls and keeps together the course of his apparent chaos, but the user himself, using the mouse to navigate from one point to the next, not always taking the shortest route and certainly never the same route twice.”1

During the production process of the installation two other works linked to Mondophrenetic™ in different ways were exhibited: Slightly bemused by this lack of orientation (1998) and Wanting to become part of the environment (2000).

Slightly Bemused By This Lack Of Orientation was exhibited as part of the group exhibition Onzichtbare Stad / The Invisible City at Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst Marres in Maastricht from September until October 1998. While it was a different installation using photos that are part of Els Opsomer's general work, it is mentioned here (and was also mentioned on the website of the project) because it contained a lot of ideas that would be further developed with Mondophrenetic™. However, while the concept had a lot of similarities with that of Mondophrenetic™, the equipment used, the application's behaviour and the installation parameters were all very different. The computer was an Apple Power PC G3 (probably a 450Mhz / minimum 256 MB RAM / 20GB HD) - less powerful than the Power PC G4 used later to show Mondophrenetic™. The monitor was from the same generation as the computer, and had a very classical design compared to the Apple Trinitron type CRTs used in Mondophrenetic™. The software part of this work was also made with Director, but the functionality and behaviour of the application were very different from the one developed later by Andreas Kratky for Mondophrenetic™. Slightly bemused by this lack of orientation had a more classic interface and type of navigation that were closer to those of a web page or a CD-ROM. It consisted of a mosaic of thumbnails on which the user could click to see the different pictures and materials used in the work. Although Slightly Bemused by this lack of Orientation is a work in itself, it also served as a test for the artists who then decided that they wanted a different type of user experience for Mondophrenetic™. They didn't want the audience to be able to just go through the material in a couple of minutes by clicking on the next picture or video until they'd reached the end. They wanted the visitor to spend time in the exhibition and to adapt his/her visit to the pace of the work.

Wanting to become part of the environment was exhibited as part of the group exhibition 3ness at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle from July 9 until September 17 of 2000. It consisted of a wall painted in a greyish blue paint with the title of the work in silver lettering placed on it. Floppies containing screensavers that the visitors could take home were hung on the wall. The artists described Wanting to become part of the environment as follows:

“An idea should be able to assume various forms. Not just a single one, because then it is frozen forever. Mondophrenetic™ is the title of an installation that will be completed in September: a room plus projection plus a computer plus sound. An installation that tells us two or three things about our place in the world. That is the form our ideas will take at that point in time and space. Now Deurle has come up. An invitation to show 'something' of Mondophrenetic™ already. A teaser? In any case a small installation with the same material in mind: this time our ideas will take this form. Wanting to become part of the environment. Between temporary and permanent. Between fleeting and enduring. Between the museum and home. 'Wanting to become part of the environment' is also an object: a diskette which the visitor can obtain ffor ree. An object that can be passed on like a video cassette or a CD. "Peut-être qu'un objet est ce qui permet de relier de passer d'un sujet à l'autre, donc de vivre en société, d'être ensemble", wrote Jean-Luc Godard. That is why there is a diskette that creates links. Link number one is to our Website, where you can download a screensaver to suit your own computer. In this way the installation in the museum automatically extends itself. A little piece of Mondophrenetic™ for yourself, at home or at work. 'Wanting to become part of the environment' is also mood media: pictures, words and sound that transform your computer into an atmosphere machine.”3

3. Components of Mondophrenetic™

3.1. Exhibition space

The minimum requirements for Mondophrenetic™ exhibition spaces included in the technical rider provided by the artists are:

“Minimum two separate, but connected exhibition spaces. In one space the computer with monitor will be installed, in the other one the projector and screen. The approx. size for the projection space is 8 x 20m, the second space may be smaller.”3

For the artists, it is important that the visitor enters the exhibition of the Mondophrenetic™ installation through the room in which the computer is installed. The visitor should discover him/herself that there is a connection between the image on the computer monitor and the large image on the projection screen, and more specifically that the projection is controlled by the exhibition visitor / personusing the computer mouse in the first room.

Although it wasn't mentioned in the technical rider section of the website, ideally the artists would prefer that the exhibition space(s) has a connection with the outside world, for example in the form of a (if necessary darkened) window, such as in the exhibitions in Brussels and Hasselt. This opening was important to link the urban landscapes that the audience could see in the work with the context of the city in which the work was shown. However, of the eight different exhibition spaces in which Mondophrenetic™ has been shown, only those in Brussels and Hasselt had a large window in the exhibition space.

The technical rider section of the website doesn't give very precise information about the shape of the room or the colour that should be used for the wall, ceiling and floor of the gallery. The only indication available is: "Both spaces need to be painted in appropriate colours chosen by the artists."3

3.2 Lightning

The information available in the technical rider section of the website about the lightning of the exhibition space reads: "The projection space needs to be darkened."

The light level is an important element for the creation of two different atmospheres in the exhibition rooms. When the first space has a connection with the outside, daylight is present in the room, and most of the time, the lounge area or the computer area also includes a floor lamp as part of the furniture. No specific instructions are available concerning the light levels in that first space, but based on photographs it appears to be luminous, which makes sense as the lounge area is also meant for people to be able to consult the documentation present on the work. The second space, on the contrary, has no additional lighting in order to create a cinema experience. Moreover, the darkness in the projection space makes it easier to obtain a good projected image.

3.3 Furniture

In the first exhibition space, there's a table on which the computer monitor is installed, with one or two designer chairs for the exhibition visitors. These chairs, the floor lamps, a coffee table and (often) a vase with flowers gives the visitor the impression of being in a lounge room.

From a work document in Rony Vissers' archive:

“[…], the furniture for the Mondophrenetic™ was different for every exhibition. And was also depending on the local availability of furniture types. On the website www.mondophrenetic.com you can see pictures of the […] furniture that has been used for Mondophrenetic™ exhibitions in Brussels, Hasselt, Santiago de Compostela, Dortmund and Karlsruhe. The furniture is always in some kind of way reflect the 20th century utopia of a 'new' world. [It] is design furniture, often in a 60-70' style, mass-produced, functional, made of modern materials (synthetic, chrome, glass, …)

For the table in the computer space we have always been using:

- table top BRA 194 x 80 x 4 cm (IKEA).

- table legs CURRY black, height: 70 cm, ø 5 cm (IKEA)

- glass plate table top 194 x 80 x 0,5 cm (local glass dealer)

- table top painted in a colour chosen by the artists

To display the CD's and the _WRAPPED_publication in the computer space we have always been using:

- glass cupboard KEWLOX 62 x 32 x 35 (height) cm, with glass shelve in the middle

info: http://www.kewlox.be/flamand/vitrines.htm”

In the projection room, several foam rubber elements with circular or rectangular shapes were installed as seats. The colour of the foam rubber elements was either white, light yellow or light grey.

From a work document of the artists:

“As seating elements for the projection space, foam pieces have been used. The decision about their colour and whether they are rectangular or circular depends on the size of the space.”

3.4 Equipment

3.4.1. Computer equipment

The technical rider section of the project's website gave a list of minimum requirements for the computer equipment:

“- one Apple Macintosh Powermac G4 (minimum 450Mhz / minimum 256 MB RAM / 20GB HD) with an Apple USB (Azerty) keyboard, a special computer mouse and OS MAC 9.0 UK

- one 17" Apple Studio Display monitor (colour: graphite)

- two graphic cards Proformance III (16MB)”1

3.4.2. Projection equipment

The technical rider section of the website gave a list of minimum requirements for the projection equipment:

“- a high quality dataprojector (resolution: 1024 x 768, 2400 ansi lumen like a Sony VPLX-30)

- a retro-projection screen (approx. 3x4 meter, depending on the size of the exhibition space)”1

A rear-projection screen wasn't used for every Mondophrenetic™ exhibitions. In some cases, a frontal projection screen was used instead. The size of the screen was adapted to the size of the projection space and always fitted the 4:3 aspect ratio of the projection.

3.4.3. Audio equipment

The project website gave a list of minimum requirements for the audio equipment:

“- two sound speakers with a separate sub woofer for the computer were needed and they had to be in a similar colour as the monitor like the Logitech Soundman)

- one mixing desk: like Soundcraft Series 200 SR (only one input of the mixing desk will be used; one group of (2) outputs for the front speakers, 1 group of (2) outputs for the rear speakers and Aux 1 and 2 for the sub woofers will be used), the mixing desk should enable to control the volume of each sub woofer and speaker separately

- two sub woofers: like Martin audio BSX sub 1.2 Kw RMS power on 4 ohm.  

- four speakers: like Martin audio W1 75hz-18Khz 118 dBspl / 124dB peak 70 x 40° dispersion 8 ohm / 300 W RMS X-over 1.5 Khz  

- three electronic cross-overs, like Martin audio MX4 system controller (cross-over between BSX & W1 ) on 80 Hz  

- one rack with 3 amplifiers: like 2 x Amcron Macro Tech 1201 (for the front and rear speakers), stereo mode (both channels driven): 310 W into 8 ohms and 1 x Amcron Macro Tech 2401 (for the sub woofers), stereo mode (both channels driven): 800 W into 4 ohms”1

With the exception of the two sound speakers with a separate sub woofer for the computer, the specific audio equipment listed was only used for the Mondophrenetic™ exhibitions in Brussels and Hasselt. There is no detailed information available concerning the audio equipment used for the other exhibitions.

3.4.4 The floppy disks and CD-ROMs

The screensavers were distributed in the exhibition space on 3 ¹⁄₂" floppy disks, until the exhibition in Rotterdam (March 14 - April 21, 2003) where they were then distributed on CD-ROMs. Although these screensavers were also available for downloading on the website www.mondophrenetic.com, the floppy disks (and later the CD-ROMs) were important for the artists as artefacts. They were little gadgets that would help to bridge the gap between the exhibition space and the outside world. As material objects the floppy disks (and later the CD-ROMs) also had an aesthetic value. The artists designed the labels themselves, and distributed the floppy disks and CD-ROMs in little transparent plastic bags or sleeves.

“An object that can be passed on like a video cassette or a CD. "Peut-être qu'un objet est ce qui permet de relier, de passer d'un sujet à l'autre, donc de vivre en société, d'être ensemble", wrote Jean-Luc Godard. That is why there is a diskette that creates links. […] In this way the installation in the museum automatically extends itself. A little piece of Mondophrenetic™ for yourself, at home or at work. [It] is also mood media: pictures, words and sound that transform your computer into an atmosphere machine.”1

In 2003, the floppy disks were replaced by CD-ROMs for the exhibition in Rotterdam because floppy disks had become obsolete by that time, not only for MAC but also for PC. For the last exhibition that took place in Antwerp, no screensavers were distributed at all. According to Rony Vissers, the main reason was the lack of time and budget to produce CD-ROMs. It seems that there was no mention in the exhibition space either that you could download the screensavers from the website.

There was no budget and the context of the exhibtion ‘that was updated after documenta X which was a large group exhibition’ meant it was not appropriate to add these gadgets. Instead our piece was installed next to the main entrance and functioned as a kind of ouverture and passage of the whole transition they wanted to focus on with this exhibtion. We emphasized our content through the set design and positioning within the ‘parcours’. The work was provided withthe right context which made mondophrenetic an important viewing experience. In the other cases which were more or less solo exhibtion or with more space available for the work the spaces fonctioned almost like ‘an appartment’ or world in itself. Moving from one space to another all added to the whole experience of the work. In such cases, it was more important to take something of this ‘world’ back home. (Els Opsomer, January 7 2013)

3.5 Software components

3.5.1. The application

The Mondophrenetic™ application was created using Director 8 by Andreas Kratky, a German developer who at that time worked at the ZKM - Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe. He was contacted to design an application that, as further described in the text, had no beginning or end. The application goes on continuously, but is not a loop either as the sequence displayed is always different. By avoiding the use of any actual interface and by limiting user's control on the course of the work, Mondophrenetic™ was meant to offer an almost infinite number of unique experiences to the visitor.

To produce the application for Mondophrenetic™, Andreas Kratky used the freshly released version 8 of Director for Apple Mac OS 9 operating systems. The Mondophrenetic™ application was created to run exclusively on Mac OS 9, and no version was ever produced for Windows operating systems. A cross-platform application wasn't needed because Mondophrenetic™ was to be shown with Apple hardware only. Moreover, it wasn't until Director MX 2004 that the licence for one platform allowed one to make applications for both Microsoft Windows and Apple operating systems.

3.5.2 Director

Director is a software designed for the creation of CD-ROM applications, but also internet interfaces and animations through the use of the Shockwave format. Director can also be used to make all kinds of multimedia projects such as interactive terminals in museums, applications using Midi interfaces, etc. Its development started in 1985 when it wasn't yet called Director, but VideoWorks. At that time this product was developed by Macromind, an Apple Software company that became MacroMind-Paracomp in 1991 after its merge with Paracomp, and then Macromedia in 1992 after a further merge with Authorware, inc. The name was changed from VideoWorks II to Director, which was published in 1987.

Macromedia developed several versions of Director and John H. Thompson, an employee of Macromind, created the Lingo programming language that replaced the Basic based language used until then. Macromedia was a successful company that published popular software for web developers such as Flash and Dreamweaver and which created the SWF format and the FLV container file format that is widely used for video streaming on the web. In April 2005 Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems, its major competitor, and Macromedia Director became Adobe Director. The latest version to date is Adobe Director 11.5.8, released on September 6, 2010.

3.5.3. The behaviour of the application

The behaviour of Mondophrenetic™ is mainly based on seemingly random procedures so that the visitor’s experience is never the same twice. The endless possibilities of combinations reinforce the feeling of disorientation created by the images, the text and the soundtrack. Although the exhibition visitor/user has some control over the work when manipulating the computer mouse, he/she is never able to know what will happen next when he clicks.

The visitor enables the viewing /experience of the work. He/she has no control since everything will display randomly. He will only boost the work by his or her manipulation. (Els Opsomer, January 07 2013)

However, the work does not rely on a totally arbitrary randomness, as the artists have defined a number of rules. What is displayed on the computer monitor and the projection screen is in fact composed of several groups of photographic images. The programme itself does not only pick the group of images, but also makes a selection of the images within the group and puts them together in a random order with seemingly random time intervals. In between these images the application intersperses text screens and colour backgrounds that have been selected in a similar way. The soundtrack that goes with the images is also picked at random from a selection of more than fifty audio files (music, soundscapes, glitches and other sound effects) and mixed together. The display of the images combined with the soundtrack functions as a slideshow.

"There are several different approaches to randomness in the application. For the choice of the next sequence or audio tracks we use a combination of pre-assigned groups of sequences that can be triggered in certain situations/states of the application. Among those pre-assigned choices we use a random-no-repeat selection that makes sure that before one sequence is repeated all other possibilities have been exhausted.

For the colour cycles we use a "drunken-walk" that randomly traverses a color-space. Timing variabilities are realized with simple randomized values within pre-set ranges. The same is done for the disturbances. The randomization routines are in different locations and contexts in the code, but easily visible. […] It is intentionally designed so that it does not become obvious that certain functions are done at random, which is achieved through delay cycles, the "drunken-walk" and similar strategies." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012).

3.5.4 The interaction

At certain moments a cursor appears on the computer. This appearance is an invitation for the exhibition visitor/user to click the mouse. If she/he clicks the mouse, the slideshow stops and dissolves at random into another one with a selection of another group of images and text screens. If the exhibition visitor/user does not click when the cursor appears, the slideshow goes on until it has shown all selected images and texts and reached its end, automatically dissolvings into a kind of transition. These transitions are transforming monochrome colour screens (like a screensaver), panoramic excerpts from Jean-Luc Godard's film Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle or similar panoramas in QuicktimeVR that were created by the artists themselves.

The exhibition visitor/user can also stop these transitions by clicking the computer mouse. The transitions then seemingly at random dissolve into the next slideshow. If the user does not click, the transitions automatically stop after a while and dissolve at random into another slideshow. The cursor appears at random, with different time intervals and in different parts of the image. In the panoramas the exhibition visitor/user can zoom in and out and move up, down, left and right. Clicking is only possible when the cursor appears, and the exhibition visitor/user never knows in advance when this will happen.

This seemingly random appearance of the cursor is a way of avoiding that the exhibition visitor/user constantly click the computer mouse and navigate through the entire work as if through a simple CD-ROM. The artists wanted to slow down such clicking . They wanted the visitor to stay and take time to experience the installation as an attempt to stretch the time, in contradiction with the frenetic pace of the world pictured in the work.

"It was a very frenetic world and Mondophrenetic™ always had a contemplative flow that slowed down. I was and am still very attached to that. Visiting Mondophrenetic™ was like stretching time." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

3.5.5. The screensavers

The Mondophrenetic™ screensavers came in two versions, one for Mac OS 9 and one for Windows. They were available in the exhibition on floppy disks (and later on CD-ROMs) and on the website www.mondophrenetic.com for both Mac and Windows users.

The screensavers were also created by Andreas Kratky. They were Director projects compiled into platform-specific standalone applications called 'projectors' for Mac OS and Windows. For the Mac OS version, Andreas Kratky then used Auto Launch Pro. 1.0.9, a screen saver engine edited by St. Clair Software Utilities for Mac OS platforms.

“AutoLaunch Pro is a screen saver engine which runs Macromedia Director projectors. With it, you can easily distribute your Director projector as a custom screen saver, complete with your own logo and artwork in the AutoLaunch Pro control panel. AutoLaunch Pro takes care of all the details for making your projector run as a screen saver, including providing user controls for the screen saver delay, hot corners for immediate or delayed activation, and an on/off switch. It even quits your projector when the user touches a key or moves the mouse.”4

For Windows platforms the screensavers were made using a programme called ScreenSaverWizard 1.1 by a software editor at the time called Score Multimedia (now Score Solutions RG).

The ScreensaverWizard is a tool, with which one can easily create high impact Screen Savers from one's Macromedia Director / Flash projector files.5

3.5.6 The behaviour of the screensavers

The starting point for the screensavers was a Macromedia Director project that realized a very slow pan of a panoramic image consisting of two parts. Three different versions of the screensavers were created on the same principle but using different images.

Three different screensavers were created for each platform:

a ‘Combisaver’ (2Mb for Windows, 3,8Mb for Mac)
a ‘Midnightsaver’ (1,7Mb for Windows, 2,6Mb for Mac)
a ‘Nightsaver’ (1,8Mb for Windows, 2,7Mb for Mac)

The ‘Midnightsaver’ and ‘Nightsaver’ screensavers start with a fade-in from black into the image and once the image has fully emerged, the viewpoint moves along a full 360 ° panoramic from left to right. Each time the screensaver launches, a new panoramic emerges. As can be seen in the following screenshots, the pictures of Midnightsaver and Nightsaver were taken at different moments of the day with different ambient light.

The ‘Combisaver’ is different from the two latter screensavers. It has two options: a flickering monochrome colour screen on which the text ‘a thing among other things’ slowly appears in a slightly brighter tint and a picture of high-rise buildings on a dark background (a similar design to the Midnightsaver and Nightsaver, but without the panoramic aspect). The computer randomly selects the option and alternates them.

3.6 The sound elements

The sound elements are divided into three groups:

thirteen tracks composed by David Toop specifically for the installation, and later released on cd under the title 37th floor at sunset - music for mondophrenetic™;
thirty-two audio files that were recorded by the artists themselves in public places (these field recordings have muzak / elevator music in the background and audio glitches);
three audio files corresponding to the three video excerpts from Godard's film (the sound and the video for these clips were separated).

David Toop wrote about his music and soundscapes for Mondonphronetic™:

“The invitation to create music for the CD-ROM installation - Mondophrenetic - came from the Belgian team of producer Rony Vissers, artist/photographer Els Opsomer and writer/theorist Herman Asselberghs. Loosely inspired by Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 film, Deux ou Trois Choses que je sais d'elle, the installation takes Els Opsomer's photographs of high rise apartment blocks, shot in many different countries, as the focal point of explorations of globalism at the end of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century. Creating a soundtrack for Mondophrenentic raised a number of new challenges for me. The first of these was focussed on the issue of non-linearity. Music composed for a multi-media setting such as Mondophrenetic relinquishes control. Questions as to when it is used or in what context are decisions governed in the first instance by the programmer and designers, then ultimately by the user, whoever he or she may be. Different pieces of music may appear in unforeseen juxtapositions, be disrupted, or may be heard in unpredictable visual and textual contexts as the user navigates. Such outcomes have to be accepted and, to some extent, anticipated by the composer and built into the nature of the music. The second challenge was to create a kind of soundtrack that was not so far forward to demand attention as music in its own right, yet not so far in the background to be peripheral sound design. I wanted to create atmospheres suggestive of buildings as living organisms, creatures with nervous systems, without reducing the soundtrack to a catalogue of sound effects. In his novel, Highrise, J.G. Ballard described the subtle relationship of an apartment block's nervous system to the disintegrating ecology of the mini-society of its inhabitants. Apartment blocks look much the same, whether in China or the suburbs of Paris, yet the lives within them are very different. The sounds of lift shafts, ventilation and heating systems, the murmurs of human activity, radio and television, have a universality that becomes specific only in the finest details, a moment in time at the right place, maybe through the walls of the 37th floor at sunset. I also wanted to create music that suggested globalism and the absorption of global cultures into an environment of signs, a kind of easy listening or aetherial mix that is detached from any recognisable source other than the perpetual movement of hybridised culture in the 21st century. Information is a kind of architecture, though like music, its walls are intangible.”6

3.7 The media files

Three major file formats are used in the application:

AIFF format is used for all the audio files;7
PICT format for images;8
the Quicktime movie format (.mov) with a Cinepak Video codec (cvid) was used for all the videos and the interactive Quicktime VR panoramas;9
the executable of the application, a Director projector file (.prj).

The folder of the application also contains a number of libraries, some of which are necessary to display the work (.dir), Xtras, and Java class (.class).

"Not all the extras are used in the playback, some were used to import certain assets-types in the authoring mode and the Java files are left-overs from an early experiment. As the application was never streamlined for publication a number of files for temporary usage are still bundled with the application." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012)

4. Exhibition history

The first exhibition of Mondophrenetic™ was held from September 8 until October 29, 2000 in Brussels. The exhibition was part of the bruxelles/brussel 2000 events.10 The last exhibition took place in Antwerp from December 20, 2003 until February 29 2004. In total, Mondophrenetic™ was shown on seven different occasions.

bruxelles/brussel 2000, Brussels (Belgium), September 8 - October 29, 200011
Provinciaal Centrum voor Beeldende Kunsten, Hasselt (Belgium), November 18 - December 31, 2000
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela (Spain), December 1, 2000 - January 14, 2001
hARTware projekte -, Dortmund (Germany), September 7 - October 14, 200112
Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (Germany), September 22 - November 4, 2001
Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (the Netherlands), March 14 - April 21, 200312
M HKA, Antwerp (Belgium), December 20, 2003 - February 29, 200413

Other associated exhibitions:

Slightly bemused by this lack of orientation at Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst Marres, Maastricht (the Netherlands), September -October, 1998.14
Wanting to become part of the environment at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (Belgium), July 9 - September 17, 2000.15

5. Documentation of the work

The documentation of the installation retained by the artists is for the most part digitised. This documentation contains pictures of the work when it was installed during the different exhibitions and also press reviews of exhibitions, emails, and plans for the exhibition space and the projection screen.

5.1 Pictures of the work

All seven exhibitions of Mondophrenetic™ were photographed by the artists, but not for the purpose of preserving the installation. No specific and detailed photographs of the components of the equipment were taken. They are views of the installation taken from various angles in the exhibition spaces. While these pictures were not taken for preservation purposes, they give a good idea of the modifications that occurred each time the work was installed.

Exhibitions												Number of pictures
Brussels [September 8 - October 29, 2000] bruxelles/brussel 2000 Rue Ravensteinstraat 66, 1000 Brussels, Belgium												85
Hasselt [November 18 - December 31, 2000] Provinciaal Centrum voor Beeldende Kunsten Begijnhof, Zuivelmarkt 33, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium												45
Santiago de Compostela [December 1, 2000 - January 14, 2001] Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea Rua Valle Inclan, s/n, 15704 Santiago de Compostela, Spain												39
Dortmund [September 7 - October 14, 2001] Still \| Life group exhibition hARTware projekte Güntherstrasse 65, 44143 Dortmund, Germany												79
Karlsruhe [September 22 - November 4, 2001] Badischer Kunstverein Waldstrasse 3, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany												32
Rotterdam [March 14 - April 21, 2003] Foto Biënnale Rotterdam · EXPERIENCE group exhibition Nederlands Fotomuseum (temporary location) Wilhelminakade 332, 3072 Rotterdam the Netherlands												16
Antwerp [December 20, 2003 - February 29, 2004] Once upon a time... A look at art in Belgium in the Nineties. group exhibition MuHKA Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium												14

5.2 Reviews

Several print and web reviews of Mondophrenetic™ as well as exhibition info sheets have been scanned and saved together with the work. The following is an overview of the most important ones:

Pieter Van Bogaert, Het leven zoals het is™, Financieel Economische Tijd, Tijd - Cultuur, 06/09/2000
Jeroen Laureyns, Verleidelijke beelden uit de grootstad – Multimedia-installatie roept helse en koortsachtige wereld op, De Standaard, 08/09/2000
NR, De wereld volgens Mondophrenetic, Brussel Deze Week, 20/09/2000
Luk Lambrecht, Leegstaande winkel wordt schat aan associaties, De Morgen, 28/09/2000
Bernard Marcelis, La découverte d’un Mondophrenetic - Nouvelles technologies sonores et visuelles, Le Matin 30/09/2000
Jan Florizoone, Zwerven door de stad, De Standaard, 11/10/2000
Luk Lambrecht, Mondophrenetic tm, Metropolis M, n°5. 10-11/2000
Pieter Van Bogaert, De chimerische stad – 2 ou 3 choses que je sais de la ville, AS/Andere Sinema N° 157, 1-3/2001 (p. 68-75).
Joos Meesters, Bezwerende beeldenstroom – Interactieve multimedia-installatie in Hasselts begijnhof, Het Belang Van Limburg, 21/11/2000
M.C.,Mondophrentic / Colección Fundación ARCO-CGAC, Arte y Parte / Revista de informacion artistica de España y Portugal, N°30
APA, O CGAC será un garaxe – ‘Mondophrentic’ pecha a ano centro que arbre o 2001 cunha retrospective de Stephan Balkenhol, Correo Galego 01/12/2000
David Barro, Mondophrenetic, El Cultural 13/12/2000
C.P., Una instalación multimedia abre el CGAC al desconcierto de lo cotidiano – Mondophrenetic es un montaje con images digilizadas de bloques de viviendas, musica y sonidos, La Voz de Galicia 01/12/2000
Monica Vazquez, ‘Mondophrenetic’, un viaje a traves de los sentidos, La Opinion 04/12/2000
Sn, Mondophrenetic, una colectiva, El Punto de las Artes, 15-21/12/2000
Benito Pinilla, Frenesi mundane en tres dimensiones, Hiper, 12/2000
Herman Asselberghs / Els Opsomer / Rony Vissers, Mondophrenetic™, A Revista do CGAC / La Revista del CGAC, n°1 01/04/2001
Javier Hontoria, Mondophrenetic, A Revista do CGAC / La Revista del CGAC, n°1 01/04/2001
R. Bosco / S. Caldana, Una instalación multimedia invita a reflexionar sobre la aldea global – Tres belgas presentan ‘Mondophrentic’ en Santiago de Compostela, El Pais 04/01/2001
Michael Hübl, Im Badischen Kunstverein: Ein Tag verght in Sekunden – Eindrucksvolle Doppelschau, BNN 22/09/2001
Georg Patzer, Neue Einsichten in eine scheinbar vertraute Warenwelt – Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe zeigt Hallscheidts “Remote” und Mondophrenetic / Pfiffige Ideen rund um die Medien Film und Fotografie, Badisches Tagblatt 04/10/2001
Once Upon a Time…A look at art in Belgium in the Nineties. 20.12.03 – 29.02.04
Manoel Olveira, Herman Asselberghs_Els Opsomer_Rony Vissers: Mondophrenetic™, Camera Austria, n°77 2002

Exhibition info sheets:

CGAC info sheet, 11/01

Review related to the publication of the _wrapped_ book:

Reinhard Braun, Das Bild des Subjekts im Bild der Stadt, Camera Austria N° 76, 2001

5.3 Electronic mail

The email correspondence concerning Mondophrenetic™ kept by Rony Vissers goes back to 2002. These emails comprise exchanges between the artists on topics such as the website, the preparation of the exhibitions in Rotterdam and Antwerp, the publication of an exhibition catalogue, the replacement of floppy disks by CD-ROMs for the exhibition in Rotterdam or the use of one room instead of two to show the work. These emails also contain technical information on equipment used, and provide further insight on how modifications of the installation were discussed. The artists ask themselves questions such as "Should we update the content if we update the floppies?" etc.

5.4 Installation plans

There are only two installation plans in the available documentation:

a plan explaining how to mount the rear-projection screen

a floor plan of the exhibition in Rotterdam

5.5 State of the documentation

The documentation in its actual state is stored on hard drives, sometimes with the work itself, in various formats, and without any real, consistent structure. A complete inventory of the available digital and analogue documents retained by the three artists should be the first step. It should be gathered, copied or digitised, organised and named consistently. All digital files should be checked to find out whether they are still readable and in what format they are stored. When possible, copying and transcoding to sustainable digital formats of all files should be done to ensure their long-term readability and availability.

6. The website

6.1. General description

The website (www.mondophrenetic) created alongside the project was intended to work as a communication tool for curators, exhibition venues, visitors, the press, etc. It was made by Stefaan Van Ruyssen. The website was also intended to be an extension of the exhibition venue. It allowed the exhibition visitor and others to download the screensavers also available in the exhibition space on floppy disks (or CD-ROMs in Rotterdam).

6.2 Structure of the Mondophrenetic™ website

This section describes the structure and general content of the Mondophrenetic™ website.

1.0/ index.html: This monochrome blue page contains an animated GIF image with two pieces of text “wanting to become part of the environment” and '”a thing among other things”. These two pieces of text are displayed one after the other, continuously appearing and disappearing, fading into the blue coloured background of the page.

1.1/ intro.htm: This page provides general information on Mondophrenetic™

1.2/ mondotext.htm: This page contains a statement of the artists about Mondophrenetic™. The text entitled Slightly Bemused by This Lack of Orientation gives details and explanations about the concept, content, history and inspirations of the work.

1.3/ usersman.htm: This page, entitled User's Manual, is a description of the different elements of the work and a guide on how the artists would like the visitors to experience the work.

1.4/ wrapped.htm: This page gives information about the book called _wrapped_ published by the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea on the occasion of the exhibition in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

1.5/ exhibitions.htm: This page allows the visitors to go to three subpages (pastex.htm, currentex.htm, upcomingex.htm). On these pages, the visitor could acquire information on the past, current and upcoming exhibitions of Mondophrenetic™. This section wasn't updated after the EXPERIENCE group exhibition at the Foto Biënnale in Rotterdam in 2003. The last exhibition that took place at the M HKA in Antwerp is therefore not mentioned.

1.5.1/ upcomingex.htm: This page mentions the exhibition in Rotterdam and gives a link to its website. (http://www.fbr.nl)

1.5.2/ currentex.htm: This section provides information on on-going exhibitions.

1.5.3/ pastex.htm: This page lists all past exhibitions of Mondophrenetic™, Wanting To Become Part Of The Environment and Slightly Bemused by this Lack of Orientation. Each city name where an exhibition took place is a link that opens a pop-up page.

1.5.3.1/ On these pop-up pages you can see four pictures of each exhibitions as well as information about the location and date of the exhibition.

1.6/ screensavers.htm: This page allows the visitor to download the three different screensavers for Mac and for PCs.

1.7/ 37th.htm: This page provides information on the CD 37th Floor Sunset that was released by David Toop with the music composed for Mondophrenetic™.

1.8/ bio.htm: On this page you can find biographical information about all artists and collaborators as well as organisations that supported the production of Mondophrenetic™.

1.9/ pressphoto.htm: This page provides access to pictures of Mondophrenetic™ that could be used for press purposes. It also lists the copyright requirements for use of the pictures.

1.10/ rider.htm: This page is the technical rider mentioned earlier in the text that gave instructions on how to install the work and what hardware was required. This page was meant to inform galleries and museums of the minimal requirements to show Mondophrenetic™.

1.11/ links.htm: This page provides links to several partners.

1.12/ contact page: The contact link doesn't redirect to a webpage, but opens the email manager of the computer system with an email address to contact the artists. This email address is incident [at] skynet [dot] be.16

6.3 Technical aspects

The entire website was made in HTML without any PHP, Flash, etc. and consisted only of static pages without any database, like MySQL for instance. Javascript was used for certain functions like pop-up pages. By studying the record for 'mondophrenetic.com' in the Internet Archive using the Wayback Machine search engine17, it appears that the website has not been online since the summer of 2004. Several captures of the website are visible from October 2000 to June 2004. A back-up copy of the last version of the website retained by Rony Vissers with the rest of the documentation on Mondophrenetic™ is also visible online for the purpose of this case at the address: http://mondophrenetic.scart.be.

7. Versions and modifications of the work

Between the first exhibition in 2000 and the last one in 2004, Mondophrenetic™ has undergone numerous changes. These changes include:

the number and styling of the exhibition rooms;
the type, style and number of furniture pieces;
the computer and sound equipment;
the application and the total number of pictures;
the carrier (and availability) of the screensavers.

7.1. The exhibition rooms

In their technical rider the artists wrote that they prefer to show the installation in two adjacent / connected rooms. However, throughout the seven exhibitions there were some deviations from this guideline. In CGAG in Santiago de Compostela a third space with the soundtrack of the installation, coloured lights and circular rubber foam seating elements complemented the two other exhibition rooms as a kind of listeners' cabinet.

"[…]as we had a lot more space, we came up with the idea of making an extension, a place where one could really immerse oneself in the sound." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5 2011).

In Brussels we had already done something ‘special’ with the photographic images by projecting some of them with a (analogue) slide projector at night on the front window of the exhibition space. The exhibition space was a vacant shop / office. In Santiago de Compostela we had the opportunity to use three adjacent exhibition rooms instead of two and we decided to do something ‘special’ with two other important components of the work: the sound and the coloured light. The coloured light is also present in the application in the colour cycles. This decision fitted the immersive character of the work. Mondophrenetic™ is more than an interactive application running on a computer, it also flirts with both the notion of an ‘ambient environment’ and the notion of ‘cinema’. (Rony Vissers, July 2 2012)

During the last exhibition at the M HKA in Antwerp, the installation was contained in a single exhibition room. The computer monitor and the mouse were not installed on a table, but like an information terminal or cash dispenser in a sort of alcove in the wall of the exhibition space. To the question whether having three spaces or only one instead of two was a compromise, Els Opsomer answered:

"Els Opsomer: No, it was not a compromise. I believe that a work of art has to be so strong that it retains its meaning even when another version is made, and that visitors can have a taste of it no matter whether they stay a long or a very short time. Encountering a work of art is an experience. That is also why I put a lot of emphasis on the organic side of this installation, on its staging and its design, and also on how you look at it. This is very important. [...] I think that the meaning and the idea of this work are strong enough be adapted to different places."

Emanuel Lorrain: Instead of talking about a compromise, one could rather speak of an adaptation to conditions or to a particular context? Antwerp is even more special…

Els Opsomer: Yes. In Antwerp, it was also installed at the entrance of the exhibition space. When you're on a journey, the point that you are at in this journey has a kind of influence on the perception of the work. As an artist participating in a group exhibition, you anchor your work in a broader discourse because it becomes part of another story. In a solo exhibition, like the one in Santiago de Compostela, the whole exhibition space was ours. The visitors arrived in our place. In a group exhibition with many different works, a spectator is always permeated by what he/she saw before and after. In Antwerp, for example, our spot was at the entrance of the exhibition. It wasn't a bad place." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5 2011).

"I don’t consider the number of exhibition rooms in itself as a compromise. The number of rooms in itself is not very important, but the experience of the exhibition visitor is. Personally, I don’t consider the Antwerp version the most successful one.

Of course by being part of the group exhibition, we had the opportunity to make our work part of something bigger, an overview exhibition in one of the main museums for contemporary art in Belgium. Mondophrenetic™ was invited to be a central work in one of the main exhibition spaces of the museum. Sometimes you just have to adapt to the circumstances…

Although I like the idea of exhibiting the work in an open way together with works of other artists, I feel at the same time that something was lost in the Antwerp version. The immersive effect was less strong for me because of the fact that the exhibition space with the projection was not as dark and the sound often not as loud. This made the projection less cinematic. A thin line was crossed. It became a bit too ‘ambient’ and the work got lost in the environment. In the other exhibitions the immersive effect in the projection space was more powerful. The visitor got sucked into the image flow because of the cinematic effect of the projected images and the sound. I noticed that for many exhibition visitors in Antwerp Mondophrenetic™ became a space that one just walked through to see the other works, not a place in which one might sit down and take one's time to experience the different aspects of our work. In this exhibition the visitors also had to divide their time amongst many different works. The immersive effect was also weaker because of the fact that the monitor and mouse were built into a wall, a bit like a cash machine. As a result people spent less time looking at the monitor while clicking and dragging the mouse because they had to stand. In other group exhibitions, like those in Dortmund or Rotterdam, my experience of Mondophrenetic™ was stronger. However, I have to admit that in these exhibitions our work, like some by other artists in the exhibition, became more like an isolated island.

The experience of the work, not only on a sensorial but also an intellectual level, is an important issue with regard to the preservation of Mondophrenetic™. But what is exactly the experience of the work? And how to preserve it? There are many different ways of experiencing Mondophrenetic™. It is an open work of art. As the creators of the work, we can only try to provide the circumstances in which we think that a strong experience of the work might take place. As I said, my personal experience of the piece in Antwerp was less strong than in other the other exhibitions. The circumstances could have been better. But maybe the experience of Els and Herman, and of the many visitors, was different from mine…" (Rony Vissers, July 2 2012)

7.2. The furniture

The furniture used for the two spaces was different in almost every Mondophrenetic™ exhibition. For the first two (in Brussels and Hasselt), the artists provided the furniture themselves, while local exhibition organisers provided the furniture for the others, always based on instructions given by the artists. For them, the furniture should always in some way reflect the 20th century utopia of a 'new' world. They suggested using design furniture, often in a 60-70' style, mass-produced, functional and made of modern materials (synthetic, chrome, glass, …).

Except for the exhibition in Brussels and Hasselt, the furniture was often dependent on local availability. For the table on which the computer monitor was installed, the artists gave instructions with references to IKEA products. Mid 2012 the VIKA CURRY table legs were still available, but not the BRA tabletop. The original table top still exists, as it has been kept by Rony Vissers. For the display of the soundtrack CDs and the _WRAPPED_ publication in the computer space, the artists suggested using a glass cupboard KEWLOX 62 x 32 x 35 (height) cm, with a glass shelf in the middle. Mid 2012 this glass cupboard is still in the possession of Rony Vissers.

For the seating elements in the projection space, rubber foam pieces were used except for the exhibition in Antwerp in which IKEA furniture was used. The decision about their colour and shape (rectangular or circular) was dependent on the size of the exhibition space and the local availability of the material.

7.3. The equipment

The only pieces of equipment always visible in Mondophrenetic™ were the computer monitor, the computer mouse, and the sound speakers. The computer itself was visible in some exhibitions when it was just placed under the table (sometimes under a box through which you could see the computer) or hidden when placed in another room. The projector and the speakers in the second room were also visible, but they had no sculptural presence in the room, their role was clearly only functional. The equipment was always provided by the gallery or the museum where Mondophrenetic™ was shown and chosen following the instructions of the technical rider and the artists.

7.3.1 The monitor

Between 2000 and 2004, Mondophrenetic™ was shown with four different computer monitors. They were always different generations of 17" Apple Studio Display monitors, except for the last exhibition at M HKA in Antwerp where (based on the photographs) the work was shown with a 17.4" Formac Gallery 1740 Oxygen (LCD display - TFT).

17" Apple Studio Display (Graphite – CRT)18
17" Apple Studio Display CRT (ADC)19
17" Apple Studio Display (LCD/ADC)20
17.4" Formac Gallery 1740 Oxygen (LCD display - TFT)21

7.3.2 The computer mouse

According to the pictures taken of Mondophrenetic™ once installed, the computer mice used were hard to identify. After some research it appears that the Apple USB mouse commonly called "hockey puck" were used until the exhibition in Dortmund. What made them hard to identify from the pictures was the fact that each time an iCatch shell was added to the mouse. The iCatch device was developed by MacSense Connectivity Inc. to optimise the widely considered clumsy round design of the Apple Mouse. While these plastic shells made the mouse bigger they retained the design of the Apple USB Mouse as they too were translucent and came in different colours matching the different ones of the Apple iMac computers. Based on the pictures, the iCatch transparent (frost-white) and the iCatch blueberry22 were the two models used in Mondopohrenetic™.

"iCatch transforms your iMac mouse into an ergonomically sound and decidedly useable peripheral. iCatch stops hand cramps and repetitive strain injury and is a must for every user of an iMac or G3 Pro having an issue with the round mouse provided with these computers."23

The following two pictures show how the iCatch covered the "hockey puck" mouse:

Later, for the exhibitions in Karlsruhe, Rotterdam and Antwerp either black or white (only in Antwerp) Apple Pro mouse models were used. With their transparent or translucent aspect, the mice always matched the design of the monitors.

7.3.3 Sound speakers

The two sound speakers with a separate sub woofer for the computer room had to be in a similar colour to the monitor. For the first three exhibitions the artists used a set of Logitech Soundman speakers with a separate sub woofer as specified in the Technical Rider. Mid 2012 these sound speakers and sub woofer are still in the possession of Rony Vissers. The exact model of sound speakers used for the other exhibitions wasn't documented.

7.4. The application and the number of pictures

On two different occasions, new images were added to the media assets folders of the application: in Santiago de Compostela and in Hasselt. For this purpose, folders had been created from the start by the developer Andreas Kratky. The original idea was to add pictures of local surroundings of the exhibition space so that visitors could see places in the 'slideshows' that looked familiar to them. For instance, the images added to the exhibitions in Santiago de Compostela were mainly photographs taken in surrounding cities like Vigo, La Coruña and Ferol. New images weren’t systematically added for each exhibition. Neither Rony Vissers nor Els Opsomer remember when they stopped adding pictures to the folders.

"Els Opsomer: We always imagined Mondophrenetic™ would be done with ‘libraries’. It works with 'folders' from which the work selects random photos. This creates the possibility of choosing new photos and inserting images of the city in which the work is shown. It was a deliberate choice...

Emanuel Lorrain: Andreas Kratky had made this possible from the start...

Els Opsomer: Yes. We had this idea from the start. We put photos of Brussels in it when it was shown in Brussels. We always thought that Mondophrenetic™ would be a touring exhibition and that the archive would grow like this…

Emanuel Lorrain: Did you add new pictures to all the exhibitions?

Els Opsomer: Yes. Maybe we added fewer photos in Karlsruhe, but I think there were some pictures added. Many photos were taken in Germany. We had ones of Rotterdam, Santiago de Compostela, Hasselt and Brussels. Anyway, some pictures of Rotterdam that I had taken in the past were added to the work, but not a lot. We had travelled in advance to take photos in Santiago de Compostela. In Hasselt we added less pictures than in Santiago de Compostela, because there aren't a lot of ‘new’ buildings there. Anyway, we always inserted the environment of the exhibition in the work. This was not meant as an illustration of the places themselves, but to give a kind of ‘sense’ or ‘flair’ of the country where the work was shown. It wasn't very mathematically composed; you have to see Mondophrenetic™ more like music." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5 2011).

"Our goal was to add photographs that were taken in the environment in which the work was shown. This was a nice idea that was rooted in our way of playing with the notions of the ‘familiar’ and the ‘unfamiliar’, with the ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’. But soon it also became clear that this was an idea that was difficult to realise for every exhibition. In some cities where the work was shown it was difficult to photograph images that could fit into the flow of already existing ones. For instance in Santiago de Compostela we mainly used images that were shot in the neighbouring cities of Ferol, La Coruna and Vigo instead of Santiago de Compostela itself. Taking the photographs also required spending time in the cities some weeks or months in advance of the exhibition, which was not always possible. Adding photographs probably also became more difficult because of the fact that the collaboration between Els, Herman and myself became difficult.

For the last exhibition in Antwerp no additional photographs were taken. There were already photographs of locations in Antwerp in the first version. I remember that I took photographs in Rotterdam, but I don’t think that they were discussed and used in the work. They are still somewhere on one of my hard disks. I didn’t take photographs in Dortmund or Karlsruhe, and don’t know whether Els did. There were a lot of ‘German’ photographs in Mondophrenetic™ in the first version, so maybe there was no real need to add extra pictures. I took some photographs in Hasselt. I remember that is was difficult to find locations in Hasselt that fitted the purpose. One of the photographs taken in Hasselt is used on the cover of Wrapped, but I can’t remember whether the photographs were introduced in the application itself.

If we discuss the preservation of Mondophrenetic™, a question to raise might be whether new pictures could or should be taken if the installation is shown again in the future. There is a good chance that the new photographs will look different from the ones that are already part of the work, not only because of what is depicted by them but also because of the technology used. The current set of pictures looks consistent because they were taken using similar technology (mostly 35mm Fuji Velvia 50 ASA slide film). They were also taken within a certain limited timespan and are a visual witness of it. It might be interesting to check how this would be affected by adding new photographs, and whether this would work. The same goes for the text material. Some of the text material is statistical data bound to the period 1999-2000, and also some of the diary notes sometimes refer for instance to the latest technology of that timespan. Could or should new text material be added as well? If one decides to stick to a ‘frozen’ version and not to add or update the text, then what about the original plan of adding (new) images of the environment in which the work is shown and how to deal with the obsolete equipment?" (Rony Vissers, July 2 2012)

While preparing the exhibition in Rotterdam Herman Asselberghs wrote in an e-mail on January 8 2003:

"I wouldn’t touch the statistics, contrary to the floppy disks they keep their functionality because they are often about the future."

Although Herman Asselberghs wrote that the statistics are often about the future, they are mostly about the past (already in 2003). In an email from January 14 2003 he also wondered about updating the text screens:

"Do you consider it important to update the data screens? We can do that with the help of annual fact books (I think), but does Andreas need to get involved for that or not?"

On February 6 2003 Els Opsomer wrote in an email that it wasn't necessary for Andreas Kratky to be involved in updating the text screens:

"I can adapt the text screens if everyone wants to change them."

On February , 2003 Rony Vissers wrote in an email:

"Maybe you reinforce the retro-futurism that is hidden in the diary text and photographs by updating the statistics. If the statistics are not correct / up-to-date, the whole work is no longer accurate in my opinion. Essentially this reservation does not differ from your and my (currently smaller) reservation regarding the floppy disks; the difference is that – regardless of our opinion – the lack of floppy disks will oblige us one day to update them, if there is ever another exhibition."

On February 18, 2003 Herman Asselberghs replied in another email:

"In my opinion we better keep Mondophrentic™ as a snapshot of its year of production. If the floppy disks need to be replaced by CD-ROMs for technical reasons, of course we need to conceptualise a nice packaging."

7.5. The carrier of the screensavers

A significant change happened when Mondophrenetic™ was shown as part of the EXPERIENCE group show in Rotterdam in 2003. For this exhibition, CD-ROMs replaced the floppy disks as carriers of the screensavers in the first room. The artists made this modification because the computers that were available on the market at that moment were no longer necessarily equipped with floppy disk drivers. For the artists the floppy disk was a carrier to distribute the screensavers, and this function was essential. The use of floppy disks made it possible for the audience to take a part of the Mondophrenetic™ installation home and the artwork could continue to live on beyond the exhibition context as screen savers on their personal computers. Distributing unusable obsolete carriers didn’t make any sense for the artists, which is why the floppy disks were replaced by CD-ROMs in Rotterdam. It was important that the carrier of the screensaver was not completely obsolete yet, but only in the process of becoming so.24 The appearance and technological historicity of Mondophrenetic™ were changed at this point. These changes were only made to retain both a part of the meaning and a functionality of the project.

During the exhibition at M HKA in Antwerp in 2004, the installation did not include any floppy disks or CD-ROMs. According to Rony Vissers, the main reasons for this were that the exhibition budget was insufficient and there was a lack of time.

"Their was no budget and the context of the exhibtion ‘an update from after documenta X which was a large group exhibition’ meant it was not appropriate to add these gadgets. Instead our work was installed next to the main entrance and functioned as a kind of ouverture and passage of the whole transition they wanted to focus on with this exhibtion. For it, we emphasized our content through the set design and the positioning within the ‘parcours’. It gave it the right context which made mondophrenetic an important viewing experience. In the other cases which were more or less solo exhibtions or with more area available for the work, the spaces fonctioned almost like ‘an appartment’ or world on itself. Moving from one space to another added to the whole expericence of the work. There it was more important to take something of this ‘world’ back home." (Els Opsomer, January 7, 2013).

8. Current state of the work and conservation issues

8.1. The equipment

8.1.1 The monitor

During its exhibition life, Mondophrenetic™ was shown three times with a LCD flat screen: in Karlsruhe, Rotterdam and Antwerp. This choice was made even though CRT monitors were still available at the time. The artists always wanted to use the latest model of monitor available at the time of the exhibition.

Since 2004 not only the design of apple monitors has changed, but also the 4:3 aspect ratio, which has been replaced by the 16:9 aspect ratio. Most of the images in Mondophrenetic™ have a 1055 x 800 pixels resolution and were intended to be displayed full screen on a computer monitor with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Rony Vissers explained that for the artists it was important that the images fill the entire computer screen. To achieve this, the images were not cropped but squeezed. An image with a ratio of 1200 x 800 became one of 1055 x 800, just by changing its aspect ratio. These original images had been taken on 35mm film, an analogue photographic format that uses a 3:2 aspect ratio. Without this modification, the use of a 'letterbox' display mode would have been necessary at the time and the artists didn't want to have two black bars at the top and the bottom of the screen.

If screens with an aspect ratio closer to 3:2 had existed in 1999-2000, Rony Vissers thinks that they would have probably used them instead of the 4:3 screens. However, to adapt the aspect ratio of the images to the current wider screens, images would have to be stretched. The 'compression' of the image width is now part of the history of the work and witnesses a technological constraint that the artists had to face. Touching the original picture material would mean a rather major modification. On the other hand, showing the picture in a 'pillar-box' mode with two bars on the side would go against the artists initial intent to have a full screen display of the images. Moreover the resolution of the current images is too low to change the width again.

8.1.2 The computer

The computer wasn't an essential sculptural part of the installation and was hidden from the visitor most of the time. As a result; it is impossible to identify from the exhibition pictures the exact type of computer that was used each time. The only thing that is sure is that they were computers running on an OS9 system. However not just any Apple computer from the time should be used to show the work, as another issue is their processing speed. During the latest exhibition(s), the artists noticed that the running speed of the application increased when newer and more powerful computers were used.

Emanuel Lorrain: Rony Vissers told me that you had noticed some changes in the speed of the program. Was it during the last exhibition in Antwerp that you noticed such changes because of the faster processor?

Els Opsomer: No, it was already the case earlier on since Apple released a more powerful computer every year… In Karlsruhe the application already ran faster. (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5 2011).

As there isn't any clear documentation of the PowerMac G4 model used for each exhibition it is currently not clear which hardware upgrade increased the running speed of the application. Andreas Kratky indicates why the speed of the application might have increased over time:

"I used a combination of time control methods. The general timing control works with timers and is performance independent. Actions such as image loading and display that add to the timed intervals have accelerated significantly compared to 2000 and might therefore speed up the entire experience. Loading and decompression time for panoramas is also much faster compared to the installation in 2000. In the general application behaviour I did not notice significant speed differences, but I do not have access to a direct comparison with the old version." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012).

After the transition from OS9 to OSX Apple provided the Classic Environment application until the OSX version 10.4. The Classic Environment allowed users to run OS 9 programs on the new OSX operating system. When Apple stopped using PowerPC processors in favour of Intel processors, Classic wasn't supported anymore. For this reason, using a newly produced Apple computer would not allow one to run the original application of Mondophrenetic™.

8.2. Software-based elements

All the original Director files, media files, plug-ins, Xtras, etc. needed for the functionality of the application are still stored by the artists. Until the arrival of the Intel processors in Apple computers and up to version 10.4 of OS X, it was still possible to launch Mondophrenetic ™ in the Classic Environment. It allowed one to use an OS 9 application on a Power PC computer running an OS X system. Since OS 9 was replaced by the OS X system in 2001, and Apple discontinued the Classic environment from the 10.5 version of OS X (Leopard) in 200725, no other Apple solutions for OS 9 applications were developed. While all Mondophrenetic™ files still exist, they are not readable anymore. Except for the working files containing the source code, the screensavers created for Mondophrenetic™ have also been stored, but neither the Windows nor Mac versions work on current operating systems.

8.3. The website

The website www.mondophrenetic.com went offline during the summer of 2004, after the last exhibition at M HKA in Antwerp. The artists also stopped paying for the registration of the domain name 'mondophrenetic.com' which led to someone else taking over the registration and visitors being redirected to different pages of 'parked domains'. In June 2012, the domain name 'mondophrenetic.com' is once again available for registration. The artists ceased updating the website after the exhibition that took place in Rotterdam from March 14 – April 21, 2003.

As explained earlier, the website was entirely static, using web standards, so apart from some external URL links pointing to pages that are no longer online, everything still works. Although the downloadable screensavers can't be installed on today's computers anymore, the download functions on the website are still operational. The files comprising the website still exist as a copy and are kept by Rony Vissers. For the purpose of this case study the website is visible at the address http://mondophrenetic.scart.be.

9. Preservation strategies for Mondophrenetic™

9.1. Preservation strategies for the installation

Mondophrnenetic™ was created for a specific operating system and for specific hardware. While the 'data' - the set of files constituting the application of Mondophrenetic™ - is still available and complete, they still need to be preserved and become accessible again. As a work dating from the beginning of 2000, Mondophrenetic™ is witness to a certain technological era as well as a certain type of interactive artwork. The use of Director software to create the application plays a big role in that anchorage, being such a popular and relatively easy tool to use at the time even for people with no IT background. Artists often used it to create CD-ROMs and web applications, artistic installations and performances. In this sense, Mondophrenetic™ is a very good example of how Director was used for interactive installations in relation to today when other tools like Pure Data and Max/MSP are more commonly used. However, although Director is an important historical fact about Mondophrenetic™, it was - contrary to the equipment - never a visible element of the installation.

9.1.1 Keep a 'historical' version of the work

The first question concerning Mondophrenetic™, is how important the hardware is for the integrity of the work. The most problematic elements that constitute Mondophrenetic™'s historical anchorage in a particular technological context are the visible hardware used in the installation, i.e., the monitor, the mouse, the floppies and the set of speakers. The importance of the equipment is not easily determined as the work changed several times from 2000 to 2004 with the installation using different models of monitors and mice.

"The visible equipment was always very limited; there was just a monitor and a mouse. The exhibition visitor never saw a lot of the other equipment." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5 2011).

As already mentioned, one reason for this change of equipment is that the artists always wanted to use the latest model of monitor for each exhibition.

"Another motivation was that in the text there were references to gagets and special objects that had a flavor of being in vogue and so the equipment followed this kind of spirit. And in the philosophy that modophrenetic was a sum of different experiences it meant that the equipment had almost a kind of organic follow up in relation to the space in which we exhibited. (Els Opsomer, January 7, 2013).

With all the variations that the work experienced, defining its boundaries is not an easy task. If one considers that the original version of the work was between 2000 and 2004, which should be defined as being the historical and reference period of Mondophrenetic™, showing a "historical" version of Mondophrenetic™ would mean using equipment from that period. Keeping such version would therefore require storing and maintaining obsolete hardware. Moreover preserving the work long term would mean collecting Power Machintosh computers, different kinds of Apple studio Display monitors and Apple mice from that period and storing them in proper conditions.

While collecting equipment would be important for maintaining the sculptural aspect of Mondophrenetic™, it would also be important to keep track of the original behaviour of the application, and especially its speed. It shouldn't be the earliest Powermac G4 model, but at least the one indicated in the technical rider by the artists, i.e., an Apple Macintosh Powermac G4 with a 450Mhz processor and a minimum 256 MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive. The computer shouldn't be one of the latest models either as the application started to run faster when more powerful processors were used in the latest exhibitions. To find out from which model the work starts to run faster, and limit the equipment to certain evolutions of the Powermac G4, one would have to run the work on different generations of computers and compare the timing of the application to see if any changes were visible. Such comparison work would be hard to achieve, as it would require having different Powermac G4. The simplest and safest solution is probably to stay as close as possible to the hardware specifications of the technical rider.

"The sculptural aspect was always inferior as we showed as little as possible of the material in order to concentrate on the content shown." (Els Opsomer, January 7, 2013)

However, since Mondophrenetic™ is not part of any public or private collection, it would be difficult to recommend stockpiling equipment at this moment in time. If the work was sold or donated in the future, collecting enough equipment might be a possible way of preserving it. Museums have both the storage space and sometimes the budget to buy spare equipment.

"The easiest way would be to have the original equipment with everything that is needed for the work, instead of having to reprogram it." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

While collecting and storing spare equipment might appear to be the easiest strategy to preserve this work, there will always be a moment when it will lead to a dead end. At a certain point the equipment will be defected beyond repair and finding new spare devices or parts will no longer be possible. Building alternate strategies to stockpile old equipment would be complementary to ensure that the work is at least partly accessible in the future.

"The technical rider is very accurate. If you follow it you will still have a version: the initial one. Everything else is "frivolous". It's similar to performance work. It is the same problem. There is also a kind of "smell" that remains… But I do not like the fact of not letting go. Of course, you must let go. Maybe it will be harder to do so, but you should keep trying... I think there is something that is not "palpable" in Mondophrenetic™'s approach[…] I think that the equipment is important but in the end you go home with the images and sound and experience you had and this should have made you think about your surrounding world and how as an individual you deal with it. The individual and collective experience are also important. As an individual you are in front of a computer which is always difficult to share, so this experience is directly addressed to you as a viewer, whereas in the projection room you have a physical experience by feeling the subwoofer and being in front of a big screen where you can decide the distance you are from it. And probably you will not screen it alone but with other viewers." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, January 7 2013).

For Els Opsomer the experience was more important than the equipment of the work:

"I think that Mondophrenetic's content goes beyond the question of the equipment. The technology was there, but the content was far more important. For me, Mondophrenetic™ differs, for instance, from the early video art that played a lot with what could be done with technology; This approach has never really interested me. It is not something that I'm attached to. It might be interesting for someone who is very interested in technology, but I care less about it." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

"The main thing for me is the experience of the viewer or exhibition visitor in its different aspects. Technology is only a means of creating this experience. The most visible equipment of Mondophrenetic™ was the monitor and the computer mouse. This equipment was updated between 2000 and 2004. It would make sense to update it for possible future exhibitions, but it's not an isolated question. It is also linked to the question about updating the image and text material.

Especially nowadays, things that do not adapt to the new technological conditions, risk disappearing. This is also true for Mondophrenetic™. Even if you try to preserve the original equipment, it will stop functioning at some point. You can decide to stick to the original equipment and accept that it will become impossible to show the work at some point or you can opt for an adaption in order to go on showing the work.

If the work is not shown, it disappears. The fact that the work has not been shown publicly since 2004 and that there was further interest in the work, makes me feel that it is slowly dying in a kind of way. I would consider a new exhibition, especially one with new display technology, as a kind of ‘resurrection’. It would feel strange, but I’m not against it.

I’m also not against preserving a historical version. I can imagine that it can make sense to show a historical version in some contexts. Here again, it would feel strange. An old-fashioned monitor and mouse might even distract attention and define the experience of current and future audiences as much as a touchscreen does with content from 2000.

This technological issue is another aspect of the experience of the passing of time that is part of the work. It will become even more prominent as the piece gets older. It is a matter of finding an interesting and consistent way of dealing with it. There are probably two ways to do this: to preserve a historical version of the work or to slowly update it and replace components when things become obsolete and threaten its life. In the first option you will experience a kind of time friction because you will clearly feel there's a difference between the time in which the work was made and the time in which it's seen. But this is an option which you have to accept will expire sooner or later. In the second option you mix elements from different periods and this also creates a friction. Both options are possible, and maybe should be explored at the same time as long as possible. One functions as a historical reference for the other. However, I do not mean that both options should be exhibited together.

When I first started thinking about this case study, I thought that a frozen, historical version was the best and only preservation option, mainly because there have been no exhibitions since 2004. But the more I thought about it, the more I became interested in this aspect of the passing of time. Sculptures and paintings also change through time, mainly due to environmental conditions. Artworks are also restored over time. As long as the viewer or exhibition visitor acquires the correct information and is not told that the possible future exhibited versions were not created in 2000, a lot is possible. This approach also corresponds to the original idea of adapting the work to the local exhibition circumstances and technological evolution.

Preserving a frozen, historical version might help to maintain the historical reference. But then we will also have to discuss what is exactly the frozen, historical version? Is it, for instance, the 2000 version in Brussels, the 2003 version in Rotterdam or both?

In the case of Mondophrenetic™ the main problem is probably that those who are involved should all agree on the same preservation strategy, and its different aspects." (Rony Vissers, July 2 2012)

When the original hardware is no longer available, other solutions could be explored.

9.1.2 Use contemporary equipment

Due to the progressive unavailability of the original equipment, using current equipment could be a strategy to consider. Replacing the original monitor and mouse with current ones would somehow be coherent with the decision that the artist always made for each exhibition to use the latest hardware available. In the same way, the floppy disks and the CD-ROMs used at the time could be replaced by, for instance, a USB hub, a 2D Code readable by smartphones or by whatever one would consider to be today's equivalent for floppy disks and CD-ROMs.

For Els Opsomer, updating the display equipment wouldn't be a problem as it wasn't initially when LCD screens were used instead of CRT monitors. Els Opsomer even suggests that using a touchscreen instead of a monitor and a mouse could be an option.

"Emanuel Lorrain: Isn't the appearance of the monitor and the mouse an important aspect?

Els Opsomer: No, because we always chose the latest model of the computer mouse or monitor. Maybe we should even show Mondophrenetic™ with a "touchscreen" today, I don't know..."
(Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

"As I said earlier, the main thing for me is the experience of the viewer / visitor in its different aspects. The technology is only a means to create the experience. As long as the viewer / visitor acquires the right contextual information, a lot is possible." (Rony Vissers, July 2, 2012)

But by doing so, the link to the techno-cultural historicity of the work would be lost and a big part of Mondophrenetic™'s authenticity and original look would be gone. Moreover, such an update would have to be repeated at some point and eventually the link to the original Mondophrenetic™ would disappear.

"Emanuel Lorrain: You used very recognisable Apple devices with a neo-futuristic design, a little like a "space shuttle" with transparent plastics. For me this equipment is very visibly present in the installation.

Els Opsomer: If you compare a screen of today with the ones we used in the past, the screens have not changed that much.

Emanuel Lorrain: Indeed, Apple screens always have a particular design, but there are changes. Their aspect ratio changed for instance from 4:3 to 16:9. If you showed the work with news screens, you would need black stripes on the sides or would have to "stretch" the image content. Would that be an acceptable change for you? Is it important that the images are shown in full-screen mode?

Els Opsomer: You can change it a bit. You can adjust your screen.

Emanuel Lorrain: By having black bars on the sides?

Els Opsomer: Yes." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

"The question of the aspect ratio is an interesting one. I’m afraid that showing the work pillarboxed on a 16:9 monitor would substantially change its perception. Then it would become an image running on a screen, while in the past the image and the screen were more intertwined as one. The result would be similar to watching an old film pillarboxed on a 16:9 screen. I would prefer to try and find a way of making the images run on the monitor in a similar way to screensavers or to iTunes Visualizer. That is how they were intended to be shown. I’ve never seen screensavers or iTunes Visualizer only cover the centre of the screen. In fact that is not completely true; I just remember that at least two of the Mondophrenetic™ screensavers have a combination of letterboxing and pillarboxing.

I have also never been very happy with the fact that the 3:2 pictures in the original version were squeezed to fit the original 4:3 monitor. In some pictures you hardly notice the squeezing, but in others you do and it looks like an error. If we agree on updating the technology and if this would help correct the squeezing, I would welcome it. But just using stretching to correct it is not a solution because it would also stretch the panoramas, film clips and text screens that already had the correct aspect ratio in the first version. Adjusting the aspect ratio can probably only be done if you do it on the source material, and I’m not sure whether Els has retouched and chromatic corrected master versions of all the photographs in a resolution that is high enough to correct the aspect ratio. It would also mean a lot of work…" (Rony Vissers, July 2, 2012)

9.1.3 The use of an emulator

While the obsolescence has an impact on the look and feel of the work, it also has an impact on the readability of the application. Currently the only way to run the work without using a PowerPc based Mac running on a Mac OS 9 operating system, or the Classic environment part of the OS X system until version 10.4.11 would be to use another emulator.

To run the application on a current computer would require an emulator capable of running an OS 9 system on a recent operating system such as OS X 10.7 or Windows 7. If such an emulator did exist, showing the work again would not require any modification of the original application made by Andreas Kratky. That said, the only solution currently available to emulate OS 9 on a more modern system is the application named SheepShaver. SheepShaver is a free and open source software that can emulate Apple Mac OS systems from version 7.5.2 to version 9.0.4 on newer operating systems such as OS X 10.7. To use SheepShaver, a copy of the operating system is needed, as well as a ROM image extracted from a PowerMac computer. Apple has never released the rights on its old computer ROMs and as they are protected, using such an emulator would also mean being in a grey legal zone.

However, tests made with SheepShaver showed that Mondophrenetic™ crashed several times and that the sound was of poor quality. While some problems could be tweaked, the biggest issue is that Mondophrenetic™ uses two capture cards in order to display the work on both the computer monitor and the projection screen. At the present time, SheepShaver isn't able to work with two capture cards. The other issue is that SheepShaver is a software programme that is only upgraded when the community of volunteer developers has the desire and the time to develop it further. Since the main developer behind SheepShaver is no longer working on it, future developments of SheepShaver can't really be ensured unless the SheepShaver project finds financial support at some point. Therefore, SheepShaver wouldn't be sufficient to ensure the long-term accessibility and preservation of Mondophrenetic™.

Mondophrenetic™ running in SheepShaver from PACKED

9.1.4 Migration

The second possible strategy to run Mondophrenetic™ on newer computers would be to migrate the existing application to a more recent version of Director in order to create an executable that could run on current operating systems. The latest version of Director, Adobe Director 11.5.8 was released on September 6, 2010. Creating a full working version running on today's computers would require more than just opening the file with the current Director and exporting it again. It would be necessary to adjust the code manually in this migration process due to the evolution of the Director software itself.

"[…] I upgraded the project to the current version of Director and found that it worked reasonably well. There are a few things such as setting the cursor location by code that do not work and some syntax elements from the old lingo programming language that I had to replace. In general I found, though, that the upgrade process was rather painless and allowed successful migration of the project. I tried other old projects earlier and encountered many more difficulties. It is a combination of rather ground-level programming and a better version (11.5) of Director that is responsible for the result. It seems that so far the majority of the old Director projects can be migrated to a current environment." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012)

While Andreas Kratky did successfully export the original application to a working executable for current systems, this migration would have to be done again at some point when the hardware and operating systems evolve.

"In general it is difficult to use proprietary software frameworks due to the dependence on the producing company in keeping up development over time. In the example of Director the development was extremely sluggish and it can be anticipated that support for the software will be discontinued. The last updates have been overdue for so long that the majority of developers switched to other software and most likely the client base for Director is very small now." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012)

Indeed, as any migration strategy will have to be done again at some point, one will always be dependent on Adobe's willing to continue supporting the development of its software.

9.1.5 Virtualizing the work

To avoid regular migration of the work and the risk of a manufacturer ceasing to support its software, one possible solution would be to use a virtual machine. Virtualization holds similarities with emulation in the sense that it allows one to run several operating systems on one computer. Here is the Wikipedia definition:

"Hardware virtualization or platform virtualization refers to the creation of a virtual machine that acts like a real computer with an operating system. Software executed on these virtual machines is separated from the underlying hardware resources. For example, a computer that is running Microsoft Windows may host a virtual machine that looks like a computer with Ubuntu Linux operating system; Ubuntu-based software can be run on the virtual machine."

Having a version of Mondophrenetic™ running in a virtual machine would mean not actually touching the work anymore, but instead moving the entire virtual machine from one computer to another. Unfortunately, no virtualization tools exist for old Mac systems and virtualization in general is more developed for Windows than Apple computers. Considering the virtualization solutions currently available, a version of the Mondophrenetic™ Director application for a Windows platform could be made and implemented in VMware for instance on a new computer. To keep it as close as possible to the original application this could be done with the MX 2004 version of Director, the first to allow the creation of projectors for both Macs and PCs.

9.1.6 Recode the work

A more radical solution would be to remake the work with another technology. One would first have to find out which software or language would be able to provide the same functionality as the original Director software, and also decide which technology would be the most sustainable. One could for instance choose between an open source software programme like Pure Data or a proprietary software programme like Flash or Max/MSP.

Flash is a software that has a very close history with Director partly due to their common owners. Flash is also much more popular than Director as a great number of websites and web applications are made with it. Compared to Flash, the Director community is much smaller (and is still decreasing). As Flash is an extensively used format on the web, there is a good chance that Adobe will continue to develop it at least for some time. However, Flash can't be considered a sustainable solution either. Replacing one proprietary software with another would mean taking the risk of being in exactly the same situation as with Director. Moreover, the recent development of the HTML5 standard, the popularity of the JQuery library and the increasing use of touchscreen devices might very well lead to the end of Flash very soon.

By rewriting the application with open source software like Pure Data, for instance, to create a desktop application, one would also benefit from a large community, especially amongst artists. Unlike proprietary software like Director and Flash, its future developments would not depend on its commercial success. As such, being an open source software programme, Pure Data might offer more possibilities for the maintenance of the application in the future. A different way of remaking the work would be to create a web version of Mondophrenetic™ with open standards like HTML5 and Javascript libraries. By doing so the application would only require a browser to run and no specific operating systems.

Several tests were made with Pure Data to see if all the features of Mondophrenetic™ could be recreated. It appeared that by using the GEM library, all the random procedures, the timing, graphics and interactivity functions of the work could be recreated. Moreover, with the exception of the Quicktime VR panoramics that would have to be remade differently in Pure Data, all the assets (images, videos, sounds) used in the original application could be used and displayed without any transcoding to other formats.

9.1.7 Describing the application

Before migrating, emulating or remaking the original software components of the work, it is important to analyse and describe how they work. Documenting the source code, the structure of the application, and its behaviour is essential to proceed towards any migration, emulation or recoding of the work. As seen, when using different hardware, some parametres might change because of the enhanced speed of a computer for example. Once all algorithms and timings are known, one can start remaking the work. Without this analysis, one would have to look at the work run and note all its behaviours. As the behaviours of the work are largely based on random procedures and the chance that someone would see twice the same work is quasi inexistent, this approach towards describing the behaviour of the work might be complex.

In the case of Mondophrenetic ™, Andreas Kratky already did part of the code documentation when he programmed the application.

"I mainly inserted comments to explain what is done where in the code. For example the determination of the next group of sequences is commented "ermitteln der gruppe" (determine the group), and the starting image selection is named "ermitteln des anfangsbildes" (determine the initial image). I realize for the sound selections I did not insert comments and the corresponding piece of code is a bit harder to read." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012)

Documenting the code is important as it will give anyone reading the code later the chance to understand its logic more easily. As Andreas Kratky explained, even for him, and is he who wrote the code, it is currently hard to read without his comments.

This documentation approach should be combined with strategies such as migration, emulation or recreation. Once the work is migrated, emulated, remade, etc., the new and the original version should be compared, if possible, in order to determine whether restoration is acceptable or not. Documenting the pace of the work would allow one to judge whether it is still running as it was at the time of its creation. If any migration, modification of the code, or recoding of the work is to be made, the programme should be documented and commented again as precisely as possible in order to allow future programmers and conservators to understand what was made.

9.1.8 The floppy disks

The artists were already aware during the production process that the floppy disks would soon become obsolete as Apple computers had already abandoned floppy drives on their new models.

“No, no, not a CD-ROM but a true floppy, one of those modern objects upon which we already look back with nostalgia. Even iMac users, despite having no disk unit, can treat themselves with this screensaver, which can also be found on the project's web page: www.mondophrenetic.com.”26

If Mondophrenetic™ had to be shown in its original form with the original hardware and software, including the floppy disks and the screensavers, the functional part of the floppy disks would obviously be lost. A collecting institution might collect the floppy disks for preservation purposes, but that will never change the fact that the floppy disks have become useless for the public in terms ofinstalling the screensavers onto their computer. The obsolescence of the floppy disk as carrier was already the reason why the artists decided to replace them with CD-ROMs for the exhibition in Rotterdam. But not only have floppies become obsolete today, but also the whole use of computers has evolved and a screensaver could be seen as a kind of antiquated piece of software.

"Emanuel Lorrain: Should the floppy disks be kept?

Els Opsomer: The floppy disk is something that the visitor took with him/her. I do not have a clear answer to this. Now you could just have a link and download a screensaver. If you really want to give something you can. If you are using the floppy it would be to make another reference, it would be more than just having part of Mondophrenetic at home. Today you would do it quite differently. All media have changed." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

"Again, the main thing for me is the experience of the viewer / visitor in its different aspects. The technology is only a means to create the experience. The problem here is how can you keep the experience or create a similar experience while the technology has changed. The floppy disks were not only physical objects, but also carriers for transporting screensavers.

I liked the idea that you could actually take something from the exhibition space rather than downloading possibility, but nowadays with the different portable media around visitors would even be able to download something in the exhibition space itself. The floppy disks and later on also the CD-Rs carried the notion of obsolescence. At that time they were on the brink of obsolescence, today they are obsolete just like USB sticks and others. At the present time the use of a physical carrier just for the transport of screensavers is an out-dated idea. Also classic download links are not very interesting anymore. Today it might be more interesting perhaps to explore, for instance, the use of QR codes for mobile devices, although even that approach seems to have passed its peak with the introduction of apps.

The fact that the notion of a screensaver itself has changed makes this probably even more difficult. Today computer monitors go into sleep modus to save energy (and the screen) instead of displaying a screensaver. Maybe a simple desktop image would currently be more visible than a screensaver. I’m afraid that there is no good, and especially no fixed solution for the question of the floppy disks and the screensavers.

If we agree that the work should be able to adapt to the new technological environment, we should also not be afraid to give up some aspects and maybe introduce others. The slide projection on the window in Brussels was also never again used afterwards. The same goes for the exhibition space filled with sound and coloured light in Santiago de Compostela.

As I explained earlier, I too have no objections against a historical version with floppy disks if we can agree upon what it might be and if it is made clear to the visitor that it is a historical version frozen in time. As such, in most cases it would be more interesting to exhibit an updated version. If the floppy disks were to be part of an updated version, my proposal would be to put them on display as a kind of historical reference, but not for distribution amongst exhibition visitors." (Rony Vissers, July 2, 2012)

In an email from January 7, 2003 concerning the preparation of the exhibition in Rotterdam, Herman Asselberghs wrote:

"Shouldn’t we choose this time / from now on to use a CD-ROM instead of a floppy disk? I have the feeling that the concept of an obsolete technological object succumbs to its functionality. In other words: nobody uses floppy disks anymore and thus nobody will take one away."

Rony Vissers replied in an email on January 8, 2003:

"It all depends on how you view the functionality of a floppy disk, as a Mac proselyte or as a PC user (still the large majority). All PCs that I see in the shops still have a floppy drive. As such, for them there is not really a functionality problem, only for the minority of Mac users but they can still be served through the website. The advantage of CD-ROMs is that many PC and Mac users have a CD drive and all the different screensaver versions (for Mac and PC) can be put on one CD-ROM."

Els Opsomer wrote in an email on January 13, 2003:

"Concerning the CD-ROMs, it may seem practical to me but to stress the “instability“ I think that it is visually better to stick to the floppy disks. This is also a matter of representation, with a reference to the apartment block. I’m fond of that. This is also to match the content because the references to technology in the text screens are likewise already out of date."

On Februay 10, 2003 Rony Vissers wrote in an email:

"At the present time, when even PCs don’t have a floppy drive anymore, the use of floppy disks expires for all I care, because their meaning is completely changed (and probably floppy disks will no longer be produced anyway). Nowadays I have no problem with floppy disks being a useless object for the majority of Mac users, but I will have a problem when they becomes useless for the large majority of all computer users."

On February 19, 2003 Herman Asselberghs wrote that he would still prefer floppy disks to be used instead of CD-ROMs, although he does not exclude the use of CD-ROMs:

"As an indication of the original version, I prefer floppy disks, but a delivery of ready-to-use material is the best. If it were to be CD-ROMS, we need to know the packaging and indeed accept the situation…"

Using floppy disks in the installation today would allow one to keep the original appearance of the installation as well as its historical anchorage.

"Els Opsomer: I think I too would use floppy disks again in the installation, I see no reason for us to change that ..."

Emanuel Lorrain: The fact is that floppy disks do have a sculptural interest, a certain look and they recall a certain technological context, but at the same time they've lost their functionality today. Before someone could take one and bring it home as part of the installation to put on their computer.

Els Opsomer: I think that after a certain time an installation roots itself in a different, contemporary period and makes a new reference. It's true that when you look at the floppy now, it refers to a certain era of time, and even if you can't use them, there are other visual aspects that remain. It becomes a kind of archive of something too. Its meaning changes, but I do not know if that implies it has no meaning anymore. I think that when you look at photos today that were taken in the fifties, something has also changed. Not only what's pictured is changed, but also the aesthetics. A movie that was new and ‘hot’ in the 1980s, is now "old fashioned" because we look at it another way. I don't think that it's just technology has this impact."

Emanuel Lorrain: The difference with a photograph is that today you can only see the carrier of the screensaver and not the actual screensaver anymore. This is where the floppy disk may have lost its function. Maybe it's taken on another meaning as well.

Els Opsomer: Yes, but for me it is our eyes that give this new meaning…" (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5 2011).

"As I already explained, today it might be more interesting to explore the use of QR codes or apps for mobile devices rather than floppy disks in an updated version of the work. My proposal would be to put the floppy disks on display as a kind of historical reference but not for distribution amongst exhibition visitors. A bigger problem might be the notion of the screensaver itself." (Rony Vissers, July 2, 2012)

9.2 Strategies for the screensavers

Unlike the application of the installation itself, the screensavers were created to work on different types of hardware and operating systems. This was necessary to provide the installation (or website) visitors with the possibility of installing the screensavers on the computer they were using at home or at work. They were available for both Apple and Windows platforms. Neither of these two versions of the screensavers work anymore on current operating systems.

"While the Director project can be ported to a current system, the screensavers do not run on a current system. I guess in order to get them working again one would have to either write a custom code or look for a new screensaver engine that works with current operating systems." (Email exchanges with Andreas Kratky, 2012).

Even if using a virtual machine or an emulator could allow one to see the screensavers again one would still not be able to install them on one's computer. Updating the screensavers could be done by migrating their concept and behaviour to current computers or mobile devices, but since 2004 not only computer technology has changed but also the use of computers. If screensavers had to be migrated or remade in another format, for what type of device and system should it be? Should they still be made as screensavers for personal computers, or as applications for iPads, iPhones or other mobile devices used nowadays and would it still make sense?

"I would find the presence of floppy disks in the exhibition kind of funny. However, I’m not sure whether it is still possible to produce a new series of floppy disks with screensavers. There are probably none available anymore. ... I think that the decision should be based on the context, the time and the goal of the exhibition.

If we want to keep the idea of sharing part of the work, I think we should do it differently. At the time of the first exhibitions the idea of usisng screensavers was common and people downloaded them. Nowadays the use of screensavers is less common. When you're on Facebook, you no longer need one." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011)

"I think that the notion of the screensaver itself has lost much of its meaning. Not only its carriers but also the screensaver itself has become obsolete. Today computer monitors go into a sleep modus to save energy (and the screen) instead of displaying a screensaver. If we agree that the work should be able to adapt to the new technological environment, then we should also not be afraid of giving up some aspects and maybe introducing others." (Rony Vissers, July 2, 2012)

How crucial is it for Mondophrenetic™ that the user can take home the screensavers, i.e., a part of Mondophrenetic™ ? If it is decided that it is an essential feature of the work, then an alternative has to be found in the form of new carriers or other ways of distributing a screensaver to the audience, using smartphone, QR codes, etc. However, the notion of a screensaver itself is very much dated and related to a certain period. Is it a legitimate question to ask whether a screensaver would still be relevant in today's technological context? Els Opsomer sees the installation as an organic work that can adapt to contexts and circumstances. For her, not having the screensavers would be just another adaptation to the context. However, she still feels that the floppy disks have a strong sculptural value and could remain, despite being unusable, within the installation.

"Els Opsomer: I'd prefer to have floppy disks rather than CD-ROMs, but this is more because of their visual aspect.

Emanuel Lorrain: You mean that you prefer their sculptural aspect in the installation?

Els Opsomer: Yes, I personally prefer the installation with the floppy disks. Although the CD-ROM and the website are also nice and still make sense."

[...]

Emanuel Lorrain: In Rotterdam the floppy disks were replaced by CD-ROMs because floppy disks were already ‘obsolete’. This choice was made to preserve the functionality that the floppy disks had provided.

Els Opsomer: Yes, that is true but at that time we were still busy with the project and it was constantly evolving. Today we would have to resume working on Mondophrenetic™, because the work has been dead for several years. It has died on different ‘levels’. The situation is quite different.

Emanuel Lorrain: Could we say that Mondophrenetic™only existed from 2000 to 2004, because after the exhibition in Antwerp nothing happened anymore with it?. Was the exhibition in Antwerp satisfactory or where there already some compromises made for this exhibition?

Els Opsomer: In this exhibition the version of Mondophrenetic™was already a kind of reference to earlier versions of Mondophrenetic™, because the exhibition was conceived as such. It aimed at giving a sort of ‘overview’ of the Belgium art scene during a certain period. I think that when you participate in a group show you're always in a kind of reference. At that time I already found that that version was a bit of a reference to earlier versions of Mondophrenetic. However, it wasn't a compromise because you always have to adapt to a specific place.

Emanuel Lorrain: Rony Vissers said that there were no CD-ROMs or floppies in the exhibition in Antwerp because of budgetary restrictions. This could be seen as a kind of compromise.

Els Opsomer: Indeed, there were no CD-ROMs or floppy disks. However, every exhibition has budgetary constraints that you have to adapt to. I am not sure that all decisions that are related to budgetary constraints should be considered as a compromise. I believe that a work of art is a living thing that adapts itself.” (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

9.3 Possible restoration of the website

By allowing the visitor to download a screensaver, the website was also a way of extending the scope of the work beyond the exhibition space. To show a historical and complete version of Mondophrenetic™ the original website might have to be re-launched. From a technical point of view, the website is still fully functional and would only need to be placed on a server to be online again. The website has today become an element of its documentation. If the decision was taken to freeze the work in a state between 2000 and 2004, then should it also be freezed in its latest version? If not, several sections, such as the 'exhibitions' section, would have to be updated. The website has always been a documentation and communication tool for the artist and one could say that it should continue to have this function if the work were ever be shown again. Els Opsomer thinks that it would be good to update the website with information on future exhibitions and also complete it with the ones that were not added previously in 2004. If updated, an untouched copy of the website as it is now should be kept as an archival copy.

Another question concerns the domain name. For Els Opsomer it would also be better that the mondophrenetic.com domain name is maintained to access the website if someone ever put it online again.

"Els Opsomer: In my opinion the website would still have a lot of meaning for the work.

Emanuel Lorrain: Is the domain name mondophrenetic.com also important?

Els Opsomer: Yes, I think that it's very important." (Interview with Els Opsomer, Brussels, September 5, 2011).

10 Should Mondophrenetic™ be preserved?

Today, Mondophrenetic™ only remains through its parts and components (application, floppy disks, files, …) in a non-installed form and the documentation is still in possession of the artists. Many of these parts and components are now obsolete. As the work was never acquired by a collecting institution, there is not one place in which a version of the work (with the necessary software and hardware components to re-install it) is kept for preservation. As long as the work is not part of a collection and until someone plans to show the work again, it is be very likely that the work will remainas it is now: as a combination of parts and documentation. For the purpose of this case study the possible strategies to show and preserve the work have been considered, but a legitimate question remains: whether efforts should be invested in the preservation of Mondophrenetic™ ? In relation to the other works that are part of the Obsolete Equipment project, Mondophrenetic™ isn't part of a collection. While there is a duty for a collecting institution to keep works accessible for future generations, no one is in charge of preserving Mondophrenetic™. This complex question applies for all works that are not part of collections.

The acquisition phase is traditionally the moment when an artwork officially becomes cultural heritage. Although Mondophrenetic™ was not acquired by a collecting institution, it was shown several times in museums and galleries in different European countries. Although no public or private institution ever bought the work, a certain amount of public money was invested in the production of the work. It was even part of the overview exhibition ‘Once upon a time... A look at art in Belgium in the Nineties’ at the M HKA in 2004. For all these reasons Mondophrenetic™ is a work with a relative level of importance at least in terms of media art production in Flanders at the end of the 20^th century and beginning of the 21th century. Els Opsomer and Herman Asselberghs have both continued to have an artistic carrier with some of their other works being acquired by art collections both in and outside of Belgium.

"I consider myself to be in a bit of a schizophrenic position here. I have the impression that the work is dying or probably is already dead because it has not been shown publicly since 2004. Personally, I have no problems accepting this situation. I also don't have an artistic career and am not aiming to having one. Mondophrenetic™ is not part of a larger body of works on which my value or importance as an artist depends. Furthermore, already during the production of Mondophrentic™ the collaboration, friendship and communication was lost between myself and Els and Herman. If someone asks me whether Mondophrenetic™ needs to be preserved, I would instinctively say ‘no’. Besides the fact that maybe within fifteen or twenty years my son as a young man might become interested in what his dad was doing in a certain period of his life, there are no purely personal reasons for preservation. But there are more than just personal reasons… As head of a centre of expertise in digital heritage that needs to create awareness about digital preservation, it would be a bit strange not to take care of a piece of heritage to which I contributed. Maybe I’m in a position to do something to preserve the work. The preservation of Mondophrenetic™ could be an interesting example for others. Furthermore, I’m aware that the history of this kind of art is not going to be written by traditional art institutions. It is probably something that needs to be done by the artists themselves. Furthermore, Mondophrenetic™ was not my work but a work by a group of people: Els, Herman, Andreas, David and myself. By instigating this case study, I've fulfilled a part of my responsibility." (Rony Vissers, July 2 2012)

11 Conclusion

As seen, several directions could be explored in order to show Mondophrenetic™ and preserve it for the future. However, it seems that there isn't one strategy that will ever allow one to experience the installation exactly as it was intended not so long ago. Preserving the work for the long-term will probably require the use of several strategies and not just of one. A sustainable version of Mondophrenetic™ would probably be a mix of preserved equipment, migrated and emulated parts together with a strong documentation. While the ‘technical rider’ gave a rather strict definition of the requirements to install the work, modifications have occurred and moved the ‘boundaries’ of the work several times.

The changes that occurred between the first and last exhibitions of Mondophrenetic™ were often small adaptations of the ‘technical rider’ to a specific context and the artists always answered these (site) specific situations on a case-by-case basis for each exhibition. Moreover, the artists have always had a propensity to highlight the fact that the concept and the material of Mondophrenetic™ were not tied to a particular form. On the section of the website dedicated to the 'wrapped' book they wrote:

"This book was created with the text and image material of Mondophrenetic™ in mind, but then used in a different way and completed with new material. Because an idea should be allowed to assume various forms. Not just a single one, because then it is frozen forever."26

However, the equipment, furniture and settings used from 2000 to 2004 have now become the references that also set the limits of a historical version of the installation. Even with the same equipment, software, furniture and space, something of the original Mondophrenetic™ would still be lost. As seen with the floppy disks and the screensaver, the installation is tied to a technological context that is gone. But to some extent, obsolescence has always been a part of the work's concept and the artists were aware from the beginning that components of the installation would become obsolete very soon after completion of its production. In this sense, floppy disks of the installation did not only carry the screensavers' data, they also carried the idea of a rapid ageing of things in general in the frenetic world that the work depicts.

” This is what you have taken with you on a floppy disk. No, no, not a CD-ROM but a true floppy, one of those modern objects upon which we already look back with nostalgia.”26

Maybe Mondophrenetic™ itself has become just like its components: “one of those modern objects upon which we already look back with nostalgia”.

Notes:

1. a. b. c. d. e. f. From the website www.mondophrenetic.com
2. Like for instance dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) by Johan Grimonprez.
3. a. b. c. From the archive of the website www.mondophrenetic.com
4. Quote from the archived version of stclairsw.com on archive.org.
5. Quote from the archived version of score.de on archive.org.
6. From the website http://www.subrosa.net/en/catalogue/electronics/david-toop.html
7. The specifications for the audio files are: 16 bits; uncompressed PCM; 1 chanel; 22.05 KHz.
8. The specifications for the images are: resolution 72 ppi; dimensions 1055x800 px; ICC profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1. color depth: 8-bit color.
9. The specifications for the videos are: dimensions: 771x350 px; image ratio: 2.2:1; frame per second: 25 fps; sub sampling format: YUV 4:2:0; bit/pixel*frame : 1.114; bit rate 7513 kbps.
10. In 2000, the city of Brussels was the European capital of culture.
11. This exhibition was organised by the artists themselves as part of the brussel/bruxelles 2000 events.
12. a. b. As part of the group exhibition ‘EXPERIENCE / Foto Biënnale Rotterdam’.
13. As part of the group exhibition ‘Once upon a time... A look at art in Belgium in the Nineties’.
14. As part of the group exhibition ‘Onzichtbare Stad / The Invisible City’.
15. As part of the group exhibition ‘3ness’.
16. An email address still used by Rony Vissers.
17. http://archive.org/web/
18. In Brussels, Hasselt and Santiago de Compostela.
19. In Dortmund.
20. In Karlsruhe and Rotterdam.
21. In Antwerp.
22. The iCatch Blueberry was only used in Santiago de Compostela.
23. From the website http://www.drbottkg.com/ iCatch: http://web.archive.org/web/20060216001839/http://www.drbottkg.com/prod/i...
24. In 2003 the CD as a popular data carrier was already on the brink of becoming obsolete.
25. Followed by Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) in August 2009 and OS X 10.7 (Lion) in July 2011.
26. a. b. c. From the website www.monophrenetic.com

Interview with Sarolta Cump and Lauren Sorensen (BAVC)

emanuel — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 13:49:19 +0000

interview_tag:

slideshow

packed

Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco, June 8, 2011

Sarolta Cump and Lauren Sorensen work in the video preservation department of the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC)1. BAVC is a non-profit organisation founded in 1976 in San Francisco to allow independent producers and underrepresented communities to use emerging media technologies such as the Portapak video system. In 1992 BAVC developed a Preservation Centre and today it is still one of the biggest non-profit preservation programs in the United States. In 2003, BAVC produced PLAYBACK2, a DVD that shows the technical practices of video preservation and the complex decision-making process engaged by artists, conservators and video engineers as they reconstruct video artworks. Emanuel Lorrain (PACKED vzw) met Lauren Sorensen and Sarolta Cump in order to know more about their digitisation workflow and to find out how they deal with the obsolescence of the decks used to digitize contents on old video carriers.

PACKED: What are you respective backgrounds?

Lauren Sorensen: I went to grad school for Moving Image Archiving and Preservation3 at NYU and then I worked for three years at a 16 mm film distributor called Canyon Cinema4. Now I’m working here as Preservation Specialist.

Sarolta Cump: I have a postproduction background. I actually worked at BAVC in the late nineties for postproduction technical support, and then I left and got a degree in film & video production. But I came back because I was familiar with a lot of the equipment. That’s my area of speciality but we also do a lot of cross-training which is really nice.

PACKED: Could you summarize the services that BAVC offers, and to whom especially?

Our mission is to work on non-commercial projects, so we work with a lot of arts organizations and non-profit and community-based and cultural institutions. We have some larger clients like ‘the Kitchen’ in New York, which is a performance space that’s been around since the seventies. We also work with local organizations like the Exploratorium, which is a science and children's museum in San Francisco.

PACKED: What formats can you transfer?

Sarolta Cump: We can transfer ½” open reel5, 1 inch, U-maticfn]¾” U-matic is an analogue video format that was developed at the end of the sixties and consisted of a ¾” video tape in a cassette. It was the forerunner of the analogue Betacam., Hi-86, 8mm7, VHS8, Betamax9, Betacam10 and Betacam SP11, audiocassettes and ¼” audio tapes.

PACKED: For 1/2 inch open-reel, can you transfer both CV and- AV?

Lauren: Yes, we have both, and both type decks are getting more difficult to repair. We are really only working with one person who repairs them so sometimes it's challenging getting the timing right between our clients’ deadlines and repairing such rare playback decks.

PACKED: Do you use tape-cleaning machines?

Sarolta Cump: Yes, we have an RTI12 tape check cleaner for 3/4" U-matic tapes from which the burnishing blades have been removed, so only gentle, pellon material is used in cleaning. We also have a VHS cleaner and a ½” tape cleaning machine, for which we are in the process of trying to find a service provider to repair.

PACKED: Is that a cleaner you've built yourself out of another machine?

Lauren Sorensen: The 1/2" tape cleaner used to be a data tape cleaner for computer tapes that was altered to work for 1/2 inch open reel video specifically. Past BAVC staff took off the burnishing blade on that machine as well. It’s a vacuum type system which will clean along the cloth and also has a…

Sarolta Cump: …a vacuum chamber. People from BAVC back in the nineties adapted that machine and now if we need it to be repaired, we'd have trouble finding a service provider, considering it was a custom made deck; the company that made it doesn’t support even the computer tape cleaning machine anymore, much less our altered machine!

PACKED: do you use baking?

We do use baking13 yes, a dehydrator, and we use very specific temperature control, as well as timing and workflow.

PACKED: For which tapes do you use that treatment?

Sarolta Cump: Generally for U-matic and 1/2". Those are the two main type of tapes for which we use baking.

PACKED: Do you clean the tapes before baking them?

Sarolta Cump: Yes, for the U-matic tapes we clean them up to four times and then attempt a transfer. If we still have issues and it looks like a sticky shed syndrome14 problem, then we bake it. After the baking we clean it again once before attempting to transfer a second time. With the 1/2" open reel tapes, for now we play it and if it has sticky shed syndrome issues we bake it and try to transfer it a second time.

Lauren Sorensen: There are no rules as to which format will have sticky shed. Much of the time it depends on trying out the tape, so it is really hard to evaluate this prior to playback. It mostly depends on how the tapes have been stored, but sometimes just basic manufacturing issues with the original result in deterioration; these tapes were made by companies who keep formula under wraps, proprietary. So we have no way of knowing, as preservationists, what we are working with except very general specifications.

PACKED: Is there anything else you do with the tape on a physical level?

Lauren Sorensen: We carefully inspect each tape upon arrival. Sometimes cassettes need repair, so we keep extra supplies in house for this purpose, e.g., if the tape case is cracked and needs re-housing. We have a workflow for inspection and document it carefully when we receive the materials from our partners and clients. It is based on ISO 18933, Imaging materials — Magnetic tape — Care and handling practices for extended usage15.

Sarolta Cump: We have some spare casings. If it looks like a mechanical problem, we will take the tape apart and then put it back together.

PACKED: Could you go through the digitization workflow at BAVC?

Sarolta Cump: We evaluate the tape and document its condition when it first comes in and then, if it is a format that can be cleaned, we clean it just once to see if it has residue or sticky shed. Depending on if it’s a U-matic or not, as we said before we continue cleaning up to four times before we attempt to playback and digitize the tape . At the moment we are recommending 10-bit uncompressed files to our client base.

Lauren Sorensen: Yes, because it results in an accepted, lossless, high quality file. There are some other formats that we are investigating to recommend to clients right now like FFV1. We are thinking about moving to that format just because it is a lossless compression and results in smaller files, it is open source codec and in line with chroma subsampling and other factors that affect authenticity. Right now, the codec that we are using is not open source, but is widely supported. Codecs such as DV16 may be open, however they are lossy, so moving forward in preservation of these digital assets can result in loss of quality.

PACKED: Are you using either the KONA17 or the Black Magic18 capture card codec now?

Lauren Sorensen: Yes. With uncompressed 10-bit, we use data movie files, mostly a Quicktime wrapper. It's because we mostly have a Mac environment, but we can produce AVI-wrapped files as well, depending on client need.

PACKED: Can you also work with an MXF19 wrapper?

Sarolta Cump: We can, we have done it in the past, but we generally use .MOV20 unless the client wants a different wrapper.

Lauren Sorensen: Yes, we definitely work with our clients kind of as partners, so we investigate what format would be most useful for them. Most of the work that we do is with those who manage archives as well as individuals. They usually have an idea of what they want from their own research based on what the rest of their archive is already composed of. Many of these archive handlers are trying to come up with a set of practices and standard format for the preservation of analogue video; until now, many have been using Digibeta21 or digital tape, and – less often – high quality analogue tape which is now obsolete. Digital tape, while for the most part not obsolete, is unstable and especially in the case of MiniDV22 and DVCAM23, prone to errors in transfer. Most of the time, we can be pretty flexible on what we deliver to our clients in terms of the file format, but for individual clients it’s a bit more tricky because they might have a Windows operating system for instance, or not enough memory available or slow processor speed to decode and playback the file in real-time; this is why we also recommend “mezzanine” level files which are appropriate for editing purposes and access. All the same, we need to take into account what kind of environment they are playing and storing the files in. There are a lot more questions that need to be evaluated in analogue-to-digital preservation, and context is key.

PACKED: So you investigate that for the clients?

Lauren Sorensen: Yes, like for instance we ask what kind of quality they want, what kind of longevity they're thinking about? What use will the files have moving forward? Right now, we are working on trying to figure out where these collections can go in the long-term because obviously we are preserving it to a digital format, but with digital files it has to be an active process for archiving. If we are preserving and giving it to an individual it’s different from giving it to an institution where there might be an infrastructure for a preservation strategy; this isn’t something individuals or smaller organizations have the capacity to consider. There’s also a shifting skillset within archives that needs to be addressed; a lot of traditional archivists are not versed in what it takes to preserve digital objects, and so we are attempting to work on advising them and individuals about that right now by keeping our knowledge in the field current.

Sarolta Cump: I feel like we are spending a lot of time with people, trying to explain what access files are, as well as the general process of preservation and what it involves.

Lauren Sorensen: Digital archiving of moving images is so new that it involves a lot of exploring for each different context, which is really interesting and challenging.

PACKED: What kind of access copy do you produce? Do you also provide documentation of the digitisation process to your client?

Sarolta Cump: Generally, for most people we make an access file and then maybe even a DVD or a low resolution viewing file like an MP4, sometimes with an h.264 codec.

We also make a preservation log. All of our preservation and transfer is supervised so the technician records in real-time all the artefacts, what the playback equipment was, what machine we cleaned the tape on, how many times we cleaned it, etc. We capture all that kind of metadata and then we get back to the client. We use PREMIS24 in part, but also our own in-house schema.

PACKED: Do some clients come to control the transfer themselves at times?

Sarolta Cump: No, because we don’t do any colour correction and we don’t really do restoration either. We do the transfer and try to do it without any aesthetic choices. We are a good place for people who want to make an uncompressed file and then take it somewhere else to have it colour-corrected if they are interested in altering the piece.

Lauren Sorensen: Our mission and goal is to preserve the work as authentic instead of making it into something else, but on the other hand, we get clients that are filmmakers and it is fine if they want to turn it into a separate chunk of the file that could be something else. Those types of clientele will have their own workflow for editing and production, however, and that is outside our scope of work.

Sarolta Cump: That is the other group of people we work with the most; independent filmmakers or documentarians who are making works for which they use old footage, or who have their old U-matic and 1/2" open-reel tapes and who want to use their footage or simply look back at it.

Lauren Sorensen: Sometimes they don’t have a playback machine for it. A lot of these types of clients say, “I could just transfer it myself but I don’t have that machine anymore” and they don’t want to go to a dub house because they are looking for playback equipment that is in refurbished shape. They want special handling and technicians who are going to run it through a couple of different time-based correctors to find the right signal, etc.

PACKED: So you wouldn’t erase drop-outs for instance?

Lauren Sorensen: We don’t, as a general practice. Much of the time, dropout and other artefacts are not detrimental to the meaning of the work and what is conveyed to future audiences. If it does feel overly detrimental to the point of damage, there are further preservation actions that we can take. Dropout could be considered part of the provenance of the piece. We have clients who have other perspectives on this idea, and we work with them to think about quality and restoration work and what that might mean.

So, I would say that there are contexts for which clients and partners would want to do restoration; we are a small department so we don’t work on restoration at this point in time, but BAVC has been involved in restoring video art, including Ant Farm’s Media Burn in 2002. This was a larger project that resulted in production of a DVD and we are now working with Pacific Film Archive25 in preserving more Ant Farm group work documentation on ½” open-reel.

I should mention too, that if there is excessive dropout, we will pursue treatments such as incubation of the tape (also known as “baking” in a controlled environment, with client permission). We will also try the tape on multiple playback decks and time base correctors which can help us minimize artefacts and dropout and get a more authentic signal to the original.

PACKED: Why did you go from an Aja Kona capture card to a Black Magic capture card?

Sarolta Cump: The Kona card was actually donated, and after they did some research on different capture cards they decided to work with Black Magic instead. I think that the workflow is a little bit simpler with Black Magic because we can go directly from analogue to digital without an analogue-to-digital convertor. The convertor is already within the capture card.

PACKED: Are you thinking about doing MJPEG200026 as well?

Lauren Sorensen: No. I haven’t researched into that codec much, so I could be wrong, but I’ve heard from colleagues that many types of MJPEG-2000 require proprietary hardware for decoding. We have discovered that there are a variety of “flavors” of MJPEG-2000 and many of these will only playback on certain operating systems and media players; so we generally do not recommend it to our clients and partners.

Sarolta Cump: Yes, it requires proprietary hardware to decode it. Our predecessors did a fair amount of research into it.

Lauren Sorensen: Yes, we actually have a compression study, which is something that is going to be in the Electronic Media Group publication. It was presented at the EMG conference in 200927 and it basically outlines why we use 10-bit uncompressed codec as opposed to other codecs: just because we don’t want to get stuck with proprietary hardware. The individuals, smaller archives and institutions that we work with much of the time don't have a lot of money to purchase this proprietary hardware, and archives which may ingest material will not want a codec that requires hardware as a barrier to playback, inspection, muxing and transcoding.

PACKED: Is the equipment you have catalogued?

Sarolta Cump: We have an inventory of our equipment; it is in BAVC’s general database, is called ‘Salesforce’ and is a cloud database. This is where we keep detailed records of repair and maintenance of the playback equipment and analogue monitoring tools.

PACKED: Apart from the transfer rooms, where do you store your equipment and all the spare machines?

Sarolta Cump: We have a storage closet and elsewhere, in the larger facilities, we have some storage space as well, but generally we just keep all the equipment we have in a climate controlled environment.

PACKED: What are the conditions in this closet?

Lauren Sorensen: In the closet, for storage, it’s kept at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 45-50% RH; we also have an HEPA air filter running all the time in this space.

PACKED: Do you have a regular maintenance protocol for your equipment?

Sarolta Cump: Right now, we are establishing a protocol for a regular maintenance routine, since the department-staffing shift in October 2010. In the past BAVC has done maintenance on a deck-by-deck basis but we also do an annual calibration when we bring in an engineer to calibrate all of our time-based correctors and check our cabling, etc. Heather Weaver28 and her partner John Selsey were two of the key people of the preservation department here in the late 90s and early-mid 2000s. They were doing the transfer and also a lot of this serial technique around it, a lot of testing and actually, John Selsey is the one who comes to BAVC to help coordinate engineering and other things.

PACKED: Will the cleaning of the tape path, the heads, etc. be part of that protocol?

Sarolta Cump: We clean the heads in between each tape we transfer, because it leaves residue, and is always part of the transfer process. For U-matics, and 1/2" open-reel we clean by hand and for Hi8, because it is more touchy, we have a cleaning cassette that we use every so often to clean the heads.

Lauren Sorensen: With Hi8 we don’t see sticky shed syndrome as often as with 1/2" tapes so we do not clean heads and tape path every time. With Hi-8 and VHS formats we do it less regularly. We clean U-matic and 1/2" systematically. They're where we mostly see hydrolysis.

PACKED: What do you clean it with? Isopropyl alcohol? Paper? Cotton swabs?

Yes, we use isopropyl alcohol, though we are now considering denatured alcohol as another possible option. We use densely knit cotton that we have to purchase from a medical supply company. It doesn’t leave any residue or flakes of cotton; we also occasionally clean the whole deck, and use a small computer vacuum and cotton-tipped swab.

PACKED: When the oil packing is gone or if a problem has its origin in the mechanical or electronic parts, is this when you would call a skilled technician to do the maintenance?

Sarolta Cump: Yes, if there is an actual mechanical malfunction with a machine, or when the oil packing is gone, that’s when we send them out. But our 1" machine for instance is holding up pretty well and it rarely needs repair.

Lauren Sorensen: We will also send these decks out for yearly maintenance and technician evaluation,as well as calibration of monitoring tools such as Waveform/Vectorscopes.

PACKED: Do you still buy equipment?

Sarolta Cump: We haven't for a while because of budget concerns (we are a not-for-profit). However, we purchase them as often as we can due to the rapid obsolescence of such decks. I think that we have about sixteen 1/2" open-reel decks. Some of them are for spare parts only, but we have got a good collection of those as well as a fair amount of U-matic players. So in the future we can get them repaired and use them when the others wear out and we can also scavenge some for spare parts, such as fragile videotape heads. That is one of the main issues we are running into. We have people that can repair the equipment in Northern California but a lot of the parts are starting to be close to retirement age without apprentices.

PACKED: Do the repair people that service your equipment have a stock of heads for instance?

Sarolta Cump: Yes, heads and different rollers and other items.

PACKED: Do you also buy some spare parts from them?

Sarolta Cump: We have our stock of spare parts and spare machines that we keep in storage. We haven’t really bought spare parts from these repair people, we gathered some on our own.

Lauren Sorensen: We mostly buy them from eBay and then we get them serviced.

Sarolta Cump: In the long term, we are starting to worry about our repair people because most of them are in their sixties, so we are not sure what is next for that. We work with a couple of individuals like Ken Zin who does a lot of work with us and has an office at the NASA Ames Research Center as well. He does videotape playback deck repair and calibration. In the past year we have started to realize that you not only need the parts and the machines, but you also need skillsets and people who actually know how to do the repair. You also need to figure out if someone who knows other types of machinery can do this specific repair work, and a lot of other questions.

Lauren Sorensen: Keeping the decks in good shape is a big issue in our field. We are focused on preservation of analogue videotape and playback decks needed for preservation aren’t produced anymore.

PACKED: Are you also transferring knowledge from one person to the other with BAVC?

Sarolta Cump: Yes, I have a lot of background in the soft engineering of how things are set up and connecting the decks, etc. It is knowledge in the workflow in terms of digitising from analogue.

Lauren Sorensen: I think that having knowledge in video production is extremely valuable to us because we can talk to our clients, to the filmmakers who used that equipment and know their workflow and think along the lines of ‘do they have a master that’s in a different format and what are they going to do with it? Are they going to use it again? What are they editing from this time?'

My background is in archiving, so that’s why I am working on the Dance Heritage Coalition Project29 because I’m involved in best practices, documentation, and digitization. I’m providing the department with that kind of perspective; what archives are looking for and what you could expect from them in terms of client needs? So we share knowledge on a regular basis and have internships and fellowships, and attend conferences in order to bring about awareness.

PACKED: Because those service people will soon not be available anymore to service your equipment, do you plan to obtain such knowledge on particular problems with the machines in-house?

Lauren Sorensen: That’s something that we would really like to do and we have talked about before; doing some kind of oral history or follow some training with these people because it is very specialized knowledge and skillset.

Sarolta Cump: It is also about starting to formulate a plan on how we can keep that. It could be by getting one of us to be an apprentice with them or by documenting it and trying to find other service providers. It is something that we are definitely concerned with and hopefully we will be figuring out a plan by the end of the year. We haven’t figured out whether we want to try to increase one of our skillsets to be able to repair decks - as we have all the old manuals and some of the repairs are more straightforward than others -, or whether we just want to find other people that we are going to contract, or whether we are going to look for funding to have a position that is dedicated to that. There are a lot of different options available and we haven’t narrowed it down yet.

PACKED: Do you keep all the documentation for the players you have? Do you have some sort of technical library where you keep them?

Sarolta Cump: Yes, we do keep all the manuals and we have a small open shelf with all our manuals and an inventory where we log our maintenance.

PACKED: Is the maintenance logged in the same database used for the decks?

Sarolta Cump: We are transitioning into that. It has been paperwork in the past but now the Salesforce documentation that we use allows us to actually attach documents so if we get information back from our repair service providers we can upload it and keep it with the decks.

PACKED: Before going to file-based format, were you doing all the masters on DigiBeta?

Sarolta Cump: We still do some masters on DigiBeta; that depends on the archive.

Lauren Sorensen: ‘The Kitchen’30 in New York for instance wants both a DV file and a DigiBeta tape.

PACKED: And when you look for spare parts is it mostly heads?

Yes, right now, we are mainly looking at buying heads for 1/2" and U-matic players. We are also starting to think about plans for the future, for formats like BetacamSP and DigiBeta, which are going to come down the line. We have two really solid Digital Betacam decks, but we have to start stockpiling that as well and start a collection soon for digital tape-based formats.

e-mail correspondence (October 23, 2012)

PACKED: Can you speak about the A/V Artifact Atlas31 that was recently put online?

Yes, it is an initiative we are collaborating on with Stanford University Media Preservation Lab32, and New York University Digital Library Technology Services33. Its purpose is to serve as a reference guide and glossary for naming terminology in documenting artefacts in transfer and what steps need to be taken to correct those errors, if any exist. It tells the user and provides the tools and knowledge base to become comfortable identifying and understanding these anomalies. People can contribute to the Wiki.

Notes:

3. Read the interview with Mona Jimenez here: https://www.scart.be/?q=en/content/interview-mona-jimenez-nyu
4. See: http://canyoncinema.com/
5. ½” open reel is an analogue video format introduced in 1965. The ½-inch tape is not inside a cassette but on an open spool. The tapes were used in combination with the first portable video recorders and were widely used by artists, lecturers and activists. Broadly speaking, there are two categories of ½” open reel: CV (Consumer Video/Commercial Video) and AV (EIAJ Type 1). Although the tapes look identical, the players are not compatible.
6. Hi8 is an analog video recording standard for mass-produced Sony camrecorders, for which 27 manufacturer acquired a licence. It is an evolution of Video8 (8mm).
7. This was a highly popular video system for recording and playback* of video images on 8-mm wide magnetic tape. The advantages of 8-mm systems are flexibility, lightweight cameras, reduced storage space for tapes and the high quality of 8-mm. The system was further developed to use Y/C (s-Video) signals, named Hi-8, but the introduction of the miniDV digital cameras made those standards almost obsolete. Source: Kramer Electronics, LTD.
8. VHS designates a recording standard of video signal onto ½ inch tape developed by JVC in the late 1970s. Its mass distribution was launched in 1976. During the 1980s and 1990s, VHS became the standard format of general public video ahead of its competitors: Sony Betamax and Philips V2000.
9. Betamax is a type of videocassette with a ½ inch tape. The format was created by Sony in 1975 and was intended for the domestic recording of television.
10. Betacam is a professional videotape format developed by Sony from 1982 and launched in 1983. Like with VHS, the cassettes, with a ½ inch tape, come in two sizes: S and L, which are of two different colours. It was the first professional analog format that allowed separate recording of luminance and chrominance signals.
11. Betacam SP is an analogue video format that came onto the market in 1986 and consists of a ½ inch magnetic video tape in a cassette. It was generally considered to be a stable format of high quality.
12. RTI is an American company that sells, amongst other things, machines that clean and evaluate videotapes of different formats such as 1 inch or U-matic.
13. Tape baking is a process that is used to restore magnetic tapes like audio cassettes and video tapes that have begun to go through a chemical breakdown due to age and suffer from sticky shed syndrome. Baking a tape consists in putting the tape for a certain duration in a specialised oven, generally at a temperature between 40°C and 60°C max.
14. A great number of videotapes are victim of the Sticky Shed Syndrome, which is the result of hydrolysis of the binder that attaches the particles of iron oxide to the plastic carrier.
15. ISO 18933 is a standard that concerns the care and handling of magnetic recording tape during use. It addresses the issues of physical integrity of the medium necessary to preserve access to the data (information) recorded on the tape.
16. There are three tape formats known as DV format: the MiniDV, DVCAM and DVCPRO. All three use the same compression method called DV25 (sometimes referred to as DV compression). The data recorded on each format are the same, but how they are physically on the tape is different. However, a compressed video in DV25 does not need to be recorded on magnetic tape, video files on a computer can also use a DV compression.
17. See: http://www.aja.com
18. See: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products
19. Material eXchange Format (MXF) is a a "container" or "wrapper" format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards. It supports a number of different streams of coded "essence", encoded with any variety of codecs, together with a metadata wrapper which describes the material contained within the MXF file.
20. MOV is a special video format for the Quicktime player. It is available for both Mac OS and Windows operating systems.
21. Digital Betacam or DigiBeta is a digital version of the Betacam tape format. For a very long time it has been considered by television and other audiovisual archives as a good archival format because there is no generational loss between two copies.
22. MiniDV refers to small cassettes (size S) onto which digital video (DV) is recorded. DV cassettes come in two sizes: DV cassettes (size L) and MiniDV cassettes (size S).
23. A digital video format introduced by SONY™. This format uses DV*-like cassettes, has a 4:1:1 encoding scheme and outputs a 25Mbits/sec data rate. Cassettes come in two sizes- 46 minutes for field use and 180 minutes for desktop VCRs. Source: Kramer Electronics, LTD.
24. See: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis
25. http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/
26. Motion JPEG 2000 is defined in ISO/IEC 15444-3 and in ITU-T T.802. It specifies the use of the JPEG 2000 format for timed sequences of images (motion sequences), possibly combined with audio, and composed into an overall presentation. It also defines a file format, based on ISO base media file format (ISO 15444-12). Filename extensions for Motion JPEG 2000 video files are .mj2 and .mjp2 according to RFC 3745. Motion JPEG 2000 (often referenced as MJ2 or MJP2) also is under consideration as a digital archival format by the Library of Congress. It is an open ISO standard and an advanced update to MJPEG (or MJ), which was based on the legacy JPEG format. Unlike common video formats, such as MPEG-4 Part 2, WMV, and H.264, MJ2 does not employ temporal or inter-frame compression. Instead, each frame is an independent entity encoded by either a lossy or lossless variant of JPEG 2000. Its physical structure does not depend on time ordering, but it does employ a separate profile to complement the data. For audio, it supports LPCM encoding, as well as various MPEG-4 variants, as "raw" or complement data. Source: Wikipedia
27. See: http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/emg/meetings/2009-los-angeles...
28. See: http://www.reeltimecolor.com
29. See: http://www.danceheritage.org
30. For historical information about The Kitchen, see: http://www.thekitchen.org/about
31. See: https://bavc.org/preserve-media/preservation-tools/av-artifact-atlas
32. See: http://library.stanford.edu/research/digitization-services/labs/stanford...
33. See: http://dlib.nyu.edu/dlts/

Interview with Johannes Gfeller (AktiveArchive)

emanuel — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:14:06 +0000

interview_tag:

slideshow

packed

La Caneva, Brussels, November 6, 2009 & HKB, Bern, November 9, 2010

Johannes Gfeller studied Art History, Theoretical Linguistics and Philosophy. He has been involved in video art since the end of the 1970s. He has been a professor for conservation and restoration of electronic media at the Hochschule der Künste (Berne University of the Arts or HKB) in Berne1 since 2001. Besides his teacher position, he also leads the research project AktiveArchive2 and in 2008 he co-curated the exhibition "Reconstructing Swiss Video Art from the 1970s and 1980s" at the Museum of Fine Arts in Lucerne3. As part of the research project in collaboration with the Netherland Media Art Institute, Emanuel Lorrain and Rony Vissers of PACKED vzw interviewed him on his experience with the preservation of video art and obsolete equipment for installations. [Update: Since October 2011 Johannes Gfeller is the head of the master’s program Conservation of New Media and Digital Information at the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart, Germany.4

PACKED: Could you tell us about your background and how you came to work in the field of media art preservation?

Johannes Gfeller: I played my very first videotape in 1974. Four years later, with a group of friends, we created a sort of cooperative following the example of the community media, such as the Videoladen5 in Zurich. When we started, most people didn’t really know what video was. There weren’t really any shops where you could buy equipment; at that time you mainly ordered your equipment from catalogues. Although we actually bought very little equipment, back then we saw ourselves as pioneers.

PACKED: What type of equipment was this?

Johannes Gfeller: These were SONY ½” open-reel6 videotape recorders. We were amongst the last to buy them at that time. Institutions already had enough money to equip themselves with U-matic7 and for private use, the few who were able to afford video equipment for private use were already turning towards VCR8 or VHS9. However, unlike them, we could edit with a precision to the nearest frame, because we had a National editing table10 for ½”.

There was an important political dimension to this group but for my part, I had been a photographer since I was 16 years old, and was more interested in aesthetic appeal than in political activism. I had my own darkroom and a view cameras so I knew all about picture quality and the rough, simple rendering of video was of great interest to me. When I was a teenager, in addition to photography, my other hobby was electronics. Since we couldn’t afford to take our equipment to the after sales department, we had to ensure it was maintained ourselves. I therefore started by refreshing my knowledge of electronics in order to widden my understanding of video technology. After five years in this group, I gave it up to concentrate on my studies in art history.

PACKED: Was it during your art history studies that you made the connection between video technique and contemporary art?

Johannes Gfeller: No, because although I knew about video art, at the time I had a much more traditional approach to art history. Back then, it was impossible to work on video art at university – photography was only just acceptable as a research subject. The world of independent video was still quite small, and everyone knew everyone else. Since people knew that I was capable of troubleshooting installations, I was asked to be the technical assistant of a video festival directed by René Pulfer called Video Wochen im Wenkenpark in Basle in 1984, 1986 and in 1988. This festival was very important for me and for my knowledge of video art, as I was able to view many tapes and meet a lot of the artists-in-residence. I was also a technical assistant for some of their workshops.

There, I built multi-channel syncstarter circuits for an installation by Alexander Hahn called 'Arthur'. It was a system that Rose Theuws brought from Amsterdam, and by analysing the way it worked, I built two improved copies with additional functions for her. For this system to work there was a beep on the tape, which paused the player when it was read. When the last beep of the last tape had been read, the players would start playing in sync. At that time, this system was quite in demand, and I therefore built quite a few of them.

PACKED: At which moment did the question of safeguarding this artistic heritage arise, and why?

Johannes Gfeller: It arose when René Pulfer, the director of Videowochen im Wenkenpark, realised during preparations for the third festival in 1988, that the first Swiss video artists were giving up their work, that others were dying, and that we were losing the earliest works from the seventies.

PACKED: Which strategy was initially employed?

Johannes Gfeller: Our first approach was simply to make copies. However, such work was already similar to restoration in that the majority of the tapes were no longer readable. Amongst the more complex pieces to be copied at that time was a video documentary by Joseph Beuys, which consisted of two cameras and two independent players recording the reknowned Aktion « Celtic + ~~~ » (Basle 1971) for four hours without interruption, except for changing the reels. It is a unique document, and since no one had any knowledge, experience or instructions for these old Shibaden machines, I was called in. That was also part of the Videowoche im Wenkenpark festival in 1988.

Back then, the web did not yet exist and we knew nothing about video restoration. All we had heard was that if the tapes were sticky and had a snowy picture, then they had to be cleaned. I had found a source on a BBS (Bulletin Board System) 11 that I had started to attend by modem in 1988. We were limited to trying to clean the tapes with paper tissues by running them using audiotape players. This allowed us to make sure that there was an image on the tape, and in the end we even managed to get some quite good results. Which is how I first got into video restoration.

PACKED: From this first practical approach towards video art conservation, how was the AktiveArchive project born?

Johannes Gfeller: An initiative by the Federal Office for Culture for the propagation and the support of electronic media had lead to the organisation of a major symposium in Basle in 2000, sitemapping.ch, to which were invited internationally reknowned experts as well as all the Swiss nationals working on the subject. The symposium was divided into four task groups: creation, distribution, education and the archiving group, which I was in charge of preparing. The results of the group were considered interesting and I was commissioned to propose a project, already called AktiveArchive, during the second symposium in spring 2001, and for which I made both theoretical and practical propositions for what was possible in Switzerland. Particular attention was given to the web, and when we spoke of supporting media art, no one thought about video, as it already seemed old fashioned. It was a bit of a struggle to insist that although efforts had to be made with regards to what was on the web, this was no reason to sweep aside the entire history and experience of video.

One member of the “Archive” task group during the symposium was the head of conservation at HKB, as I wanted to include someone from classical conservation to talk about the issues with video. During the second symposium, he asked me if I would be interested in working for the HKB. At the same time, I also obtained a third mandate from the Federal Office for Culture to set up a pilot project, AktiveArchive.

PACKED: What do you teach the HKB students?

Johannes Gfeller: I teach the history of recording techniques, and the possibilities for safeguarding electronic devices, and of course all types of migration of media and signals. I have few students, and most of them have a romantic image of art conservation when they get here. They have an interest for art and for manual work, but as they don’t have a technical background, they often know nothing about electronics. They usually learn to like this subject when they get here. Before applying to come here, they have to have trained for a year with a restorer. There are paper and furniture restorers, but there are almost none working on electronic media. This puts them behind students from other departments, and so it is hard for them to obtain a certain level of knowledge.

PACKED: What types of practical exercise do the students have to do?

Johannes Gfeller: Recently, a student repared a radio from the thirties. Although she had no knowledge in electronics, with patience and my help, she eventually got the radio to work again. Another of my students transferred cassettes, while another worked on a project for a videotape cleaning machine. I try to find a learning curve that avoids scaring the students with knowledge in electronics that they don’t have. We can’t turn them into engineers, and indeed this is not the aim of the course, but when you are working with tapes, there are necessary gestures and precautions to be taken and passed on. Even though students can’t repair a tape player themselves, we can show them how to clean it, how to open it, and what type of visual inspection can be made without any knowledge of its electronics.

PACKED: Within a framework such as that of the HKB, would it be possible to allow students in conservation and students in electronics to collaborate?

Johannes Gfeller: The problem is that most engineers study to work in the industry and to develop the technology of the future, whereas the world of restoration and conservation looks to the past. It is difficult to encourage such students to be interested in the conservation of old technology, because if an engineer doesn’t know about the latest technology, he/she won’t find work in the industry. What we really need are engineers who decide that industry is not for them, whilst remaining capable of using advanced technology to make video transfer easier. However, most engineers don’t want to hear about analog technology. If they do, it’s just a hobby.

What’s more, according to my peers, it is also difficult for some students to go beyond their own field and tackle something a bit more creative. Flo Kaufman12, who works with me at the HKB, was also a student at an engineering school. He has a good knowledge of electronics, but he also specialises in printing vinyl disks, and is involved in various creative projects. Since he was new to the world of video, he did a training course here during which we learnt a lot from each other. His highly specialised knowledge allowed him to consider how the video players could be improved to get the most out of the machines, by using more modern electronic circuits. If I could afford it, the idea would be to pay him full time so that he could develop the “universal machine” that everyone dreams about.

PACKED: Would it be difficult for each museum to find this type of person?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, and generally speaking, museums have trouble finding the right people for the job. However, in each city it is possible to find the sort of handy man who will know how to repair a breakdown or find a solution. Of course, it is then necessary to teach these technicians the requirements of conservation, because they often have a tendency to try and improve things, which can be a risk with regards to heritage. Finding a technician who is both good at his job, and sensitive to the requirements of artwork conservation is no simple task.

My role here at the HKB is to give the students the necessary tools in order to be able to interact with a technician. They must be able to act as an intermediary between the interests of the collection and a technician who is going to repair a work. A conservator must not be dependent on the technician, it is important that they are able to talk to each other. For this to be possible he must understand the technician’s language and the way he thinks, as well as know the full range of different solutions.

PACKED: But this type of technician and knowledge about obsolete video equipment is also disappearing.

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, for instance there was a really good technician in Berne who recently lost his job because he didn't have enough work anymore in the field of media production as all the companies are closing down. He was a real expert in all CRT13 televisions. Unfortunately he is now working in an electrical power plant somewhere. Until I met Flo Kaufmann, I no longer knew of a technician whom I could trust and who could fix my technical problems, in Bern. I had to send our professional equipment to the south of Switzerland to get it repaired.

PACKED: The HKB now owns a collection of equipment that covers most of the history of video; how did it start?

Johannes Gfeller: During the autumn of 2001 when I started working here, I was also planning the AktiveArchive project. I had started to wonder what we would require and I therefore started buying old devices such as an old Sony Portapak14. Until then, I could never afford to buy new equipment, and I was used to buying second hand and recovering all sorts of devices, in order to repair them and clean them. This is more or how the collection began.

PACKED: What type of equipment has been gathered together?

Johannes Gfeller: We possess players for more than 30 totally different formats of tape; many more if you count the PAL15, NTSC16, High-Band and Low-Band variants. We also have several LaserDisc17 players, not all of which are compatible. This is why we have Philips, SONY, and Pioneer machines, all of which are in operating condition. LaserDisc players are in principle fairly durable.

We then have many different monitors of all kinds. We have historical items of importance to the history of video art such as the first Trinitrons or the JVC Nivico and we also conserve certain portable SONY monitors that were widely used in artist workshops or in installations. They can be found in many publications of the time. Not all of the monitors that we conserve have been used for works of art; we also keep some of them in case their technical aspect is of interest to someone. There are no particularly strict criteria for selecting the equipment for the collection. We also have a collection of CRT video projectors18 in more or less good condition and some 16 mm19 projectors as well as slides, etc.

PACKED: Of what use to the HKB is such a collection of equipment?

Johannes Gfeller: All these devices allow us to produce “counterfeits” in order to learn how certain historical works operated, such as closed-circuit installations. I’m thinking for example of TV Buddha by Nam June Paik, which worked with a camera and a Nivico monitor by JVC. In this case for example, the students can see that a camera with a modulator is required in this case, because the Nivico television set has no camera input.

We also have cameras that work with three Vidicon tubes, the first models of which had no auto-convergence system like the later models did. These cameras went out of focus all the time, so when we used them, we had to adjust the convergence with a grid, a bit like when adjusting a CRT projector. The aim is to give our students this knowledge of historical technology that is simple but important for a media art conservator.

PACKED: Where does the equipment of the HKB reference collection come from?

Johannes Gfeller: For the HKB reference collection, a greater part of the equipment was donated to me by institutions, universities and groups that knew me or with whom I had previously worked. For example, we have a Spectre20 video synthesizer from 1974, which is quite rare and that I got from the composer and conductor Jacques Guyonnet of the A.R.T. Studio in Geneva. It was the first analog/digital synthesizer, whith which you can separate a picture into several scales of grey and colour. It also includes shape generators and you can separate the video components and adjust the generated visual structures in real time.

PACKED: Did you also buy equipment through websites?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, sometimes, but the problem you can encounter when you buy a video player, for example, on the web is that the people who sell such devices sometimes have their own personal definition of what “in working order” means. In many cases, it simply means that the device can be switched on, but not that it is capable of reading a tape.

PACKED: Is this collection catalogued?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, the majority of this equipment has been catalogued in a database that lists about 1,400 items. Ideally, the database would also indicate the exact location of a particular device, but I do not have the resources to organise the collection in an optimal manner. I don't know the exact list of equipment I possess by heart and so sometimes I happen to rediscover an item when wandering through the collection.

PACKED: Did you develop the framework for this database yourself?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, but the framework is different from that of a museum, as I have never bought a device for a work of art in particular. Our collection is a reference collection; a museum would require other information. Our database includes entries on the origin of the equipment (a university, eBay, etc.), the serial number, the voltage, the year of manufacture, how much it cost, its condition, its standard (CCIR, EIAJ, etc.), and for computers, for example, the processor. It would useful to include more notes about how it works and its history, but this is not possible for the time being.

PACKED: Do you think that museums should actively collect equipment in order to be able to keep showing their installations?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, this is something that museums should be doing. If you take the example of the SONY cubic PVM monitors21, they are the standard for showing the video artworks of the eighties and nineties. However, I don’t think many museums have collected them, or are even thinking of doing so today. But I think that collecting equipment is crucial because I do not believe that replacing CRT monitors with LCD22 screens is not the solution. Having said this, I would have not know what solution to suggest in the case of an installation with several dozen CRT monitors. However, between such extremes, I think there is room for an approach in which the original equipment is favoured in order to show a work of art in a satisfactory way.

PACKED: In a museum, do you think that equipment should be allocated to a single work, or that – in the case of generic equipment – it could be used for several different works?

Johannes Gfeller: I’ve never had a collection of works of art, so I have never had to make this kind of decision, however I do know that the two situations exist. An example that speaks for itself is a work by Nam June Paik comprising 70 monitors Beuys/Voice – A Hole in the Hat, from 1987/90. When the Kunstmuseum in St.Gallen acquired the work, they also bought one hundred Samsung monitors straight from the factory. Consequently, some of them had not been tested for long enough and started having problems shortly after being purchased. But the biggest problem was that after the exhibition, the museum started to put these monitors to other uses. Whereas the original intention was to allow the museum to show the work for as long as possible, most of these monitors seem to have disappeared now that they are needed.

PACKED: Would you consider an equipment storage space that is shared by several collecting institutions as a valid option?

Johannes Gfeller: It depends on whether we're talking about artworks that really need specific hardware because of their shape or volume, etc. or not. If it concerns dedicated equipment one should provide precautions to assure that it is stored as dedicated equipment and that it can’t be used for other works or purposes. But this doesn't mean that several institutions cannot collaborate and share their facilities. They would then have to make a clear distinction between what the dedicated equipment is and what the common pool of equipment is that everyone can use in the future.

A complementary policy could be to have the types of monitors that I call "standard monitors for a certain period", where you can prove that this standard equipment was once used by several artists and institutions. When the exact monitor type or model has been lost and can't be find to rebuild an installation, one could use this pool of standard monitors to show the work again. A pool of standard monitors is not in contradiction with the creation of a pool of generic hardware which would make it possible to show a videotape in the way that it was shown in the past and to project a video – not with the quality of today, but with a CRT projector in a dark room – and not in full daylight like as is often the case today.

PACKED: How could a museum start to build this kind of pool?

Johannes Gfeller: It is a question of financial means and critical mass. If a rich institution already has all the necessary storage space, then there is no problem. If all institutions had such means, it would be perfect. A shared pool might be a solution for institutions that do not have the necessary space, financial means or equipment. But sharing equipment would only be possible between institutions that have a friendly relationship and that are located less than, let's say 500 km from each other, because otherwise you would also have high transport costs. Sharing equipment is a matter of organisation, but also a matter of confidence. If a museum owns very rare equipment dedicated to a specific work, then they probably won't share it, but with some more general devices sharing might be possible. If several institutions started to become aware instantaneously that for instance CRT monitors are becoming rarer and that there might be a last chance to get them from companies or organisations that were loaning them in the past and that are not using them anymore, they could try to look for them together.

When a museum has financial restrictions, I would advise them to focus on standard CRT monitors that are disappearing nowadays and that offer the most possibilities in the future. Although I am a fervent advocate of differences in order not to end up with a poor approach in terms of past video art, I think it would be easier for museums to focus on standard pieces of equipment as well as to foresee equipment for special cases.

PACKED: When stored, do you think the equipment should be separated from the other components of the installation?

Johannes Gfeller: Some say one should not store the equipment together with the other parts as each part needs a different climatic environment. We should ask ourselves whether the best climatic conditions are the same for both the electronic materials and the artwork itself. For example, if it's paper work, more humidity is needed whereas if it is metal work, a level of humidity below 45 or 40% is better, etc. This means that a compromise might have to be found for all the elements that are part of an installation.

For me the danger of separating the equipment from the other parts of the artwork is that the equipment could be used for other purposes, even if it is labelled as an integral part of the work. Instead of being considered as a material component of the installation, it could be just considered as a mass-produced apparatus. This doesn't mean that during the restoration process we should confuse the equipment with a sculptural object made by the artist. I consider all equipment as mass-produced devices that can be replaced by the same model or sometimes by the same type of equipment, unless it has been signed, painted or modified in any way by the artist. In that case, it's a complete different thing. But I don't consider a piece of equipment as some sort of holy piece that the artist held in his/her hands. However, I think that to avoid wrong policy choices of the collecting institutions regarding the equipment, it would be better to treat such objects as part of the artworks. But I guess that different choices are possible for one and the same object.

PACKED : Do you have special recommendations concerning the temperature and the humidity for the space in which equipment is stored ?

Johannes Gfeller: In most cases, the temperatures recommended by the manufacturer are indicated in the service and user's manual. Cool and dry is the best that I can think of because it slows down every degradation process that might occur within the organic materials present in the equipment. Of course, too cold a temperature is not good either, and I wouldn't freeze equipment for example.

It would be a luxurious to be able to cool down a storage room for the equipment, but if in summer your storage room is at 28°C, it would be good to have it a bit cooler. All materials, even the casing materials degrade faster at a high temperature and it is the same for all material components of an installation. Permanent change of temperature and humidity is worse than a constant condition, even if that constant condition might not be ideal.

PACKED: What kind of boxes or other packaging would you ideally use to store the equipment?

Johannes Gfeller: If a museum still has the original boxes, it would be good to use them - especially in the probable case that the work might need to be transported. The transport boxes for Sony monitors for instance were especially made for such. I keep the few original packages that I have; as a collector I can't throw them away, and I think that a museum should always keep them. Of course you can also make wooden cases for the equipment when international transport is necessary. Then the other question is whether it is good to keep the equipment stored in sealed boxes, because there is a risk that the gas concentration of all the materials can’t escape, so I would think that it's better not to have them stored in their sealed package. This is only an idea; I can't confirm it. As a compromise, you could maybe keep the boxes open, but then the storage room should be free of dirt. To further protect the equipment from dirt, you could wrap some paper or a cloth around the equipment.

PACKED: That would also protect them from light.

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, because with light in the storage space, all plastics would suffer from colour change. The white becomes yellowish because of ultra-violet light, but also normal light can bleach out a casing. This is not crucial for the functioning of the equipment but if you show a piece of equipment as part of an installation, it's better to have the proper colour.

PACKED: What other specifications for equipment are important for a storage room?

Johannes Gfeller: In the case of my collection, I have bought more equipment than I had space for, so the result is that they are not really stored in ideal conditions. However, when we got our new storage space, I asked for a maximum number of power points because all equipment should be put onto mains every few months. This is not always feasible because of the place and the manpower but it would be important for a museum to do it regularly for a few hours. One of the reasons that lead an apparatus to break after just twenty years without being used is that the electrolytic capacitors can dry out. In this case electrical tension is of no help. But there is another reason: such capacitors also alter chemically, but the aging process can be reversed by putting them under electrical tension. This is one of the reasons why I'm wondering whether it is really intelligent to pack them perfectly. If the box is stored two meters high on a shelf, nobody will ever get it out and plug it in. If the cable is hanging freely and an outlet is near, that might be easier.

PACKED: If the equipment is regularly powered, how long does it need to stay ON before it's shut down again?

Johannes Gfeller: Several hours, a day or even a little more. But a day should be enough. One shouldn't just put it on and off, because it takes a while for the chemical processes to be achieved. Putting it on every few months or years for a day or more will help retrieve the original chemical cohesion. This could be crucial in order to extend the life of all such equipment. One should not fear that the equipment will break down if it is run regularly; quite the opposite. They were made to be put on, and once a month is nothing compared to the lifetime they were intended to have.

Manufacturers are not really interested in long-term data. They have a value based on the expected lifetime versus the temperature. The limit of each capacitor is printed on them; some are for instance 105 degrees23. If it is always at this temperature, it will last about 1.000 hours, whereas if it is at 50 degrees, it will last 3000 hours or even more. This is very well researched by the industry but not that much for the long term. Maybe they have this information and made the tests, but don’t consider it worthwhile publishing it.

PACKED: What other maintenance routine or special care would you recommend for the equipment?

Johannes Gfeller: Any equipment with mechanical parts such as motors, belts, bearings, etc., should be run regularly, even though it is probably not as important as for the capacitors. The oil present in some mechanical parts can dry out and in this case it should be removed, and the parts should be relubricated again. The belts present in some equipment are continuously stressed. One should take them out and put them in some kind of protected atmosphere with no oxygen so that they last longer. But who has the opportunity to take all the belts out of the machines, write down where they are stored, catalogue everything, put it on the right side on the shelf, etc.? I would love to do that with my equipment, but i'ts impossible. Moreover, it would also mean unscreawing parts, which is also risky.

The degradation of all the rubber parts is a fact. I think that trying to find suppliers and to know how you can help yourself rebuild them is more useful than trying to keep them as long as you can. The rubber parts must have specific properties and when these are no longer ideal then your migration process, or whatever you want to do with the machine, won't be ideal either.

PACKED: How do you replace the faulty belts of the players?

Johannes Gfeller: We have already had belts manufactured for the ½” CV player24 and for a National player. A Swiss company, Graf 25, reproduces belts to customer dimensions and specifications providing you order is at least twenty units. For twenty belts, it costs about €250. Another solution is to make them yourself, because there are hundreds of different sizes available, but in the end not often the one you need. We have also had to reproduce certain rubber rollers. Finding a company to do this was very difficult26.

PACKED: Are the belt specifications – such as their size – also included in the instruction manuals?

Johannes Gfeller: You will find this kind of information in certain instruction manuals: thickness, width, and length. This is the ideal situation, but unfortunately in the instruction manuals for SONY devices, you will find only the reference number to place an order. We therefore had to measure the actual diameter of the belts on the machines, because if you measure the old belt there is a good chance one would get the wrong size as the rubber slackens over time. When the belt is of a critical nature, you need a defined loss; you can’t have a belt that is too big or not big enough. If the curve is a little too tight, then it won’t be of great consequence to the picture, on the other hand it will exert more pressure and wear out the ball bearings more quickly.

PACKED: Do you document the equipment by collecting manuals and schemes?

Johannes Gfeller: I'm not systematically looking for the manuals, but I'm always glad when I find one. I really start looking for the manuals when I don't understand a piece of equipment, or when I want to know more about a specific function. Without a manual this sometimes results in a long research. When you repair equipment, it's obviously good to have the schematics. Although you can sometimes guess what is wrong, this can take a long time. Having the schematics is a clear gain in such a case. Especially when the problem is electronic, you can lose a lot of time. Although I understand most of the equipment pieces in our collection, some other people may not. This is another reason why the technical documentation is important.

PACKED: Would being able to identify the most fragile components in video equipment help one to know, for instance, what spare parts are important to store?

Johannes Gfeller: This would need some extensive research, and I think that it is one of the aspects that should be part of all case studies on video works, but unfortunately it is is almost never the case. One should note which component failed in the equipment and what was repaired by using information from the person who took care of the repair. I think that this would be useful information.

Knowing what fails most could then help to know what parts to store. If there was a repair centre that had all the parts just in order to do the repair, then any repair would be possible. Of course it couldn't be made on the same model as a classic service centre, which has to make profit. Often, the spare parts for an obsolete piece of equipment come from another obsolete piece of equipment. That is why an obsolete device out of function must always be kept for its parts. It is often the only way to repair an old video tape recorder for instance.

PACKED: One of the major problems encountered when transferring videos still stored on ancient format is the difficulty in finding spare playback heads for the old video players. What future solutions do you think there will be?

Johannes Gfeller: With regards to the companies that sell playback heads for old players, we don’t really know whether they have stocks or whether they manufacture them themselves. Recently, we have been in contact with one of the companies that makes playback heads for a Revox Studer player, as we would like to know if it is possible to make other playback heads from different specifications.

PACKED: Is modifying the machines in order to obtain a better transfer an option?

Johannes Gfeller: Flo Kaufmann did some trials with some of the critical parts that make up the tape path. He had a nano-coat of a very hard metal, which is used for making wear resistant tools, applied to these parts. He would also like to use a similar Teflon-based alloy on the drum. He knows of many companies capable of doing this, because he studied in Bienne at a specialist engineering school which as a close relationship with the clockmaking and automobile industries.

PACKED: How are the videotapes stored at the HKB?

Johannes Gfeller: We preserve the tapes at two levels of temperature: at 16°C in the depot for "working" access, and at 10°C for long-term storage, both at 20 to 25% rH. Certain tapes are preserved in sealed plastic with silica gel fitted with an indicator. When the silica gel turns light brown, this means that it is lightly saturated and that it has its maximum capacity of absorption. We do it this way as we have noticed that when we put the tape into a cool, dry storage space with silica gel, we get better results during transfer. We often leave the tape cases partially open, otherwise the process takes even longer. Silica gel and cleaning are the techniques that work best for us. In addition, I think that it is a treatment that is less violent than baking in an oven27, the long-term effects of which are not well known.

PACKED: Do the climatic conditions have an influence on the quality of a tape transfer?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, climate and humidity have a major effect. Sometimes at a cooler temperature of 16 or even 10°C, and with a reduced relative humidity, tapes and cassettes can be read more easily.

PACKED: HKB has developed a tape-cleaning machine. What formats has it been designed for?

Johannes Gfeller: We can clean almost any format by changing a few parts, depending on the width of the tape. It can be used for ¼”, ½”, 8 mm, Video8, Hi828, ¾” and 1”. We have had parts manufactured that can be installed on the machine depending on the format that we want to clean. This was very expensive to do, which is also why we also used some parts from a Sony PortaPack and from an RTI29 machine.

PACKED: How does it work?

Johannes Gfeller: It has three types of motor that have different power ratings. Also, it is possible to modify the tape path and to add guides or rollers with cleaning paper. It is possible to clean the backside of the tape, which is sometimes the dirtiest, and also the side that causes most problems, using these different cycles. What’s more, since it is the side of the tape that has no data printed on it, it can be cleaned more extensively. The machine is also equipped with a vacuum system that has a filter, and it is possible to carry out the process under a cover in order to catch all of the particles. This vacuum system is also useful in cases in which the tape might contain dangerous particles such as spores. This machine is a prototype that could be reproduced by others. Because we are a public institution, I believe that our role is to share the results we achieve. What’s more, RTI machines are very expensive.

Before we developed this machine, we had another prototype built from a Revox 1/4" magneto, which I had used to clean dozens of tapes. Cleaning machines for ½” tapes used to exist in the IT sector, as these tapes were inflicted with problems of dirtiness rather than deterioration. RTI machines were not originally designed for dealing with tricky tapes or restoration. It is a tape evaluator that was used to determine whether or not tapes that were to be reused were still in good condition.

PACKED: I have also heard that RTI machines were designed to remove particles remaining on new tapes from the manufacturing process.

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, this was one of the recommendations at that time. However, some such recommendations date back to the beginnings of a certain format, which was later improved. Unfortunately, some ideas are hard to kill. A good example of this is that of archival rewinding, which recommends rewinding tapes every year or two. This was true for the tapes with a carrier that was prone to shrinking, as when ventilating the tape one could release the pressure created by the shrinking of the carrier, but the tapes of today no longer have the same problem. I think it is more sensible to use the time and energy to transfer the tapes rather than rewind them. What’s more, if you rewind them regularly, there is also a risk for the tape as a mechanical stress is applied.

PACKED: What other types of treatment do you use on the tapes?

Johannes Gfeller: We sometimes open VCR cassettes to remove the tape and clean it, because with VCR, there are no cleaning machines such as the RTI on the market. We did this on a sticky tape. Sometimes the guide posts inside the cassette become corroded, and you have to clean the post and replace them, or even remove the tape completely.

We also have two ½" EIAJ on cassettes. Instead of repairing the video player, we will probably remove the tape and put it on a ½” open reel spool. Our EIAJ cassette player would appear to be quite complex to operate, and even if we repair it we will probably get a better final result with the open reel tape player.

PACKED: What do you consider to be the most problematic equipment in an installation?

Johannes Gfeller: For me the most important components are clearly the monitors and the projectors. Sooner or later the original ‘information carriers’ will be migrated; the original players won't be very interesting unless it's specifically for their shape and because they belong to the installation. In the exhibition Reconstructing Swiss Video Art from the 1970s and 1980s that we put up in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lucerne we had a case in which the U-matic player used for the piece G/Gorgones by Eric Lanz was really playing the tape. Although it was a sculptural as much as a functional part of the installation, I think that the playback hardware will become of less interest. It would be a luxury to keep it in working order as well as having the 'information carriers' in that format, especially for tapes that were not made to last for a whole exhibition. Even if the U-matic players have a repeat mode, it is a question of cost. To take the U-matic format again as an example: a cassette can last for a month, but can also fail after two weeks. I have one or two stacking pallets with cassettes, new stocks, but some day it won't be possible to get them anymore or only in a degraded condition. Beside the availability of the tapes, the cost of repairing and cleaning the tape players is an important argument.

Even though I do tend to advocate for keeping the old equipment, I would say that for practical reasons we should change the information carrier and also what I call the 'work carrier': the playback equipment that plays the ‘information carrier’. But we should keep the ‘picture carrier’: the monitors or the projectors, as long as possible.

I think people would agree with me for the monitors. If I were to argue that the old ‘not so good’ projector should also be kept instead of using new ones, I know I would have more difficulties being understood. But time will tell! (laugh). Why keep one of the first LCD projectors of 800 to 600 lumens? Why not? Maybe we should not keep them for all installations, but just to show that in the beginning of LCD technology it was considered to be very chic and that people chose to use a new LCD at a time when they could also have used a tri-tubes projector. This is also a cultural and historical question of a kind. But I'm aware that they are luxury questions and problems that aren't highlighted.

Not all the parts of an installation can be preserved, and not all of the parts must be preserved in the same manner. Of course, I'd like to have all in its original state, and I even work hard to keep the tape players working, but only for a temporary show or to have it as a reference. I do this more for research purposes than for everyday exhibition practices. They should maybe also be kept to show students, future curators and art historians that this was the reality twenty years ago.

PACKED: You should also explain these issues to the audience because 99,9% of the visitors might not be aware of the facts at all.

Johannes Gfeller: Of course when I give arguments for such issues, I'm thinking of people who should be aware of them, but I also think that people should be informed. I hate it when in an exhibition a work by Bruce Nauman for example is shown with the sole indication that it is a DVD installation: no notice that it was made on U-matic and later transferred to DVD, and of course, no notice either that the projector currently used is not the original type of projector30.

PACKED: During the Lucerne exhibition you used a very old type of SONY video monitor.

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, it was a very rare black and white SONY monitor that took me a long time to find. Two of them are now in storage at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern. During the exhibition in Lucerne we used them for Aléatoire I et II by René Bauermeister and L'envers à l'endroit by Gérald Minkoff. These monitors are impossible to find on eBay, and the four that I got hold of were given to me by institutions I was already in contact with. They held out perfectly, whereas with a standard television set of the time, we had a few problems when the horizontal frequency went out of sync due to poor contact.

However, although they are rare today, you can very often find these large B&W SONY monitors in the video art catalogues of the times. For exhibitions, my choices of equipment is usually based on this type of document. For example, for the 40 Years of Video Art, the ZKM made the choice of showing a large quantity of works on WEGA31 or on Braun television sets. We also possess WEGA sets in our reference collection, as they were fairly well known for their design back in the sixties. Personally, however, I would not have used them for the Lucerne exhibition, because although they are monitors of that period they were never - or almost never - used to show video art.

PACKED: During that exhibition, all the equipment was from that period and almost all of it was in working order, whether it was the screens, the tape players or even the projectors. What were the most problematic devices?

Johannes Gfeller: With hindsight, we encountered fewer problems than we anticipated. For G/Gorgones by Eric Lanz, the top-loader U-matic32 player broke down, although this was rather predictable since no maintenance had been done beforehand. The player held out for two weeks and then we had to replace it with a more recent model that the artist had used to show the work himself. We also had to replace a CRT video projector in a work by Anna Winteler whereas another CRT projector without a ventilator made in 1983 similar to the original one that was used to show the work by Chérif and Silvie Defraoui called 'Cartographie des contrées à venir', and which we expected would be the first to break down, lasted for the entire exhibition. Some of the CRT projectors of the collection were burnt-in, and for the Lucerne exhibition, I had to make an operational CRT projector out of several faulty ones.

Then we had a problem with the work by Alexander Hahn, in which the five U-matic players had to be sychronised. Having made the synchronisation system myself at that time, and having already installed it in Basle in 1988, I was quite familiar with the work. We realised that the piece of art did not always work as it should, because the exhibition staff sometimes started it up without having correctly synchronised the tapes.

PACKED: Did all of the equipment used during the Lucerne exhibition come from the HKB reference collection?

Johannes Gfeller: For the exhibition, some of the devices were taken from the reference collection whereas others were bought specifically for the works of art, with the photographic documentation as a reference for what was originally used. We then bought the exact same model or the closest possible model.

PACKED: What became of the equipment bought for the Lucerne exhibition? Did it become part of the HKB reference collection at the end of the exhibition?

Johannes Gfeller: After the exhibition, we kept most of the equipment, except for the white portable monitors used for the installation by Hannes Vogel called Der Lichthof, for example. This work belonged to the DKM Foundation in Duisburg which, after having acquired and shown the work, gave all the original televisions to a retirement home. For the Lucerne exhibition, we looked for similar television sets, with the same asymmetrical design, in white with a black part on the side where the buttons are placed. We found eight more or less identical sets that allowed us to show the work correctly. These eight television sets were sold back to the collection at the end of the exhibition, so that they could continue to show the work. We did the same with the monitors that were used to show Heim-Welt by Guido Nussbaum. We found them in the attic of a television salesman and changed two of them during the exhibition. Today, the institution that owns the work has the original television sets, as well as the ones we used at Lucerne.

PACKED: In the exhibition catalogue, you can see that for some of the “reconstructed” installations shown in Lucerne, the investigating work of a true detective was required in order to understand how the piece of art worked and was to be shown.

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, for a work by Bauermeister we had only a sketch with a diagram of the installation entitled “installation project”. The videotape itself existed, and had been produced in a manner that was explained by the diagram, although it had as of then not yet been presented to the public. With regards to the equipment used, we followed the instructions of the diagram, which were sometimes very clear, such as those concerning the AV video player. With regards to the U-matic player, and considering the period at which the work had been conceived, it could only be a SONY top loader type. It was the same for the cameras; they could only be a certain SONY model.

PACKED: What kind of restoration do you do at the HKB?

Johannes Gfeller: For TV für Millionen by Wolf Vostell for the exibition called Changing Channels held at MUMOK in Vienna, we changed more than fifty components such as resistors, electrolytic capacitors, and even paper condensers that gave us a lot of problems. We also replaced the original tube with a new identical one. As Wolf Vostell had had a defect built into the circuit, we reproduced the very same defect on a new circuit by modifying the electronics in exactly the same way. Of course, with this work we cannot change the cabinet, which was modified and painted by Wolf Vostell, let alone replace the CRT by a flat screen, for example. This model of a CRT television set was manufactured in 1959, but the work itself dates back to 1967. It is one of the oldest works from this period that is still operational.

PACKED: It is a work of art that is similar to that of Nam June Paik using modifications.

Johannes Gfeller: Exactly, and there was indeed a sort of competition or rivalry between the two artists. Wolf Vostell always stated that he was the first to have used a television set in a work of art.

PACKED: Did the television set hold out for the duration of the exhibition?

Johannes Gfeller: I tried to convince the museum that it would be a good idea if the work wasn’t switched on all day, that there should be intermissions from time to time. The curator did not agree. Luckily, the work held out for the entire duration of the exhibition with just an hour’s break during the day. However, something can break down from one day to another. With a television set, it is usually the tube or the filament.

With the original tube, there was also a problem with the high voltage transformer. Luckily, I had bought a box full of coils a few years earlier, and one of them was adapted to this new tube. The other solution would have been to reproduce a coil, but that would have been a very big job. The specifications of the coils are almost identical for all television sets of that day and the electronics include only basic functions. As for the tube, there is a market for stock cathode ray tubes.

PACKED: Do you think that it would be necessary for collectors and museums to establish similar time limits and intermissions when showing particularly critical works of art, due to the marked obsolescence of their components?

Johannes Gfeller: For Wolf Vostell’s work, I tried providing calculations to make a good case and persuade the curator. If you consider the fact that a cathode ray tube can operate for 15,000 hours – this is a figure I’d read somewhere, but it is definitely a low estimation, I'd say more like30,000 hours –, taking into account the fact that the tube has already bee used and is worn, one could imagine that it would work for another 5,000 hours. With this type of calculation, it is then simple to draw a graph and prolong the life of a device. To show the work intensively for a long period of time and then put it into storage for 5 years, as the curator suggested, is a bit of a shame as it denies the public access to the work of art for a very long time.

PACKED: Do you follow any particular principles or rules when restoring the equipment that is part of a work of art?

Johannes Gfeller: There are certain purists who would replace a faulty old capacitor by hiding a new one inside the device, to be as close as possible to the appearance of the original electronics. We do not work with technical museums, so this does not seem necessary to us, because the capacitors are not an important or visible part of a work.

PACKED: How do you evaluate the importance of a device, and the loss it represents for the work of art when it is no longer useable?

Johannes Gfeller: I believe that a work of art is also a historical object, and not just something that is “functional”. The equipment is not just something that is used to tell and to pass on a part of history; the devices are also artifacts that are typical of a certain period and of a certain social and cultural context in which they were manufactured. The equipment is valuable from a historical perspective, as is its design and its appearance, which may sometimes have been modified by the artist. The equipment is often the place in which the content of a work of art resides. If you take away this envelope, you risk making pieces of art homeless. Some of these homeless works will still be able to tell their story if the material of the tape has been transferred to another format. However, I believe that the older a work is, the more its material becomes closely linked to its technical environment, and the more valuable its equipment becomes.

PACKED: Is the value of a work of art also linked, in a sense, to its technology?

Johannes Gfeller: What is sure, is that the value of a work and the reasons for which it is highly regarded change over time. Sometimes, the material appeared to be the essential part of a work of an artist at the time of its creation because it was truly in touch with its time. I think that a work can lose something when that certain tension created by technical restrictions no longer exists. Often, the material used to create such works was simple and the value of this material can become very anecdotal or even ridiculous without the original technical conditions.

If certain works are transferred to using modern technologies, for example from a video tube camera to a webcam, etc, it could become truly ridiculous. I think however that if maintained within the technical conditions of the day, the work keeps its value. With any restoration effort, you have to be careful not to lose too much. Indeed, by updating the work repeatedly, it is de-historicised until it loses its historical nature. I think that this is valid for any work of art. It is wrong to think that such works can live forever by systematically updating them.

PACKED: Are you saying that a gap appears between the physical work and the material it shows when the equipment is modernised?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, a work of media art is no different from a painting in that it is ingrained in a certain period. Evidently, we will encounter major problems when attempting to preserve certain works in the future. Those with several cathode ray tubes will of course be very problematic, but perhaps we will also find new tube manufacturers.

We have always lost works of art, and we have to accept that more media art works will be lost in the future. The question remaining is whether we allow fate to decide, or whether with certain criteria we can influence which works of art will endure. When we do case studies, we are already contributing to the creation of such criteria. They are variable, and they relate to a specific collection.

PACKED: What do you believe should be the artist's position in terms of the conservation choices regarding a work of art?

Johannes Gfeller: Recording structured interviews with the artists is important. However, the conservators must also develop their own vision. This point of view must be based on the history of the work, the way it works and its concept, as well as on the media used. If the original integrity of the work cannot be safeguarded, it is good to know what the artist thinks, although his/her opinion should not always be accepted at face value. Sometimes, an artist will take the opportunity of a restoration to update or “improve” a work. For example, he/she might use a better camera which might not have been available at the time.

During the preparations for the Lucerne exhibition, we often had to explain to the artists that our goal was to show the works of art in their original form, and not to update them. You need the courage not to systematically follow the opinion of the artist, and try when necessary to convince him/her of the importance of such or such an aspect or element of the work. It is important to find a compromise or a solution that suits everyone.

PACKED: The AktiveArchive project didn't only focus on video works but also on the preservation of computer-based art. Here also the obsolescence of the hardware is already a major problem. To finish this interview could you list some of the important questions addressed in this part of the project?

Johannes Gfeller: I think it is one of the crucial problems to resolve. Keeping old computer equipment in working order is much more difficult than for any analogue equipment. We can try to do so but it's more or less a question of luck, if not simply impossible. If it's just the mains plug adaptor that is faulty you can change it, but if it's the motherboard that's faulty, then in most cases you should just forget about repairing it. You can try to store other pieces of the same equipment but one day this strategy will also enventually end.

PACKED: Does the HKB reference collection also include computer equipment?

Johannes Gfeller: Yes, we also collect computers, but not systematically as we do with video, because it is a new field in conservation. We have a few, such as a 486 for example, if only for installing a certain piece of software on it. I have also recovered some fairly old computer monitors, such as the green Hercules and the first Color Graphics Adaptor by IBM33 as they are already hard to find today. One day they will be used to show how characters were displayed at that time. The feeling you get when you see or interact with a device also belongs to the work of art and you can try and preserve this. Indeed, Jef Rothenberg has already raised these questions in case studies on emulation.

PACKED: What would you suggest a museum collecting computer-based works should start by doing?

Johannes Gfeller: The first thing to do is create an exact description of the work and its behaviour: what it does, how it looks and feels, what its content is, etc. Then the data should be migrated, because the source code that is kept on, for example, a floppy disc34 won't be readable in a short amount of time. If you transfer the data onto a hard disk, you will still need the program to play this data, but we don't know if it will be possible to install that specific program on a future platform.

My collaborators Tabea Lurk and Jürgen Enge are developing models for such,35 because we have these main topics of migration, emulation, reinterpretation etc. But this is quite a theoretical way of discussing the problems: in practice nothing is resolved. For example if you take into account that you can virtualise the work, which means that you have a virtual machine that you can define as a Windows XP, a Windows 95, etc. the new platform emulates and virtualises the old software, but it could be that the new machine doesn't have a serial interface anymore, and you would need an adaptor. Finding an adaptor would not be a major problem, but depending on the way this control code was written for the external hardware, which is very often custom-made, it could well be that it doesn't work anymore. For example, all controls which are time critical and which use the serial interface as a counter like many application do, won't work on this virtualised platform.

Then you also have the older graphic format problem because the best solution would be to show it on an 800 to 600 pixels Cathode Ray Tube monitor, to give the original feeling. While it is not widely discussed in the art field yet, it is a major topic in the gaming scene. Gamers are not happy if a new computer emulates the old game, because they don't have the same feeling. I think that the art conservation world could learn a lot from their way of seeing things. It might look like a nostalgic idea, but my argument is always that we don't repaint a painting just because we have new and better paint and materials. They are degrading, but we have to keep them in their time. I think we should also think like that for computer based art, but we don't have long-term feedback yet on how a part of their historical aspect can be saved.

Notes:

5. See: http://www.videoladen.ch/50_archiv.html
6. ½” open reel is an analogue video format introduced in 1965. The ½-inch tape is not inside a cassette but on an open spool. The tapes were used in combination with the first portable video recorders and were widely used by artists, lecturers and activists. Broadly speaking, there are two categories of ½” open reel: CV (Consumer Video/Commercial Video) and AV (EIAJ Type 1). Although the tapes look identical, the players are not compatible.
7. ¾” U-matic is an analogue video format that was developed at the end of the sixties and consisted of a ¾” video tape in a cassette. It was the forerunner of the analogue Betacam.
8. VCR (or Video Cassette Recording) is a format for recording video to ½ inch magnetic tape, developed by Philips in 1972. A long-playing version (VCR LP) appeared in 1976.
9. VHS designates a recording standard of video signal onto ½ inch tape developed by JVC in the late 1970s. Its mass distribution was launched in 1976. During the 1980s and 1990s, VHS became the standard format of general public video ahead of its competitors: Sony Betamax and Philips V2000.
10. "It was in fact a recorder with an “edit” button and a digital counter that emitted a tone to mark the player being started, and then a second tone to mark the edit button being pushed.” Johannes Gfeller.
11. A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins and exchanging messages with other users, either through electronic mail, public message boards, and sometimes via direct chatting. Many BBSes also offer on-line games, in which users can compete with each other, and BBSes with multiple phone lines often provide chat rooms, allowing users to interact with each other. Originally BBSes were accessed only over a phone line using a modem, but by the early 1990s some BBSes allowed access via a Telnet, packet switched network, or packet radio connection. As the use of the Internet became more widespread in the mid to late 1990s, traditional BBSes rapidly faded in popularity. Today, Internet forums occupy much of the same social and technological space as BBSes did, and the term BBS is often used to refer to any online forum or message board. Source: Wikipedia.
12. Flo Kaufmann was born in 1973 and lives in Soleure in Switzerland. He is an electronics engineer, a sound engineer and an artist. See: http://www.floka.com/
13. The Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun (a source of electrons) and a fluorescent screen, with internal or external means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam, used to create images in the form of light emitted from the fluorescent screen. The image may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures (television, computer monitor), radar targets and others.
14. In 1967, Sony introduced the first PortaPak, the Sony DV-2400 Video Rover. The first ”portable” video system, this two-piece set consisted of a large B&W camera and a separate record-only helical ½” VCR unit. It required a Sony CV series VTR to play back the video. Even thought it was clunky and heavy, it was light enough for a single person to carry it around. However, it was usually operated by a crew of two - one shot the camera and the other carried and operated the VCR part. (Source: The History of Camcorders, Mark Shapiro.)
15. The European colour TV broadcasting standard featuring 625 lines per frame and 50 frames per second. It has a more complex colour encoding* system than NTSC*, but provides better colour fidelity and better resolution. Source: Kramer Electronics LTD
16. NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) is the American standard for the video colour system. It uses 525 picture lines that are scanned at a speed of 30 images per second. The European standard PAL (Phase Alternate Line) uses 625 pictures lines that are scanned at a speed of 25 images per second.
17. A form of optical media that, unlike DVD, stores video as a composite analogue signal. The LaserDisc was first introduced by Philips and MCA in 1972, and has been on the market since 1978. LaserDiscs can be in glass or plastic. There are essentially two types of LaserDisc: those mastered for constant linear velocity (CLV) and those mastered for constant angular velocity (CAV). CAV discs store approximately 30 minutes of video, can be controlled in a frame-accurate way and can be still-framed. CLV discs can store approximately one hour of video but cannot be controlled frame-accurately and cannot be still-framed. Once a popular display format for many artists, the LaserDisc has now largely been superseded by DVD. LaserDiscs could not handle saturated areas of colour, and would produce artifacts appearing as herring bone patterns. CAV discs did, however, have the advantage of frame-accurate external control. Source: http://www.eai.org/resourceguide/glossary.html?laserdisc
18. A CRT projector is a video projector that uses a small, high-brightness CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) as the image generating element. The image is then focused and enlarged onto a screen using a lens kept in front of the CRT face. Most modern CRT projectors are colour and have three separate CRTs (instead of a single, colour CRT), and their own lenses to achieve colour images. The red, green and blue portions of the incoming video signal are processed and sent to the respective CRTs whose images are focused by their lenses to achieve the overall picture on the screen. A main advantage of CRT projectors is the superior black level compared to LCD and DLP based projectors. But compared to LCD and DLP based projectors they are larger and heavier, require far more time to set up and adjust, and the absolute ANSI brightness achievable is lower.
19. 16mm film was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1923 as an inexpensive amateur alternative to the conventional 35mm film format. 16mm refers to the width of the film. The format was initially directed toward the amateur market and was often referred to as sub-standard film by the professional industry. But 16mm has been extensively used for television production, and is still used by experimental filmmakers and other artists. The two major suppliers of 16mm film today are Kodak and Fujifilm.
20. http://web.archive.org/web/20120215025906/http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co...
21. Sony trinitron cube monitors (e.g. PVM 2030) are common devices used to show video art in museums and galleries.
22. An LCD, or Liquid Crystal Display, is an electronic flat panel screen which uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals (LC). LCD screens have replaced cathode ray tube (CRT) screens in most domains. They are generally more compact, lighter, more portable and cheaper
23. 105°C are the most common type of capacitor along with 85°C capacitors. This refers to the maximum temperature that the capacitor is able to withstand.
24. See note 6.
25. See: http://www.grafbelts.ch/
26. See: http://www.typ-gummi-tgw.ch/
27. Tape baking is a process that is used to restore magnetic tapes such as audio cassettes and video tapes that have begun to go through a chemical breakdown due to age and are suffering from sticky shed syndrome. Baking a tape consists of putting the tape into a specialised oven for a certain duration, generally at a temperature between 40°C and 60°C max.
28. Hi8 is an analog video recording standard for mass-produced Sony camrecorders, for which 27 manufacturers acquired a license. It is an evolution of Video8 (8mm).
29. RTI is an American company that sells (amongst other things) machines that clean and evaluate videotapes of different formats such as 1 inch or U-matic.
30. As seen in the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basle.
31. See the interview with Christophe Blase: https://www.scart.be/?q=en/content/interview-christoph-blase-zkm
32. The first models of U-matic players and recorders like the SONY VO-1600 or the VP-2030 had their cassette loading system on top. The more recent models have a front-loading system.
33. The Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card, and the first color computer display standard for the IBM PC. Source: Wikipedia.
34. A floppy disk is a removable storage medium for computer data, the name of which comes from the flexibility of the magnetic storage medium, as opposed to that of a hard drive. The most common sizes are 8”, 5.¼ ” and 3½”: this dimension corresponds to the diameter of the magnetic disk. Source: Wikipedia
35. See the interview with Tabea Lürk and Jürgen Enge: https://www.scart.be/?q=en/content/interview-tabea-lurk-and-j%C3%BCrgen-...

Interview with Gerard Alberts (UvA)

emanuel — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:33:01 +0000

interview_tag:

slideshow

nimk

Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Amsterdam, May 30, 2011

Gerard Alberts teaches history of computing at the University of Amsterdam, and at the Preservation of New Media program at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Stuttgart. His current research endeavours include leading the European Science Foundation Eurocore project 'Software for Europe' and the 'Stichting Historie der Techniek project De geest van de computer; geschiedenis van software in Nederland'.

He has been an advisor on exhibitions and an advisor to SCEN, Stichting Computer Erfgoed Nederland, on several projects, most recently on a program valuating objects and establishing a register of computer heritage in The Netherlands1. His historical interest in the culture of computer use and his close involvement with computer heritage projects have led Gaby Wijers and Jason Langdon (NIMk) to contact him in the framework of the Obsolete Equipment Project.

1. See: http://www.computer-erfgoed.nl/ and http://www.computer-erfgoed.nl/register.htm

NIMk: Can you tell us how you got involved in the conservation of computer-based art?

Gerard Alberts: I'm a historian of computing. I started out studying mathematics to get a good sense of our technological culture. You couldn't study computer science at that time - in the 70's. It only became possible in 1981. I always thought I was going to be a philosopher, but once I looked into archives for historical research, I was lost. I've become a historian since, and took my PHD in history on a study of rationalisation in Dutch society in the 1950s.2 That makes me a cultural historian. Within that range of cultural history I keep coming back to computers, ICT culture and mathematics, partly because nobody else dares to go there.

As a cultural historian, I'm interested in what people actually did with their machines, how it changed their behaviour, and how it changed their culture. My interest in such machines means that I'm an exception amongst historians of computing because I actually want to see and touch the machines. That's why I got in touch with the museum people in the Netherlands and in 1992 we started the Werkgroep Verzamelbeleid Computerhistorie, a working group on collection policy computer history’. We started as a completely informal working group, and focused not on the preservation of things, but on collection policy. Indeed our entry point into the whole field of collecting old computers was rather abstract.

NIMk: And from which museums or institutions did these people come?

Gerard Alberts: The main drive came from the tax and customs museum, Belasting en Douanemuseum, because it consisted of this quaint little museum in Rotterdam which got overrun by a collection of equipment from the actual tax data processing establishment in Apeldoorn –by tradition one of the largest data factories in the country. So from one day to the next they went from a quaint customs museum, with objects relating to smuggling etcetera to owning a whole collection of obsolete computer and punch card equipment that was thrown upon them. They had to decide how to deal with a cumbersome problem.

Other participants in the working group were from the Techniekmuseum, the museum of technology, in Delft, from Scryption, the museum of writing equipment in Tilburg, from a private collection with a background in accountancy, the Stichting Moretgroep Collectie. Little by little, people from the private collection Stichting Computermuseum, then in The Hague, and from the Computermuseum at the University of Amsterdam joined the working group.

I had developed a keen interest in all this kind of old equipment and suggested an exhibition at Scryption of punched card systems sponsored by the Stichting Moretgroep Collectie.3 And I have a weak spot for private collectors: for those individuals who find it difficult saying goodbye to their old machines. These were the same people who provided me with the details of how to work a machine; why a certain notch was there; in which order the button were pushed. I'd be interviewing them when all of a sudden their hands would go up in the air and start manipulating, showing me how they would insert the first words when booting up the computer. It’s set in the memory of their muscles. Those are my greatest days, when I can really touch on their memories.

The working group had existed for 12 years when we applied for more money to do some larger projects. The funding organisation, Mondriaan Stichting, said: “Ok, we've supported a smaller project, but in fact we don’t want to spend money on a working group. You will have to become a legal entity”. That is why we changed from a working group to Stichting Computer Erfgoed Nederland (SCEN, Foundation for Computer Heritage in The Netherlands). The founding partners were the official museums involved –“official” meaning museums in the national museum register. By consequence I was no longer part of it; I have been an advisor to SCEN since then. We felt that we were in danger of losing the connection with private collectors. So from the start of SCEN we established a platform meeting twice a year with everyone involved, choosing its venue both at museums and private collections. Over the years, SCEN has been on excursions to places like Bletchley Park (Milton Keynes, UK) and the Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum (Paderborn, Germany). With SCEN, museum professionals and private collectors, we have travelled everywhere, to local private collections as well as international museums.

I've got to know the field inside out. I did the first inventory. Not as an inventory of machinery, on the level of objects, but as an inventory of where the collections are located, resulting in this little booklet Collectie Nederland Oude Computers.4 The first thing one notices is that the moment one thinks one's finished, the field starts changing dramatically. You may think you've developed something of a common policy of collecting, i.e., you give people the ability to trust that they can throw away or give away certain objects because such items will be in other museums as well. You make it easier on museums to deselect. However a major part of collectors are private collectors and whatever they may have on their mind, they never think of giving away an object. To them it's hardly helpful having a common collecting policy, but never mind. We have them all listed here according to the situation in 1999. The other thing you notice is where policy is being made for real: at home and in the museums, and certainly not at some working group table where the directors of the very same museums sit discussing policy. It may soothe one's conscience to suggest that a working group discussing at such a level made it easier for them. What really happened was that the co-operative transfer of large parts of collections from one museum to the other never passed via the table of this working group. Indeed it should not have done.

The founding partners of SCEN were the Belasting en Douanemuseum, the Techniekmuseum Delft, the Scryption, and the Universities of Groningen and Amsterdam for their museums. You can see the ephemeral fate of museums these days. Techniekmuseum Delft is no longer a museum but a collection at the Technical University of Delft. Scryption lost its funding and has ceased to exist as a museum. One of the worlds finest collections of pens and typewriters is now stored in a depot. So a lot is going on in this field. Despite the firm basis one thinks is established: even the two major private collections have merged since. Stichting Computermuseum, an enormous collection of early personal computers from the 70's or 80's, has moved from The Hague to Apeldoornn and joined forces with the computer games museum in Epe, Bonami. In this field everything is moving, merging.

NIMk: What is the time frame of the collection? Are people interested in changes in computers nowadays or do they focus on the sixties?

Gerard Alberts: There is a general loss of interest in recent machinery, after 1990 lets say. There is a keen interest among personal computer collectors in details of machines from the 70's and 80's. There are specialized Amiga clubs and Apple clubs, trying to maintain the culture that grew around these machines at the time.

NIMk: It has become an online presence as well hasn't it, for example in forums?

Gerard Alberts: To me as an historian it's horrifying, because one can no longer distinguish between original machinery and software or emulation software, remakes of that software. I wouldn't even know where to start. At the moment I have no partiular interest in knowing such details. But I do know that between now and 10 years' time, I will be interested and I can predict my own despair at this point.

The case of the 50's and 60's is relatively easy. There are about a dozen machines in the Netherlands, each of them unique and representing its part of the pioneering spirit. It is easy to have an overview, to access the remnants of such machines, and to be sure that none of these machines is ever going to work. And in terms of Software (which is the field of my present research interest) all one has are the instruction booklets. Incidentally someone may have kept a pile of memory dump, but practically, even if they have a foot high pile of computer printout that does not count for me as accessible.

Yet, as a cultural historian I am keenly interested in how people worked with these machines and I have different entries. One of my favourites is looking for the sound on these machines. Because that means that you're looking for one specific item amongst all these machine buttons and handles -which happens to always be down on the left hand side, so that's an easy task. Once you start to recognize one entry to the machine, you start to recognize the rest. So for my own historical research it has been a good point of entry into the panel, into the desk of the machine. But far more important than that, far more important than my little apprehension of the machines and their consoles has been this item as an entry point to ask people how they actually worked with the machine. If it makes a sound and it's a warning sound, the key question for a whole range of new interviews becomes: who has the authority to stop it making that sound? Because if a machine is on an alarm one wonders: 'Oh, what's happening? Who is responsible?' If you are able to reconstruct that, you gain a lot of insight into the power structures around the machine and you start to understand how people trust and work with it. So from a historical perspective, it has been a very useful entry point for me.

NIMk: When you talk about sound in this sense, you're specifically relating it to on board sound. It's not the sound that you can create with a computer?

Gerard Alberts: No, it's really about on-board sounds that are part of the handling of the machine. So it's part of the machine’s interface. That is what makes it so interesting, that's what makes it culture. It has been a very useful entry point and has provided novel access to the memories and tacit knowledge of the people who worked with them.

NIMk: You interviewed these people on such points, but also about how they dealt with their collection?

Gerard Alberts: No, at that point I was doing interviews for my historical research. It was not so much about their collection, but on the other hand, when I visited collections the knowledge of sounds gave me an entry point into recognizing parts of certain machines. And no, the sounds are primarily related to machines from the pioneering age of the 1950's, one or two dozen.

The majority of private collections one visits is made up of machines from a whole new pioneering age, the 1970's, when people started to build micro computers into hobby computers and pc’s. Collections of these more recent micro computers are far from stable. They have been merging together.Until recently the Stichting Computermuseum in The Hague was like a beach on which many smaller collections were stranded. This ever expanding collection lacked the expertise and the funding to be really described and disclosed. It's an enormous collection, a huge pile of old equipment, which has just been moved to Apeldoorn in an effort to join forces with the Bonami games museum.

NIMk: How can one translate this to the art scene? Do the majority of computerbased artworks date from the 80's?

Gerard Alberts: Well Peter Struycken was pretty early. His earliest work with the changing light colours was from the late 60's. He was one of the pioneers, but judging from the computer art books, there were more. There were enough people working in this field to produce books.

And if you look what was done at the time, one striking phenomenon is that designers and engineers played around with the machines and were fond of making connections with the world of art. They liked making music with machines or writing programmes that would produce a composition. I have a plastic record of a violin concert composed on a machine, i.e., a programme was written to do a composition, but violin players did the execution of the composition. So people played with the machines in just about any way you can imagine. And there is a parallel tradition that has little to do with digital computers, of musicians playing around with analogue computers. Steim, with which you are no doubt familiar, has been around for a long time in The Netherlands. It is a separate tradition, because it is technologically separate, but its intent is not so different from that of working with digital computers.

NIMk: At the moment we are investigating the quantity, the number of museums and installations, and the exact definition of the problem, i.e., quality, typology and status of digitally born artworks in Dutch collections and making an inventory.5

Gerard Alberts: That's what we did about 10 years ago with computer collections. We've come quite a bit further on from then, since founding SCEN. I must say that the platform really functions very well. And by having it as a platform without the other formalities, you avoid the natural tensions that occur between professionals and amateurs. With amateurs, the private collectors, there's a tension between them which is twofold. The private collector wants to own and collect, while on the other hand, they want recognition. So there is a natural tension –or jealousy if you want to call it that – between the cultural recognition that museums get and what private collectors feel they too are due. This immediately pops up when the issue of funding a project arises. It's not so much about the money, but about the recognition and the status, which can create jealousy. In order to cope with this twofold problem, being a foundation with a platform works really well.

We're working on a transition to the latest fad in heritage world, which is creating towards a heritage community. But to do so I've warned the people of SCEN, we are bound to have to pay the consequences and find our own sponsoring. A heritage community, from the point of view of politics, is a community that no longer needs funding. That's the other point of view. One is to form a community that develops its identity around the notion of heritage, of objects of heritage. But the government is fond of this principle because to shows one's right to exist would also mean that one shows that one can generate one's own funds. Because one has this community. Which community wouldn't support it's own heritage, they would ask, what kind of community is that?

NIMk: We're looking for ways to connect people working in the institutions or museums, for instance the Stedelijk Museum, like Gert Hoogeveen, and people like Tjebbe van Tijen who has a big storage department, and is also an archivist. He used to work at the IISG, and has collected equipment and still has it stored. He's also a great enthusiast. And there are more. How can we create a platform, and find a ‘ structure’ in which we can somehow keep track of what there is still out there in terms of computerbased artworks, equipment and how to deal with obsolete equipment? On the other hand we are looking for access to knowledge on how to use the equipment or how it was used. What is the most significant or unique piece, what are the selection criteria…?

Within the museum collections of the Netherlands, the basis is formed of computer artworks from the 80's which are obsolete, replaced or declared dead. We must come up with a plan on how to deal with such a situation. Of course this is a big issue that we can't entirely solve. Our desire is to find a way to create a network or a platform combining knowledge, cases, equipment, artists, institutions and so on. Especially within the amateur/enthusiast sections within which there is so much knowledge and passion, and in the field of hacking - it would be useful to combine it all. This is why I find SCEN's approach very interesting and I'm not sure if we should do something similar or, if possible, connect with SCEN. That would be even better I think.

Gerard Alberts: This search for knowledge, and in particular the tacit knowledge of how one actually works with these machines, is my point of interest. When it comes to approaching the community as a historian, that's what I want to know.

Now let me continue on the point you made in passing, about the different areas of computers and these different styles of collecting that go with it. There is a pioneering age of the 50's and early 60's of which these two dozen machines remain. We may approach these machines individually as far as there are remnants of them and if we are lucky, we can interview some of the users. That's just about it. Then there is a next generation of what are called mini computers. We will find a DEC PDP-11 in just about every collection –highly uninteresting machines. If you talk to the owner of the machine, he will be fascinated by the capacity or by a technical feature of that machine.

Now comes the approach of SCEN, which changes the perspective. These PDP11 minicomputers played a major role in the computerization of laboratories and research institutes and at a later stage, computerization of data processing. The machines had a considerable societal impact, and SCEN set out to pinpoint this with the help of the collectors and their expertise. This is what we did: we gathered a number of collectors (private collectors and museum professionals) around the table with the pioneers of such machines. With their help we were able to designate the interesting transitions in the machines. By looking at the question in such a way, they would tell us which machines were interesting and I just kept asking why.

Well, as it turned out, within this whole range of PDP11 machines there is one type embodying the technical transition, making it appropriate for data processing as well: PDP11-45, available from 1972. You can actually trace the transition of the machine, through the places in which you can find back specimens of this very machine. From the 11-45 onwards you may find PDP11 machines in collections of the greater data factories. This interesting conclusion is reached by combining the points of view of collectors and historians. Keeping in mind that the heritage object should be significant in some way or another to Dutch history, as part of the Dutch history of automation or Dutch history in general, this machine stands out.

The interesting point for our discussion here is the innovative approach developed by SCEN. We created a roundtable situation including all the expertise available, from various backgrounds, and continued until significant conclusions were reached. Indeed, without realizing, we moved into the direction of a heritage community.

NIMk: Is SCEN also willing to do this? And to go and look for the expertise of the art from the 80’s or 90’s?

Gerard Alberts: Yes, but in a far more radical way. And that is the more substantial side of a transition to a heritage community. You can do this for a variety of reasons and call yourself a community instead of a platform. The community includes many subgroups, each with their own expertise and their own passions.

The word passion inspires me to introduce a footnote on keeping collections. I’m against dragging machines around the country. If a machine is somewhere and kept in storage at a company or in a private space, it sits there, because someone cared for it. Whatever you may create institutionally, you have to work hard to care for that machine on a level with the passionate collector who keeps it at a specific place. So before you gather old equipment parts in a central depot, think hard about what you destroy in terms of passion. Do it only if you are sure you can take with it the passionate care that people have put into looking after it. I as a historian have a keen interest in keeping such knowledge alive. So every day a man or a woman touches a certain machine is a good day for me.

NIMk: Maybe we can pay some attention to the subject of storage and maintenance, because this is one of our questions and research topics in the Obsolete Equipment project. I don’t think we’ll ever get to a central storage point and I’m not sure if it would be the best solution. I believe more in networked storage. But during all the interviews and cases we did, we were looking for storage and maintenance requirements. Did you arrive at such a thing? Do you have a protocol?

Gerard Alberts: No, there are no protocols, but there are good purposes.

NIMk: Are they written down? Could we find them?

Gerard Alberts: Not that I’m aware of.

NIMk: We have discussions about whether or not we should plug in the equipment once a year or not. All these kind of straight forward, typical discussions.

Gerard Alberts: There are, not in the Netherlands, but in the UK and US, well-documented resurrection efforts for obsolete computers. There are networks of information about specific old machines. There are all these very early machines like the relays, the clikketiclack-machines, from the 30’s and 40’s, which are relatively easy to run because they are not very sensitive compared to computerized machines. And from the 60’s also, if you isolate the power supply from the rest of the machine, you’ll be safe from the point of view of personal safety. Still, you want to reflect on what you are doing. What many people restarting a machine from the 60’s do, is replace the power supplies and capacitors. Strictly speaking, if you do that, it’s no longer a machine from the 60’s, because the insufficient and untrustworthy power supplies that these machines had were an essential part of the practice of working with them. What if a notion like “mean time between failures”, a standard expression in the 1960s, suddenly lost its meaning?

The people at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, told me their experience in reconstructing the famous “Manchester Baby Computer” – the 1948 pilot model of a stored programme computer. Negotiating the project, asking permission to purchase vacuum tubes for the contraption, they were told by the Museum's director: ‘Well, go ahead, but I don’t want to get any bills for very expensive parts over the coming decades’. So they collected what they could get on vacuum tubes. They were state-of-the-art in 1959, ten years on from the time when the original machine was built. Over these ten years the average lifetime of the vacuum tubes had considerably increased from the say 3000 hours they would have had in 1948. Given the number of tubes in your machine, you can actually count the average amount of minutes that you have before breakdown. But these very same vacuum tubes, from the very same factory ten years on were so much more reliable, that breakdown problems had vanished. So one of the essential experiences of working with these very early computers was lost, i.e., the experience that it could break at any second, and they were actually making counts of average time between failure of hardware. This is no longer relevant. So you lose an essential part of the experience of working with that machine. However good and conscious you are in making your reconstruction, you will always come up against this fact.

NIMk : Yes, you are gaining something, but losing something else which is quite significant. This relates to emulating the equipment of media artworks and all issues around how to mimic the original and document the differences.

Gerard Alberts: Indeed, I’ll finish the story about episodes and come back to the subject of emulation.There is another part we should talk about which is heritage.

As a prelude to the theme of heritage: we’re so much focussed on the technical equipment and the material remnants that we tend to overlook the rest of heritage. Heritage is formed by the material remnants of past practices. That doesn’t mean that we have to restrict ourselves to these technical components. There are other material objects: paper, etc.

Back to episodes. The problem of valuing an object presented itself differently for different episodes in history. Seemingly, for the early episode you have a sort of clear-cut problem: These are the top items, take care of them well. Which museum will accept that and say: “Ok, here are our two dozen icons from the 50’s. Done.”? With the help of these experts, we opened up our expertise and started asking questions like, ‘is there a story to it?’. This resulted in some very interesting situations.

We sent out a form to all the collectors (both professional and private collectors) asking them to fill out what kind of machines they have, what it had been used for and asked for a short biography of the machine. Now here was the difficulty. When you say “biography”, you want to know who purchased this particular machine and for what purpose, when was it used and by whom. However, the answers we got from private collectors were detailed specifications of how the machine was designed at the factory and from what date to what date the specific type had been manufactured and how many of them were produced. It never entered their mind that we wanted the biography of that specific piece of machinery. What they would give instead was a description of the production type.

NIMk: Something you would be able to get from the manufacturer?

Gerard Alberts: Yes. This misunderstanding is very significant for the conceptual problem that we are dealing with here. Like I explained before for the second episode of the minicomputers (1965-1980), we included different approaches of expertise, but we held on to the idea that there would be one consensus and one authoritative voice deciding on the value of the object. Continuing in this direction of increasingly opening up the expertise as well as the fore for a variety of inputs, it does not converge any more tino one concept belonging to one machine. Consider the next episode of micro computers, from the mid 1970s onwards. Not only do you have many perspectives on one machine, but the sheer number of different brands and different types of machine is simply overwhelming for us - it's far too much. So that gave us a good reason to leave behind the idea of one evaluating committee with one kind of expertise and one authoritative voice if there are as many stories. Every narrative of expertise….

NIMk: ...It’s a matter of consensus, of formalizing common knowledge, isn’t it?

Gerard Alberts: Yes. And in order to formalize common knowledge, you have to take away the idea of an authoritative body.

NIMk: It becomes all-inclusive.

Gerard Alberts: Yes. And this is what we are trying for the next step. We are actually in the process of laying the basis for that.

NIMk: Will the Amiga Club and the Apple Club join SCEN?

Gerard Alberts: Yes. Not as the Amiga Club, but Amiga collectors are part of our collectors and we’re trying to mobilize them and bring in the expertise from the Amiga Club. And that’s the crucial part. Are we able to mobilize not just that 10% of Amiga adherents who collect one or two pieces, or 2000? So that defines the third stage of establishing what the heritage is.

NIMk: If we take this comparison to the museums, this is exactly the point we're at now, how to mobilize them? Some museums have bought some computer-based artworks. They will have to maintain them for the next hundred years, but they don’t yet have a strategy on how to do it.

Gerard Alberts: It’s worse, they are in a crisis, because they have no clue of what to do.

NIMk: Museums are looking into conserving media artworks in the same way that they handle objects: considering what elements might belong to the artwork; if replacing parts would harm the authenticity; if together with the work the related equipment should be bought; if the equipment should be hired, can it be updated or not? What does this mean? Of course there are also, within the museum world, good practices such as DOCAM, Inside Installations and the Variable Media Network and so on, for which guidelines, decision making models and case studies are researched. In practice they are applicable to individual works and are based on conversations with individual artists. There are some clues, but no general approach and network.

So, how can such an obligation or task be met? How to select? How to handle the amount of work? NIMk, for instance, has around 100 computer-based artworks. We’ve always had a policy in which we collect the documentation and let’s say the moving image together here at our premises and the artist him/herself takes care of the equipment. That is the way we’ve dealt with it. The museums have dealt with it in a different way. Some of them have collected and dedicated certain computer equipment, included software and everything related to one specific artwork. Others have collected equipment, which they share, using them for several artworks; some don't buy equipment, etc.

Gerard Alberts: …what the heritage is supposed to be. We are running straight into this paradox. Of what it is you're actually doing when you start to emulate. You also need to take into consideration the very fact that causes all these paradoxes. It was new and people did things, stringing the pieces of equipment together that they had. Which is not only far easier to do today, but also it is very hard to reinstate what they could do at that time. I remember my children showing me a moving image on a website. That was totally new. Not the screen of the computer, not being filmed line by line, or even the conventional imaging. I wasn’t over the horror of the impact of playing DOOM yet, but they were fascinated by the 3D imaging.

Those were moments of fascination. If you zoom out, what you have to work hard to preserve is that fascination with novelty. And then you see that you want to preserve, if possible, a working copy. The fact that artists were experimenting with the same thing, or protesting against the same thing. Who are those artists again who mess up on purpose?

NIMk: Jodi, we have some of their works in collection.

Gerard Alberts: They see what’s possible and they remind us that it's all just code. They mess up the code and show you what happens, so they really are confronting us. That’s what they are trying to bring across. Zooming out is easy. If you zoom in and say ‘oh, here is this artwork; how do I preserve it?’, then you are at a loss. Because then the matter arises on how one can emulate messing up the code. I find that such a marvellous example of the paradox of reinstating a work of art. Because the work of art itself is involved in messing up. If we can solve that example, I think we can solve a lot. But you can’t solve it if you zoom out and say ‘ok, this is a piece from the 1990’s (or whatever the date is)’. The example stands for the whole category of the booming game business; for the early examples of online gaming; for the category of artists reflecting on that and throwing this reflection in your face. That is the important thing. Whatever you do, it is that experience that you should want to preserve.

NIMk: Within the Inside Installations project that was found to be an important topic. We all basically agree on this. And within all the restoration and conservation research the artwork is researched within its context. For media artworks and especially computer-based works there is a specific technical, social and critical context. Alongside this, artist interviews are common practise. Sometimes even the audience/participants are taken into account. This is also done with performances.

Gerard Alberts: There is some memory left and people can still tell you. When I interview people, I find their muscles have memories. People who saw performances in the Stedelijk Museum in the 70’s can vividly recount what aspect most shocked them then.

NIMk: This is within the realm of the documentation of interactive art and performance based art. In terms of restoration, conservation, re-enactment or reconstruction, on the other hand, the focus is more on the physical object issue.

Gerard Alberts: I must say I was totally abhorred by the idea of re-enactment in the first place. Today I admit that when it comes to software, you have to go down that lane. And you have to do a re-enactment of the software. There is a re-enactment of the hardware and it has to be done for the software as well. And now comes the tricky part. If you talk of software in the 1950’s, then I have a historical notion of it as a historian. The word came about because they wanted to describe creating such machines. People were in fact making layered programmes. The novel style of programming was of programmes making programmes, emulation, and simulation. Anyway, there are several expressions relating to the experience of what is actually being done if you want to perform preserving practices like emulation. So what do you have against emulation? Again at that point I would be inclined, as a historian, to say ‘Let’s leave it there. We zoom out, what were they actually doing?’ But I’m fascinated enough to want to keep my hands on the actual practice of emulation as well.

NIMk: The artwork has a value. An economic value as well. And to change it, to update a piece, can change the value. All these issues are of course related to each other.

Gerard Alberts: There is a final point here. Heritage is about identification. I’m trying to bring in the narrative aspect here, because the whole notion of heritage is that you can present heritage all the time –present also in the sense of presenting, making present. And in the age of “real existing post-modernism”, what can heritage mean? As a cultural historian I find it's my duty to sit back and think what can heritage mean at all in this era when we do not have any fixed identity. In this horrific prospect of looking into the history of games, this dilemma of heritage, which I described in abstract terms, stares us right in the face. There are these old games, vintage games, but can you tell which is the original? There is no trace of authenticity or identity to it. Moreover the original games are drowning amongst the multitude of emulations being marketed – often as “vintage”– today. Tell me then, with which object we would identify it and make it heritage? And to which cultural identity may it be connected? Or how could I “identify” with it? This is a serious problem. And we are not just talking about the technical notion of heritage; we are seriously rethinking it. Philosophers like Derrida help us not to fear about the whole heritage issue exploding. But it’s being put into perspective, it’s losing firm ground. That’s all fine and you can call it heritage, but you should be very much aware that it is no longer the heritage it used to be.

NIMk: Yes, and we should be really transparent about it. This idea that we emulate things and try to recreate things. In a sense it's of great importance that there be some kind of heritage. But then again, one must do it convincingly because everything is changing culturally around us by the minute. All of the experiences we are having now are influencing what we’re watching…

Gerard Alberts: Yes, and more than that, it's biting its own tail. What we appreciate in these artists so much is that they are sensitive to these fundamental motions in culture, more than others.

Philosophers like Deleuze or Derrida help us put the issue into a broader perspective. I feel that this literature should be studied in relation to the theme of heritage, even if a project like Obsolete Equipment will hardly offer the time for it. My own most intensive involvement with this literature was with Martijn Stevens in Nijmegen. He wrote his dissertation on Digital Art and its Preservation. (Radboud University, 2010)6.

NIMk: Thank you, this has given us a good overview of the things you’ve been involved in and how it relates to our research. It feels like an invitation to find people to join your camp and to see how we can go there. Even the vocabulary is similar.

Gerard Alberts: Perhaps we are talking about the heritage of the “born digital”?

Notes:

2. Jaren van berekening; toepassingsgerichte initiatieven in de Nederlandse wiskunde-beoefening, 1945 - 1960, G. Alberts. Amsterdam: AUP, 1998
3. Het meest gelezen gaatje; De ponskaarteninstallatie in de administratie (Scryption 1993/4).
4. Collectie Nederland Oude Computers, Gerard Alberts. Tilburg: Werkgroep Verzamelbeleid Computerhistorie (Scryption), 2000.
5. http://nimk.nl/nl/conservering-mediakunst-collecties
6. Martijn Stevens, Virtual Memory: Art Museums in a Digital Culture (PhD Radboud University, 2010)

Interview with Yves Bernard (iMAL)

emanuel — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:44:25 +0000

interview_tag:

slideshow

packed

iMAL, Brussels, August 19, 2010

Yves Bernard has been the manager of iMAL (interactive Media Art Laboratory), a Centre for Digital Culture and Technology in Brussels, since 1999. In 2007, iMAL started to organise exhibitions, conferences, concerts and present works of performance art and allows artists to have access to a workspace for research and experimentation for and with new technologies. As part of the Obsolete Equipment project, Emanuel Lorrain and Rony Vissers (PACKED vzw) met Yves Bernard to discuss the difficulties iMAL encountered during the Playlist exhibition that was held from the 4^th of June to the 21^st of August, which brought together a collection of works that use obsolete devices such as games consoles and computers from the eighties and nineties, often modified for artistic purposes.

PACKED: The Playlist exhibition currently held at the iMAL was also shown at LABoral 1 in Gijon in Spain. Is it the same exhibition?

Yves Bernard: No, not exactly, in consultation with the exhibition’s commissioner, Domenico Quaranta, we decided to modify it for iMAL. We have added other pieces of work and some that were too big for our premises have not been shown. For the work called VinylVideo 2 for example, we have shown only the promotional video and not the entire installation. On the other hand, we have added two works from the Jodi art collective as well as videos and prints linked to the Low res graphic and aesthetic movement 3. We have also increased the number of 8-bit music playlists 4.

PACKED: Alexei Shulgin’s 386 DX 5 is the opening piece of the exhibition. How does it work?

Yves Bernard: It operates with three or four different programs. One of them drives the monitor and the text is spoken by a synthetic voice, which comes from an old Text to speech program for Microsoft 3.1, which is what gives this strange, rasping sound and the impression that the machine is humming. Then there is a program that handles the communication between the monitor and the Text to speech 6. This work runs on an old Intel 386 DX computer 7, a machine from the late nineties. The fact that it is an old computer, a piece of antiquated technology, is very important for the work. It would be possible to install something else inside the shell of the 386 DX but for this work of art, a cathode ray tube screen is necessary.

PACKED: Did the artist provide the hardware for the exhibition?

Yves Bernard: Alexei Shulgin provided us only with the computer, and then we found the monitor.

PACKED: Was this the same for the other works?

Yves Bernard: Most of the time the artists have provided us with the equipment and when this was not the case, we were lucky enough to have the necessary equipment at the iMAL. For a work by goto80 called HT Gold 8, the Commodore 64 9 was not provided. For C=64 SYNTH 10 by Paul Slocum, which consists of a video synthesizer created for the Commodore 64, the computer was supplied but never worked properly because of a defect in the video output that made it impossible to obtain a satisfactory signal on the monitor. Several years ago, my car mechanic had given me a crate of Commodore 64s with external floppy disk drives that I had never opened until then, and we were able to show the two works thanks to these consoles. In theory, we ought to have received all of the consoles, electronic toys, etc. from LABoral, who had in turn received them from the artists. However, certain faulty NES games consoles 11 could not be repaired.

PACKED: Were these the games consoles that had been used during the exhibition at LABoral?

Yves Bernard: Yes, and they were certainly already faulty at the end of the exhibition in Gijon, as they never worked at iMAL. With this type of device, cleaning the connectors is often sufficient, but in this case the problem was different. We found spare consoles, but this didn’t always work because of the differences in standards. There are American NES games consoles and European consoles, as well as American cartridges and European cartridges, which are "of course" not compatible with each other. To read an American cartridge, we needed an American console and the solution that we found was to borrow consoles that had been modified to accept both standards from a shop in Brussels.

PACKED: These were consoles that had already been hacked?

Yves Bernard: Yes, that’s right. The world of retrogaming is a very active one, and a small industry has even been created around it. For example, one can find flash cards that cost €80, which simulate a Commodore 64 hard drive, as well as a whole range of little peripheral devices created with modern technologies. It is a market that allows one to do something else with an old Commodore 64 bought from a flea market for five or ten euros. Since finding these consoles remains relatively easy and inexpensive, there is a community of fans of these old technologies who modify and tinker with them.

PACKED: Did the problems encountered by LABoral help to anticipate problems with the exhibition at iMAL?

Yves Bernard: No, because unfortunately there was no transfer of knowledge nor any list of the problems that were encountered. This is in part due to the fact that LABoral has a very different way of creating exhibitions from our own. Their internal team is very small, and when they set up an exhibition they call on companies from their region, which leave once the inauguration is over. Then there is no one to perform maintenance on the works, which is why at LABoral certain works were no longer functional the day after the inauguration.

Here, we carry out the assembly of an exhibition ourselves and we have tried to keep the exhibition in working order for as long as possible. Despite the fact that the consoles were provided, some of them did not work, and it has sometimes been necessary to clean the contacts, for example. We always have someone on site who is capable of carrying out simple repairs. The work called Pong 12 for example, has been repaired at least ten times during the exhibition.

As well as the iMAL team, I also have a network of freelancers who contribute to the set-up. These are generally artists who themselves are good at modding and who are easy to get hold of if there is a problem with the work during the exhibition.

PACKED: Has it often been necessary to perform maintenance on the works during Playlist?

Yves Bernard: Certain art pieces have required more work than others, but this was already the case for the Holy Fire exhibition 13, during which we showed a work by Cory Arcangel that ran on a NES. The console had been kept in a paper bag for several years and when we received it, it no longer worked. After a certain amount of time, the connectors get dirty and rusty and don’t hold in place well anymore. Then one has to take a screwdriver to take apart and open the console, and adjust the connectors, etc. This is why, when holding this sort of exhibition, one has to know the frequently occurring problems that certain devices may encounter and have a minimum of knowledge of what a RF video signal14 or a composite video signal is 15, etc. And, most people will have forgotten about this in a few years time.

PACKED: Do you also have the expertise to repair the electronic components of certain works?

Yves Bernard: It is often simpler to find another second-hand computer than to try and repair a problem with the electronics. Nintendo manufactured millions of NES and the hardware is still fairly easy to find. In twenty years’ time, things will of course be different.

PACKED: Have certain works proved impossible to repair?

Yves Bernard: The Atari Falcon030 16 for the work by Dragan Espenschied 17 had a faulty power supply and I haven’t bothered buying another one, because the exhibition is almost over and it would require reinstalling all the applications onto the machine and doing this would require the right peripherals.

PACKED: Was this sort of reinstallation of applications with the original peripherals necessary at the start of the exhibition?

Yves Bernard: Yes, for one piece of art with a Commodore 64, for which the artist had sent a floppy disk 18 by mail, which was delivered damaged and unreadable. Fortunately, one of the artists contributing to the exhibition, Chantal Goret 19, is Belgian and owns a large number of Commodore 64s. From the code sent by the Internet, he was able to recreate a functional floppy disk. There is a network of artists and modders who have the necessary hardware and peripherals, and who can be called on for help in this sort of situation.

PACKED: Was showing hardware from this period also an important feature of this exhibition?

Yves Bernard: Yes, for example with the art pieces by Jodi, which were the subject of a case study within the Variable Media project 20, we really wanted to show them on the original hardware even though it is possible to run them on an emulator. It is possible to show these works with the same sound and almost the same graphics on something other than a ZX Spectrum 21, but we wanted to keep the original hardware and the grain of the video signal, which we would have lost by using an emulator.

Dirk Paesmans of the Jodi art collective had warned us that this would be quite difficult as the program is stored on an audiocassette from which one has to load the code. This only works half of the time, and the operation has to be repeated after a certain amount of time; but in the end we have encountered relatively few problems. As we approach the end of the exhibition, and it becomes tricky to start up the works every day, we no longer switch them off and in this manner we no longer have to reload the program on a daily basis.

PACKED: Did Jodi provide all of the hardware for Jet Set Willy Variations 22 ?

Yves Bernard: Yes, they provided the ZX Spectrum, the monitor and all of the other necessary equipment to set up the artwork.

PACKED: Did the artists provide their monitors for other works of art?

Yves Bernard: No, I often had to find the monitors myself. Several of them come from the art school where I teach, the ERG 23, which owned a large number of old television sets that today have been replaced by flat screens.

PACKED: Were they selected in each case depending on the period of the console or of the work of art?

Yves Bernard: Not really. However, although some are older than others, most of them are about ten years old. The important thing is for them to have cathode ray tubes and screens that are not too big.

PACKED: Do instruction manuals exist with the installation procedures for each work of art?

Yves Bernard: The instruction sheets for installing the works were given to us by LABoral, who had almost certainly written down what the artists had told them. To set up Juvenile Amplifier 24, there was no diagram or plan, and so we installed it by guesswork with help from a photograph. For certain works, the start up procedure is very simple, by simply pushing a button, whereas for others it can be fairly complicated as we have seen for the works running on ZX Spectrum, for which it is necessary to load the programs from a cassette, or from floppy disks in the case of the Commodore. To start up The 8-Bit Construction Set Atari Data by BEIGE 25, there is a complete instruction manual explaining a precise order in which to switch on the hardware, and which commands are to be typed to load the program, etc. For those art works, one had to enter the commands each morning in order for them to be up and running for the opening of the exhibition.

PACKED: Several works of the exhibition invite the audience to use the machines, which in a way makes them even more vulnerable.

Yves Bernard: Yes, it is the case for many of the works in this exhibition. For example, there are two Sega Megadrives 26 transformed into little sound/image synthesizers by Gijs Gieskes. The artist added a small control circuit with a physical interface, which he uses himself to perform and which visitors of the exhibition can also try out.

Rabato 27 transformed toys of the eighties and nineties into musical instruments, and for example turned a little spelling toy into a synthesizer, or even modified children’s synthesizers to go beyond the factory default sounds. Unlike Gijs Gieske, Rabato did not allow the audience to touch because they are fragile devices and this is why we have systematically added a video in which you can see and hear the instrument being used.

PACKED: Another piece of art in the exhibition by Gijs Gieske, Gameboy Reboot 28, plays on the very nature of the hardware, and it would be difficult to show it with anything other than the original equipment.

Yves Bernard: Indeed, it consists of two Game Boys placed side by side that are constantly rebooting in unison. However, although these are two identical devices manufactured by the same industrial process, a phase difference sets in gradually and shows that they are not quite the same.

PACKED: Other works in the exhibition consist of tailor-made electronics, such as 1-bit Symphony by Tristan Perich 29 or PONG by André Gonçalves. Are the problems encountered with this type of work of a different nature?

Yves Bernard: It is a type of artwork that is becoming more and more common today, which consists of completely autonomous electronic devices without a hard drive or any other mechanical part, but only integrated circuits and chips. The work by Tristan Perich, an artist from the Chiptune movement 30, executes music from a code on a chip. It consists of a CD case containing a processor, a battery, an on/off button, a reset button and a volume knob. Although when they arrives here from LABoral, one of the two units had a cracked case and the other had a faulty solder, this type of device has in some ways a greater life expectancy than the works using consoles, in that a faulty component can simply be replaced. In all likelihood, one will always be able to emulate a present-day chip with another chip in the future.

However, with regards to the fact that we have always been able to find spare hardware for the works operating with consoles or computers, those which are tailor-designed by the artist and consist of contemporary modding are often the ones that have caused the most problems. Certain artists create things that are not designed to be robust or durable. And yet, independently from any considerations with regards to preservation, I think that artists should attempt to create works that last.

PACKED: Did certain artists come and install their own work?

Yves Bernard: André Gonçalves came to install Pong, Jodi brought us their components and Paul Davis from BEIGE came with The 8-Bit Construction Set 31, which consists of an Atari and three turntables.

PACKED: Does the documentation provided with an artwork state that the work must be shown with the original appliances? If not, is there some other document that can be referred to in order to know what hardware should be used?

Yves Bernard: No. However, although in both cases it was the will of LABoral and iMAL to do so, I think that the artists would also prefer to show their work with the original hardware. There are no statements of intent in the documentation we receive from the artists, only purely technical indications about the device such as: “there is a floppy disk”, or “you switch it on like this”; etc. Therefore, there was no indication of how the artist wanted the work to be shown, but by talking with Jodi for example, it became clear that they liked the idea of showing the work with the original hardware whilst warning us that this would be complicated and we would have to do certain operations each day to start up the work.

I don’t think documentation with this sort of information about the hardware exists at the present time. In any case, if it does exist we didn’t receive it with the aerworks. What’s more, most of these works can run on an emulator, and so there are solutions that will allow them to be shown again. On the other hand, it will be difficult to install these art pieces in 15 years’ time in the same way on the original hardware.

PACKED: The work of art by Shulgin dates from 1998, but in the exhibition there are also more recent works dating from 2008-2009 but with a nineties feel to them. In this case, will the artist want to use a monitor from the nineties, or will a monitor from 2008 do the job?

Yves Bernard: The work by Jodi for example, has been shown several times and always in this manner. The graphic style of Jodi’s work with pixels and primary colours can easily be reproduced on a modern monitor, but for the artist it is still important to show the piece of art with this sort of television set and this is even done in a relatively implicit way. I don’t know if Paul Davis makes this a requirement, and I don’t know what he would say if someone offered to display his work on a flat screen, but for us it was clear that we wanted to use the hardware of the period, which means that we never discussed any possibility of a compromise with the artists. Everyone was in agreement, right from the start.

PACKED: Don’t you think that in five years’ time, it will no longer be possible to avoid this discussion, especially if people don’t know what a Super NES is, for example?

Yves Bernard: Yes, children who are ten today may no longer know what it is, whereas the intention today is still unspoken for most people.

PACKED: Were certain art pieces shown differently at LABoral?

Yves Bernard: Not exactly. At LABoral, certain works were shown on a TFT-LCD screen 32, which personally I didn’t really like and this is also why we used cathode ray tube screens at iMAL. For example, Eat Shit by NULLSLEEP 33 was displayed through a video projector at LABoral, whereas it was shown on an old television set at iMAL.

PACKED: Is this because with a games console plugged into a television, there is a connection with a personal and intimate universe that you don’t find in a video projection?

Yves Bernard: Yes, it changes the way people relate to the work; there is an emotional content in these old machines. In addition, the historical and educational aspect is also very important because a lot of people have forgotten or don’t understand the technical devices. For example, some visitors don’t understand that a Commodore 64 or a ZX Spectrum was not just a simple keyboard, but in fact a complete computer. Others don’t understand why there was an audio cassette player, because they don’t know that back then, programs could be loaded from this media. In such an exhibition, reminding people of this is important.

PACKED: One can therefore imagine that in the future, it will be necessary to explain the history of a certain type of technology so that the visitors can understand a work of art?

Yves Bernard: Yes, because without this, one will not get the same feel for a work. There is a huge amount of work to be done to create a resource centre on the hardware and their characteristics, etc. At iMAL, we have a room where we try to keep the old machines that people give us. A lot of people offer us things, but we have limited storage space. However, we are trying to keep several generations of Apple computers, as well as all the software and Mac OS boot disks, to allow us run old applications, CD-ROMs, etc.

PACKED: Amongst the works presented in the exhibition, are some of them part of a collection?

Yves Bernard: No, however this was the case during the Holy Fire exhibition, which was made up of only works that were part of a collection. Although Playlist does not focus on this, one could easily imagine that the art piece by Alexei Shulgin might be of interest to a private collector.

PACKED: And yet conserving it would be a challenge?

Yves Bernard: Yes, but there are different sorts of collectors; some are enthusiastic about the work and are not concerned with the durability of their investment if they really like it; and others are more cautious.

PACKED: Do you think that if a work of art is sold on the art market, this can contribute to it being conserved in a better way?

Yves Bernard: Yes, I think that this would allow it to be conserved in a better way, because if someone has recognized its value and the collector cares about it, then he will want to preserve it. The latter may however have to find an organisation capable of helping him by giving advice or providing services. The collector must also demand certain guarantees of durability when he buys the work, such as a contract that stipulates that he must obtain the source code, and perhaps spare parts.

This is what should be done during a purchase, but for the exhibition at iMAL, things were done in an extremely informal manner. The works of art are not well documented and include many variations in the way they are shown, since the artists give very few directives. This is also due to the fact that these exhibitions are still emerging, and the artists are first and foremost happy to see their work exposed. For many, whether the work is displayed on a cathode ray tube television set or on a flat screen is of no importance. However, I believe Jodi’s work is completely transformed if shown on a ZX Spectrum rather than on a recent computer with an emulator.

PACKED: Although iMAL does not collect works of art, you do have a collection of CD-ROMs of artists who also understand the problems due to the obsolescence of information technologies, and amongst others of operating systems. What are your projects for this type of work?

Yves Bernard: Our question regarding the CD-Roms is: what are we going to do with this heritage, produced mainly in the nineties, which risks disappearing too if we don’t do anything to save it? The Espace Gantner, which also owns a similar collection, displays all sorts of documents of this type thanks to emulation software. We ourselves have tested the existing ones, because unlike with installations, the physical platform is of little importance. We got some very interesting results, but certain CD-Roms have their own peculiarities that are very difficult to render with an emulator.

PACKED: In your opinion, what efforts must still be made so that such solutions can allow any application to be viewed correctly?

Yves Bernard: It would be possible to optimise these emulators if several institutions worked together to allow them to evolve. If you take SheepShaver as an example 34, which is an open source project 35, it is certain that an effort must be made by the people working on the emulators in terms of development. To create a more stable product, a framework that allows the developers to receive financial help is necessary.

I think it is also important to consider projects that deal with both the legal and technical aspects of emulation. It would be interesting to lobby the manufacturers and editors in order to solve the copyright problems with applications and technologies that no longer have any commercial value. This is the case for Apple ROMs 36 that were made 30 years ago, for example. There should even be laws for this.

Notes:

1. See: http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/
2. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/artworks/143
3. Low res is short for Low resolution, in opposition to high resolution, which means the resolution, or number of pixels per unit of distance, is low
4. 8-bit is a style of electronic music inspired by the sound of old 8-bit games consoles. 8-bit music is created using tones that evoke the technology of a period that can today be considered as “primitive” or outdated (like the sounds produced by NES, Game Boy and Atari consoles). Source: Wikipedia
5. Voir : http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/22
6. A Text-to-Speech is a software application that allows text to be converted into synthetic speech.
7. The Intel 80386 is a 32-bit CISC microprocessor manufactured by Intel. It was used in many personal computers from 1986 to 1994. Source: Wikipedia
8. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/33
9. The Commodore 64 was a 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982. It was the first machine to sell several million units (estimations vary between 17 and 25 million), and it remains the best-selling computer of all time
10. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/node/125
11. The Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, was an 8-bit games console manufactured by the Japanese company Nintendo, introduced in 1985 in North America and in 1986-1987 in Europe and Australia. Its Japanese equivalent is the Family Computer or Famicom, launched a few years previously, in 1983. Source: Wikipedia.
12. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/11
13. See: http://www.imal.org/HolyFire/
14. A term used to describe radio signals incoming to a receiver or outgoing from a radio transmitter (above 150 kHz). Even though they are not really radio signals, TV signals are also included in this category. Source: http://www.kramerav.com/
15. a video signal in which the elements of luminance and chrominance have been combined. It allows economical broadcasting of video images. Luminance and chrominance are combined by means of one of the encoding standards – PAL, NTSC et SECAM – to produce the composite video signal. The process, which is a type of analog video compression, limits the bandwidth (the quality of detail of the image) of the components. Chrominance is added to luminance by using a visually acceptable technique, but it becomes difficult or impossible however, to reverse the process (to decode) into pure luminance and chrominance. This can be a problem, in particular during postproduction
16. The Atari Falcon030 Computer System was the last computer to be produced by the Atari Corporation. Introduced in late 1992, production of the Falcon ended at the end of the following year when Atari Corp. decided to restructure in order to focus its efforts entirely on the marketing and support of its new product, the Atari Jaguar games console. Bearing the code name Sparrow, the machine was based on the Motorola 68030 main processor and had a Motorola 56000 digital signal processor, that differnciated it from most other computers of the time. Source: Wikipedia
17. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/8
18. A floppy disk is a removable storage medium for computer data, the name of which comes from the flexibility of the magnetic storage medium, as opposed to that of a hard drive. The most common sizes are 8”, 5.¼ ” and 3½”: this dimension corresponds to the diameter of the magnetic disk. Source: Wikipedia
19. See : http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/32
20. The Variable Media Initiative, is a non-traditional preservation strategy born in 1999 from the efforts of museums to preserve the multi-media works of art and performances in their collections, which later spawned the Variable Media Network (VMN). Initially supported by a grant from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal, Canada, the VMN is made up of a group institutions and international consultants, including the University of Maine, the Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archives, Franklin Furnace, Rhizome.org and the Performance Art Festival & Archives. VMN is renowned for its methodology, which seeks to define the acceptable levels of change for a work, and to provide information about the way that a sculpture, an installation or a conceptual work can be changed (or not) in order to preserve it without losing its essential nature. See: https://www.guggenheim.org/conservation/the-variable-media-initiative and http://www.variablemedia.net/
21. The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Initially called the ZX81 Colour and ZX82 during its development phase, Sinclair then named the machine the ZX Spectrum to highlight its colour display compared to the black and white one of its predecessor, the Sinclair ZX81. Le Spectrum was produced in eight different models, from the bottom of the range model with 16 kB of RAM, to the ZX Spectrum +3 released in 1987 with 128 kB of RAM and a built-in floppy disk drive; total sales of all models reached 5 millions units worldwide. Source: Wikipedia.
22. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/34
23. See: http://www.erg.be/erg/
24. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/artworks/14
25. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/artworks/155
26. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/artworks/153
27. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/artworks/152
28. See note 26.
29. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/artworks/142
30. Chiptune music, also known as Chip music, is music made from sounds that are usually synthesised in real-time, often by the chip of a computer or a vintage games console, and not based on samples or any other kind of audio recording. It is also sometimes produced by other methods such as emulation
31. See note 27.
32. An LCD, or Liquid Crystal Display, is an electronic flat panel screen which uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals (LC). LCD screens have replaced cathode ray tube (CRT) screens in most domains. They are generally more compact, lighter, more portable and cheaper
33. See: http://www.imal.org/playlist/fr/artworks/140
34. SheepShaver is an open source Apple Macintosh PowerPC emulator. By using SheepShaver (with an appropriate ROM image) it is possible to emulate a PowerPC computer, capable of running Mac operating systems OS 7.5.2 to 9.0.4. SheepShaver is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux
35. the open source classification applies to software with a licence that respects the criteria established by the l'Open Source Initiative, that is to say the possibility of free redistribution, of access to the source code and by-products. Source: Wikipedia.
36. ROM, or read-only memory is a type of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can only be modified slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware (software that is very closely tied to specific hardware, and unlikely to need frequent updates Source: Wikipedia.

Interview with Mark Hellar (Hellar LLC)

emanuel — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:59:36 +0000

interview_tag:

slideshow

packed

Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco, June 8, 2011

After a background as a Unix systems administrator, Mark Hellar became involved in the context of media art when working at the Bay Area Video Coalition1 in San Francisco and the San Francisco Art Institute2. He is currently working for the SFMOMA3 on the preservation of some of their computer-based artworks as part of the Matters in Media Art program4. One of these works is Agent Ruby5 made by Lynn Hershman Leeson in 2002 for which he tested the possibilities of virtualization as a preservation strategy for web-based works. Emanuel Lorrain (PACKED vzw) met him to talk about his background and his experience with the use of virtual machines at the SFMOMA to display artworks that are part of the collection.

1. See: http://bavc.org/
2. See: http://www.sfai.edu/
3. See: http://www.sfmoma.org/
4. See: http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/conservation/media_art
5. See: http://agentruby.sfmoma.org/

PACKED: Could you tell us about your background and how you began to work with media art in general?

Mark Hellar: My education is both training and some autodidact education. I have a humanities degree and I augmented that with evening classes. I worked in corporate IT from 1996 to 2003, where I built Linux servers. My very first IT job was to build and maintain a cluster of Unix servers. Those jobs were all very cut and dry IT work. Even if I liked them, after seven years it felt a bit mundane. As I had studied video editing in college, I applied for a scholarship for 300 hours of training at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC). There I studied video engineering and worked with software such as Avid6, Final Cut Pro7, Max MSP Jitter8, Flash9 and all the Adobe tools10.

With these new skills I found a job at the San Francisco Art Institute, in North Beach. I worked there for about five years as the manager of academic technology. This job meant that I was overseeing the digital media labs, the digital classrooms, the digital dark rooms, etc. A lot of artists in residence came there, like the Raqs collective11 from India. They had technology requests much different than the ones you get in a traditional IT setting, like setting up a sensor on a staircase so that when someone walks by, a projection plays, etc. It was out of my realm, but I found out that I was happy to work in both a creative and technological context. I really developed skills and sensibilities around that over the years.

PACKED: So that is where you applied your IT education to art for the first time?

Mark Hellar: Yes, and in this art context I really enjoyed it, because in pure IT the requests are very formulated and standardized, there is a recipe for almost everything. In the San Francisco Art Institute requests were more like “hey, I want to have an application that slows down video”. So I had to make Jitter patches, use Arduino boards12, microcontroller boards13 to set up sensors, etc. There was no formula, I just had to do it and figure it out in some really interesting ways. Later BAVC offered me a job, as they had a gigabit fiber connection to the Internet. I thought that they were really at the center of technology and that there were a lot of possibilities for artists with this infrastructure.

PACKED: Are you still working for BAVC today?

Mark Hellar: Yes, but not as an employee. I run a company called Hellar Studio’s LLC where I'm alone and through which I have a number of contracts with the Bay Area Video Coalition. I’m overseeing a lot of their broadcast systems and also taking on a lot more of their overall IT responsibilities. I worked at BAVC for a while, but I left to become the IT director of a children’s technology museum downtown where we were working on interactive exhibitions and things like that. I came back to BAVC to facilitate the move of a television station that they had taken over. It was on the other side of town. We had to move the transmitters and all the equipment. As the television station is a 24/7 operation, we had to keep a signal up without interruption.

In addition to BAVC, I have a three year contract with SFMOMA under the Matters in Media Art program where I focus solely on the preservation of digital artworks. Last year we worked on pieces such as Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Agent Ruby and Julia Sher's Predictive Engineering²14 where we used the technology of virtualization for their preservation.

PACKED: How did you first get involved with the SFMOMA and the issues related to media art preservation?

Mark Hellar: I started having conversations with SFMOMA when I worked at BAVC. In San Francisco there was also a smaller art institution called ‘New Langton Arts’ that had been around for about 30 years. They contacted me in 2008, because they had a grant sponsored by Richard Reinhard from the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley15. The grant was for a case study on John Ippolito's Variable Media Questionnaire (VMQ)16, in which a number of people like Christiane Paul17, and institutions like the Franklin Furnace18 or the Performance Archive in New York had entered works. There were different types of works, like installations, performances, etc. I assisted in entering one of the New Langton Arts'19works in the VMQ. It was my first introduction to media art preservation. I thought that what they were trying to do was interesting.

Later, Jill Sterrett, Head of Conservation and Collections, called me through a mutual introduction. From 2001-2002 there was a curator at SFMOMA named Benjamin Weil, who was interested in digital art, and they created an online gallery, the 'e.space'. There was an online exhibition with works by Julia Sher, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Mark Napier and a number of other artists, but the SFMOMA never acquired any works officially. A couple of years ago, Rudolf Frieling became the new curator for new media works and got interested in acquiring these works in a formal way. When BAVC’s preservation department was asked what they should do with Agent Ruby, the executive director referred them to me.

PACKED: Was the SFMOMA looking for a strategy in order to preserve these kind of works?

Mark Hellar: Yes, to summarize, Rudolf Frieling first asked “how do we collect this?” and then Jill Sterrett asked “how do we conserve this?”. When I first saw the work, it was on an old Redhat 520 Linux server current in 2000 running on an old PC in their basement. The work was running from this old computer with a floppy drive and PS2 ports21. It was online and had been on in their server room since the exhibition. It was still working, but it was about ten years old.

PACKED: During this period, was the work checked from time to time to see if everything was still OK?

Mark Hellar: Yes, the SFMOMA has another consultant who does the maintenance on this work. He did check it, patched it up and ran maintenance, but he thought that the museum should put it on a virtual machine. I also told Jill Sterrett that virtual machines were what everyone was doing at the moment. She answered: “well, I don’t think it’s in the realm of IT”. I said that some belongs to the realm of IT because a virtual machine has to be set up, but you can't just take the phone book and call some IT consultants to handle this. You need someone who has a little sensitivity and sensibility because this is an artwork. You need that overlap: a logical decision-making process, but also an artful understanding. These new skills are needed if a museum is going to approach this type of artwork. Agent Ruby is a website with files, a Java program, a database, and some artificial intelligence algorithms. It takes in visitor input, runs that against the database, responds to the visitor, collects info, etc. There is a physical object, but the actual object itself is not solely physical, it is also software.

PACKED: Had the museum made any backup at the time?

Mark Hellar: There were some backups and other things, but I just took a copy of the whole drive. I was afraid that the hard drive was going to stop working. So I took an image of that machine, started looking through it and then created a virtual machine.

PACKED: Did you use VMware22to create the virtual machine?

Mark Hellar: Yes, I used VMware because the IT department at SFMOMA has a very good infrastructure and already runs VMware. They have multiple servers, and there is a sandbox23 in there. There are virtual machines running asset management databases, the e-mail servers, and hosting all the storage. I think they have around 20 to 30 terabytes of storage in their sandbox. As their infrastructure was very robust, I just made a VMware image, tuned it and tested it. VMware images are just files. So I could simply run and launch them on this infrastructure. The number one priority was to get it safe and in a stable environment. Then there are other advantages of using virtualization. It is cheap and portable, and in the future, ‘New Langton Arts’ for instance might just be a small gallery of software art that you could launch as an archive on Amazon's cloud24.

PACKED: Agent Ruby is a web-based work where the hardware, this PC with a Linux system, is just a carrier. Is it also why it was easily portable to a virtual machine, because the hardware isn't particularly important for the work?

Mark Hellar: We had a long interview with the artist Lynn Hershman Leeson about the work to ask her what was OK to do and what was not. Before that, the sensibility to this kind of work had not been communicated to the IT team. So when they found the computer, they just asked themselves “what is this thing sitting in our vault”?

PACKED: Do you plan to have other digital works from the SFMOMA collection on this infrastructure?

Mark Hellar: Yes, and that was the case before. Different independent works were on this old computer and if one went out of control or got hacked, it could take down the whole thing. Now there are several virtual machines. Basically, if something goes nuts on one thing, it is not going to take down the whole server anymore, because there are several virtual machines. I could for instance take Julia Shers’ work, as all it requires is a web server it is just made out of flash files. Agent Ruby is more complex, as it requires a database and a Java virtual machine25.

PACKED: What kind of database is Agent Ruby using, what is it used for?

Mark Hellar: It is actually made of several XML files26. It is not a true database like mySQL27 for instance. Agent Ruby wasn’t able to take snapshots over time, but as you interact with the work it collects little bits of information and keeps a file on you. All its XML files slightly change over the years. When I started working on it, there were 8 gigabytes of conversation logs dating back from 1999 until now. Rudolf Frieling, the curator, was really excited by the fact that he has a record of the public interacting with the work. Most of the time it is something you don't have.

PACKED: Do these logs allow one to have an overview of the evolution of the work?

Mark Hellar: Yes, and if they had had virtual machines back then and if a snapshot had been taken every year, they could run all the works together and compare how the Agent Ruby of 2000 and the one of 2010 answer the same question. There would probably be a difference based on, for instance, what happened in the meantime: the Iraq war, the hurricane Katrina, etc.

PACKED: So virtual machines can also be used to document works that are growing and changing?

Mark Hellar: Yes, and Agent Ruby does change. Lynn Hershman describes it as a learning machine. It is learning and even if it is not as robust as you would think it is, there are still 8 gigabytes of logs. It is interesting to consider going forward when you get a more complex work like this one. I think we are at a good place. If we get a work created today, let's say an Agent Ruby created with today's technology, we have the possibility of taking a snapshot every year.

A clone or a sandbox also allows for a working environment where one can take a clone of a work and research its parts or really look at what is on this server without affecting the original. We could test upgrading a lot more easily by having it on just one machine. Agent Ruby was in Java 1.1, which should have been deprecated. As the museum had the Java source code, we were able to recompile it in Java 1.4. to have it compliant and secured. This procedure was done with a clone and not the original. But at the same time what is the original in the context of digital artworks? Is that an issue that you can clone these works? Those are questions as well.

PACKED: Is taking snapshots of Agent Ruby something that the SFMOMA is now considering?

Mark Hellar: I gave the collection team a schedule of things to do: monthly, every 6 months, and yearly. We also talked about maintenance cycles for the work. It is always on display. Because it is a public facing work, you will know when there is trouble with it.

PACKED: Were there any problems upgrading the work to a newer Java version?

Mark Hellar: I had to make a few minor tweaks on the configuration files, but it wasn't too bad. I was able to do it in the virtual machine that I created. I also kept records.

PACKED: Is the version that is currently on display the tweaked clone running in a virtual machine?

Mark Hellar: Yes, it is running on a VMware ESX server right now. There is also a Palm28 version that you can still download and I asked them if we should try to resurrect it as well. We could get an old Palm on eBay, load it up, try to get the source code out of it and port it over to something else.

PACKED: You mean making an iPhone application out of Agent Ruby for instance?

Mark Hellar: Yes, an Android or iPhone version, something like that. It is a conversation that we could have in the future.

PACKED: At the moment of acquisition did the SFMOMA only get the compiled Flash application from the artist, the SWF?

Mark Hellar: Yes, the museum only got the compiled Flash. They didn't get the .FLA file. That became an issue when I had to update Lynn Hershman Leeson’s old AOL email address in the application to her latest one. I talked about that with one of her initial technicians and asked him if I could run a Flash decompiler on the file.

PACKED: So what you did was decompile the SWF file29 to get the source code? Didn't the artist or her technicians have the FLA file at all?

Mark Hellar: No, they didn't have the source file. That is why using a decompiler was the only way I could do these simple tweaks here and there, like changing the e-mail address. Actually, the interface is made of three different Flash files. There were some FLA files on the computer, but it wasn’t like the entire source tree with all the source codes and everything. Luckily, the ActionScript is pretty minimal, so I was able to decompile the SWF file successfully.

When I went through the server, I found a ton of things: some Java code, 3D models and different versions of the flash interface. As they were building the work, the Flash interface was totally different. DiNA, another work by Lynn Hershman, has a similar backend to Agent Ruby, but with a 3D avatar where the lips move on the frontend. A 3D model of Ruby existed. So there was this sort of archeological den. The server didn't only contain the final work. It was more like being in a studio.

PACKED: How does the ActionScript30 communicate with the Java program in Agent Ruby?

Mark Hellar: A config. file31 allows for the dialogue between the Java program and the flash interface. The Java program is running in the background and has its own web server called jetty. It is a Java webserver. The interface is actually sending and receiving data from the port 2001; for instance the ActionScript says "parse this and send it to port 2001", etc. It is a call-response type of behavior.

PACKED: Did you ever talk to the person who made the Flash application and the Java program?

Mark Hellar: I did have access to the artists' technician and we were able to interview him. We did no have access to the original programmers. Aslo there were a short amount of programmer’s notes that outlined what the Java program was and how it communicated on this port. There was a config. file to change this port. So you wouldn't need to go back to the .FLA file.

PACKED: Did the SFMOMA try to get the source files?

Mark Hellar: Yes, this came up. I explained to them that they needed to get the source code. I also explained to them what decompiling was when I had to decompile Julia Sher's project. I told them: "decompiling is like having a house and taking all of the material and putting it in neat piles so that you can then conceptualize a design change, and rebuild it. If you can’t compile it because you don’t have the source code, you can’t do that." Fortunately with Flash you can decompile the application.

PACKED: Are these questions part of the interview you have with the artists?

Mark Hellar: Yes, we have conversations with the artists at this juncture. In the case of Agent Ruby, we were able to ask the artist a lot of things, as she is still alive. If you ask Agent Ruby for instance “who is the president?”, it answers George W. Bush. So I asked Lynn Hershman Leeson if we could update it so it says Barack Obama. Her answer was “No, you can’t do that, this is Ruby’s intelligence and how it has evolved and not evolved.". Then I asked if we could upgrade the source code and recompile it to Java 1.4 and she answered "Yes". If I did not do it, I would leave it up to the world and it is a security thing.

PACKED: Was the security risk the reason why you updated the Java?

Mark Hellar: Yes, because the work is facing the world all the time. The archival virtual machine with the old Java 1.1. still exists. The museum can put that file in cold storage in their sandbox or on their LTO tapes, and look at it later in a hundred years or so and figure out how to put it on their operating system of the time.

PACKED: In your presentation of the Agent Ruby case during the DOCAM Summit you mentioned 'disaster preparedness'. Could you explain what it encompasses?

Mark Hellar: That was kind of my IT hat (laughs). To give an example, the VMware server has this type of thing where it keeps a clone of your virtual machine at any time. So you can tell him to cut over to your clone if you can’t ping this server within 30 milliseconds. Because they are just files, you wouldn’t need to run in, install a new server, set it up, move the files and plug it in. Instead I can have these hot copies. It is really typical in a high availability infrastructure like Microsoft or IBM mail servers where, if it is acting up, it could be corruption. So there is a copy constantly shadowed. Of course, I may hear about a problem with Agent Ruby after a certain amount of time. However, that is what I meant by 'disaster preparedness'. That is good, because it is an artwork, which in a museum should have the same value as any sculpture or painting for instance.

PACKED: When the work came to the SFMOMA for the exhibition, was it already shown from the server located in the museum?

Mark Hellar: I think it was always on that server.

PACKED: What about the domain name? Is it something the SFMOMA also acquired?

Mark Hellar: There was a domain name: agentruby.com pointing to the server of the SFMOMA. The museum had it, but it got jacked when it expired. Someone else grabbed it and now wants around 500$ to sell it back. The museum might buy it. For now, it is accessible through http://agentruby.sfmoma.org/. It was a good conversation to have because with web-based works the domain name is important. It became another thing to add to my checklist.

Next year, we are going to work on Learning To Love You More32, a work by Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July. It is a PHP website and the domain name problem has already come up. I told them to do the transfer ownership and then to pay maybe for ten years. That is something that is not technically challenging.

PACKED: Which limitations or shortcomings have you encountered using virtualization?

Mark Hellar: One challenge is the snapshots. If you take snapshots of Agent Ruby, it uses about three gigabytes, but then there is a problem to have it stored by the IT department. Another question is: how many snapshots do you want? I said "let’s take one every month". In reality, storing the snapshots is not a huge issue because storage is so cheap. It also keeps getting cheaper.

PACKED: Wouldn't the question “how frequently should snapshots be archived” be answered differently for each work?

Mark Hellar: Yes, it is particular to a work. In Agent Ruby, there is for instance this ever-changing chat log. I guess that you could just backup the logs, but there are other things that are changing too, like the database that she uses to chat with the user. On the contrary, I worked on a piece by Julia Sher. It was made in Flash, where you don’t want anything to change and you want to checksum the files so that they are the same every time, etc. For a work like Agent Ruby snapshots are important. It would be the same for a lot of web works that you can see for instance on Rhizome33 which pull data and aggregate things from the Internet. For static works one or two snapshots might be enough. These are questions that should be asked in the technical examination of the work.

PACKED: What is your feeling for the future of all these works using external data from Google, Yahoo, Flickr, Facebook, etc. or even the works located in a virtual world like Second Life?

Mark Hellar: I once talked to someone who was thinking about how to archive virtual worlds. I was thinking “good luck with that one”, because there is a whole Second Life server farm for instance. What can you do? Clone the models, reverse engineer the script and just put all this on your own single server somewhere? Yes, that is a little challenging. For some of these works, you may look at your tools again, take a snapshot of it, make a local database, but then let it run, call out your maintenance protocols, keep looking at Flickr for instance, change your API34 in two years or whatever when Flickr gets acquired by someone else for instance. But do you change it over? It's a good question. In my opinion, you should collect the data for as long as you can, but it will be hard to keep these works running forever just because of the nature of the data streams.

PACKED: So you would have some kind of living document that you can use?

Mark Hellar: Yes, so that people can get a sense of what the work was, but you should try to keep it online as long as possible. However, artists can have different opinions about that too.

PACKED: Until now you only worked on web-based art, but you will also work on other type of computer based artworks for the SFMOMA. Can virtualization be used as a general approach for a collection?

Mark Hellar: I was at SFMOMA the other day and we were talking with Bill Fontana about his piece Sonic Shadows, which used a Max/MSP patch running on a Macintosh. In addition he had a whole set of electronics and accelerometers. He had placed them in various locations in the steam room to catch subtle vibrations. The work then piped the analogue signals from the accelerometers into this Max/MSP patch, which went to these amplifiers and speakers in the atrium. The Max/MSP patches controlled the servomotors, making the speakers pan and tilt. We met the artist and talked about what we would do with Agent Ruby. He then wondered how they would show his work in a hundred of years, if they acquired it. It is a challenge for a work with Max/MSP. Cycling7435, the software editor, is a very small company here in San Francisco and we don't know how much time they will be around. After Miller Puckette developed it, Opcode Systems36 acquired it. Now Cycling74 runs it and maintains it. That shows how things change. The same happened with Flash.

PACKED: Couldn't the applications made with Max/MSP run in a virtual machine?

Mark Hellar: They could, but there are also a lot of hardware components in this work: the accelerometers, the thin custom speakers made of Mylar that cost about 2000 dollars, etc. Virtualization sounds like a magic word. It is for some things of course, but it is not going to work for the hardware. So I told the museum and the artist that we needed to make schematics for the electronics.

PACKED: Even before getting to the problems that hardware might have, could there be any communication issues between the applications and the hardware components through a virtual machine?

Mark Hellar: On VMware, I can see all my serial ports, USB ports. I can for instance program my Arduino from a virtual machine. But if you use a virtual machine in ten years, will it be able to communicate with a serial device? If it doesn't use USB anymore but Thunderbolt instead, will it work? That is a good question. I don’t know. You could probably figure something out, but that is a real question. With artworks like that, you should spell out a prescription and build a maintenance protocol when you virtualize your first generation. For instance: in two years check exactly this, whether there are still USB ports? etc. I don’t think you can ever consider that you are good for a hundred years.

PACKED: Does the documentation of these works at SFMOMA include regular maintenance?

Mark Hellar: Yes, Jill Sterrett is very solid about the documentation. So we have something called maintenance protocols as part of it together with the file and everything from the keystone information, the technical narratives, what has been done, what should be done, etc.

PACKED: How often are such maintenance protocols processed?

Mark Hellar: For Agent Ruby, it is something like every month, six months, one year, two years. Then we check back before that two years period is up in order to extend or amend the maintenance protocols if we find anything over that period. I also think that it is crucial to make notes for the next group of people that are going to do this later, like passing along a list of things to consider and that they would update. It is in fact very similar to a video transcription form or a SIP form with transfers and technicians’ notes, checksum data and regular maintenance schedules. Establishing a sensibility around that is key.

PACKED: In the case of Agent Ruby, what does this maintenance protocol include?

Mark Hellar: For Agent Ruby, it mainly consists of checking the version of Java, patching the latest version of Ubuntu, how to do it, … It is real IT, but it is specific to the parts of Agent Ruby. Maybe that is not enough because now when I think about the question of hardware, will it still be possible to send this RS-232 protocol37 over the new port through the virtual machine? I’m glad that we are talking about the hardware, because so far we only had software. Hardware is a whole different ground. With all these custom parts in electronic installations, it is very challenging now.

Maybe we should look at FPGA38 that are kind of virtual machines for electronics. I’m nowhere near that, but someone made a whole Commodore 64 with these FPGA’s. It is a chip with which she created a Commodore 6439 emulator, but in hardware not in software. You have to use VHDL40 programming to use it, you lay out a circuit, upload it, and then it becomes your virtual machine but on a hardware level. I imagine that someday you may be able to use that to preserve hardware-based installations as it is pretty much a virtual machine for electronics.

PACKED: To be in the best possible situation, what guidelines for acquisition should be followed? What should a museum ask for when it buys the work?

Mark Hellar: Agent Ruby was already acquired, but I’m doing this kind of guideline this year for SFMOMA's Architecture and Design Department. They've got H26441 and Divx42 files. What I told them is that they should go back to the creators and ask for uncompressed formats, or files with a lossless compression for archival copies. I did a presentation on Codecs at the SFMOMA. I showed different levels of compression starting from an uncompressed format, to convince them that they should go for the least compressed files (or uncompressed if possible), and a display copy like H264. They are now integrating it into their acquisition’s process. So we are working on that. For the software, I recommend getting the source code and being aware that platforms such as Flash are tied to a company that may not be around forever. I try to bring these sensibilities.

Packed: Is this done during the technical examination of the work?

Mark Hellar: The examination template of the work is not purely technical; it also describes the work and what it does. You should use whatever tools you have to examine the work carefully: all the parts, the files, the electronics. You should add everything useful in the documentation: the PDF of an Arduino if there is one, the data sheet for some esoteric sensors, the technical instructions of the programmer, etc. The documentation should explain how all the parts work together, maybe by making some sort of schematics. I know that not everyone has the time to do that, but to really collect these works you have to find new skills in order to do so.

Packed: This was also based on the interview that you had with the artist.

Mark Hellar: Yes, Jill Sterrett, Rudolf and I had a long interview with Lynn Hershman Leeson and her technician. That was very important, because the artist was saying at that point in time “sure you can upgrade the Java, but you can’t change the database entries”. So we felt that was very important. As the artist is alive, we keep having interviews every time there is a migration or major upgrade or change. So we have that body of records with the interviews. In a hundred years you can refer to that artist's intent. It is not perfect, but as long as you have that interview, it is very valuable.

PACKED: When you receive a work on a computer where everything is working and might work for ten years, wouldn’t it be a useful procedure from a documentation point of view to take a similar computer and install the same operating system, the same software and run the work to see if anything changes? Even when you install the same operating system or application there are many options that you can choose to have or not.

Mark Hellar: Yes, to know what you want to have and what you don't want to have as well. That is a very good question. I guess you need to know what the system requirements are, but for Agent Ruby, as it is Java it could run anywhere. I installed a new Ubuntu Linux with support for the next five years and I only put Apache, Java and a few other bits onto it to have a very elegant Linux server. When you install an OS, you can choose that you don’t want the German language for instance or Microsoft Paint or whatever. We decided to have a very elegant Linux installation.

If you can get the system requirements from the artist on how to install this from scratch on a new system, I would recommend that. Unfortunately, it may not be that easy to get that from the artist. If you can’t do so and you have already acquired the work, VMware has the P2V tool. With this tool, you can take a physical machine and turn it into a virtual machine. Then if you make sure that everything works, you can check every configuration and have an extensive technical narrative. With Agent Ruby, we broke down every single part to see what is required and how it works together. We now have a very clear understanding of that.

The P2V is not perfect, but it is a good tool. Everyone has his/her tools, for instance a stone conservator has a set of tools. It is important to know the tools that are available to our field and to build a skill set. I’m sure there will be new media conservation programs in universities soon, but there is not so much at the moment. So all we have right now is these artists willing to let us take on their works to see what the right tools for conservation are and share such knowledge.

PACKED: Agreements made with the artist at the acquisition level could also be important. So that part of the preservation work is prior to the work entering the collection?

Mark Hellar: Yes, you want to get as much information as you can and getting the source code is really influent. I was talking to Richard Reinhardt about some compiled C43 files for Windows 95 and he said “I need the source code” but the artist did not have the source code. He still acquired it, and maybe if he can't decompile it, he can run it on a virtual machine forever. It could be an example of him taking his tool, the virtual machine, to be able to display the work.

PACKED: Even for less complex works, it is often a problem acquiring the skills needed in-house. How do you think a museum could try to manage the different kinds of knowledge and skills needed for digital artworks that often include many different technological layers? From Java to Arduino or Flash, the range of knowledge that one needs to have is very wide. What sort of knowledge should museums be looking for?

Mark Hellar: Yes, sometimes they can seem like really esoteric technologies (laughs). I think you have to apply the following MIT Media Lab philosophy: "when you don’t know it, you learn it". At SFMOMA, we are creating a model to at least cover the works of the collections. In museums there is a need for such a new sets of skills. How to get them might be a question that museums have to ask themselves. I think a lot of them are already asking themselves. If we are going to acquire this type of work, what do we need? We’re seeing new programs that are addressing the digital, but there is a need now. I think museums need to ask themselves what kind of skills they need and how to acquire them.

PACKED: If museums don't acquire such skills, the knowledge could be lost because only a few people are interested in learning old things like component electronics or how to program with ActionScript 1 for instance. For some it wouldn't make sense to go backwards.

Mark Hellar:Yes, or understand how a Pascal44 program worked. At the same time digging is fun and exciting, but of course it takes a lot of time. For sure, some don't want to go backwards with the old Pascal files or find an old Palm Pilot on eBay. (Laughs)

PACKED: Would you also recommend acquiring software related to the file? If you acquire a work made in Flash, should you also buy a Flash 5 installer or a license for Max/MSP for instance?

Mark Hellar: What would be good, but we are not there yet, would be to have a database between institutions and do a survey of the old works of new media that they are collecting and the software parts that are required. With something like a central database or a central record of each work, its technical narrative etc., you could work out what tools are needed. Then you could have a central repository, but I don’t know if it would ever work.

PACKED: You could also run into trouble with licensing and rights issues.

Mark Hellar: Yes, putting together your own archive of software wouldn't be easy. I’m hoping archive.org will take care of a large part of that. I saw that they started archiving software like video game patches, open source applications of the nineties like Winrar, Hotdog professional, a sort of Dreamweaver predecessor,… Then of course there could be licensing issues based on the tools you choose, for instance QuickTime versus Flash versus Ogg vorbis or webM. I had to make such decisions for the work of an artist which I did in Processing and Java, in order to get the source code. If I had done it in MAX/MSP, I could have given him the source code, but if Max/MSP ever folds, would they be able to run it? Probably they’d have to run it on a virtual machine, but then they could get lag or something. To avoid licensing and rights issues, I try to use open source solutions as much as possible.

PACKED: That is what you would do in the case in which you help an artist to develop the work, but then when you receive a piece that was not made with open source but all proprietary software? For video, for example, you could say I'm going to digitize all my Digibeta tapes to MJPEG2000 and MXF in order to be open source, but would you do the same for computer art and go from MAX/MSP to Pure Data for conservation purposes?

Mark Hellar: Those are very good questions. I think they should be discussed with the artist as well. Fortunately, with the works of the SFMOMA, the artists are still alive. So we can keep up a dialogue with them, but they are not going to be around forever. I, for instance, think that we should convert the Flash files to HTML5, at least as an experiment. Adobe is developing a tool to convert Flash to HTML5, but I haven’t tried their beta version yet. I attended a conference on Flash versus HTML5. There are a lot of things that HTML5 doesn’t do yet, specifically with sound. We are talking about converting Julia Sher's piece to HTML5, but I’ve been hearing that they didn’t put a lot of emphasis on the sound features. HTML5 is not the ultimate solution yet, but I think we are going to try it out.

PACKED: Did you ever experience sound problems when using VMware?

Mark Hellar: I haven’t dealt with sound that much other than through a Flash file coming out of a web interface. Most of the works I've worked on have been web-based. So I don't have a virtual machine with a MAX/MSP patch for instance, but I imagine that the sound drivers could be a problem.

PACKED: It seems that some people have experienced delays.

Mark Hellar: Yes, there could be a delay because the sound has to go through the host and the hypervisor before the virtual machine. I imagine that it may improve, because even if virtualization has been around for a long time, it was probably about 1996 that the current sort of virtualization tools like VMware, Virtual Box, or Xen environment appeared. There is a huge drive behind it now. Amazon ec2, Google cloud and all these businesses are running a whole infrastructure of Virtual Machines.

PACKED: Going from Flash to HTML5 is a migration type of preservation strategy. On the contrary, by using a virtual machine, you don't have to use a different format to the one used to create the work. Were you concerned about that aspect?

Mark Hellar: Yes, and for this type of work it is great, because you can have a virtual machine running your Atari 40045 with the work made in Pascal and keep running it on modern hardware.

PACKED: With technologies like virtualization or the HTML5 standard, what is your feeling about the development in the realm of digital artworks preservation?

Mark Hellar: It is evolving at this hyper rapid pace. I hope that it will be an advantage for this type of work. But at the same time, the drive for virtualization solutions is web facing things and server based, not so much client and multimedia based. So it may also not evolve in the direction needed by the media art preservation field. It is what it is. These technologies are very beneficial for conservation, but they are driven by business. The culture of technology at large is obsolescence, but we are now taking this same virtual product and using it for posterity. We'll see how it goes.

Notes:

6. Avid Technology, Inc. is an American company specializing in video and audio production technology; specifically, digital non-linear editing (NLE) systems, management and distribution services. It was created in 1987 and became a publicly traded company in 1993. Avid is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts. Avid products are now used in the television and video industry to create television shows, feature films, and commercials. Media Composer, a professional software-based non-linear editing system is Avid's flagship product. Source: Wikipedia.
7. Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors. The software allows users to log and transfer video onto a hard drive (internal or external), where it can be edited, processed, and output to a wide variety of formats. Source: Wikipedia.
8. Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. During its 20-year history, it has been widely used by composers, performers, software designers, researchers, and artists for creating innovative recordings, performances, and installations. Max was originally written by Miller Puckette as the Patcher editor for the Macintosh at IRCAM in the mid-1980s to give composers access to an authoring system for interactive computer music. It was first used in a piano and computer piece called Pluton (written by Philippe Manoury in 1988), synchronizing the computer to the piano and controlling a Sogitec 4X, which performed the audio processing. In 1989, IRCAM developed and maintained a concurrent version of Max ported to the IRCAM Signal Processing Workstation for the NeXT (and later SGI and Linux), called Max/FTS (FTS standing for "Faster Than Sound", and being analogous to a forerunner to MSP enhanced by a hardware DSP board on the computer). In 1989, it was licensed by IRCAM to Opcode Systems, which sold a commercial version of the program in 1990 called Max (developed and extended by David Zicarelli). As the software was never a perfect fit for Opcode Systems, the company ceased active development on it in the mid-90s. The current commercial version of Max has since been distributed by Zicarelli's company, Cycling '74 (founded in 1997), since 1999. Miller Puckette released an entirely re-designed free software program in 1996 called Pd (short for "Pure Data"), which, despite a number of fundamental differences from the IRCAM original, is superficially very similar and remains an open-source alternative to Max/MSP. In the meantime, Cycling '74 developed their own set of extensions for video. A major package for Max/MSP called Jitter was released in 2003, providing real-time video, 3-D, and matrix processing capability. Source: Wikipedia.
9. Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast. More recently, it has been positioned as a tool for "Rich Internet Applications" ("RIAs"). Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text, drawings, and still images. It supports bidirectional streaming of audio and video, and it can capture user input via mouse, keyboard, microphone, and camera. Flash contains an object-oriented language called ActionScript and supports automation via the JavaScript Flash language (JSFL). Source: Wikipedia.
10. Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American multinational computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. The company has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more-recent foray towards rich Internet application software development. Source: Wikipedia.
11. http://www.raqsmediacollective.net/
12. Arduino is a popular open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR processor and on-board input/output support. The software consists of a standard programming language compiler and the boot loader that runs on the board. Source: Wikipedia.
13. A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal computers or other general purpose applications. Source: Wikipedia.
14. See: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2008.231
15. http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/
16. http://www.variablemedia.net/e/welcome.html
17. Christiane Paul is a scholar in the field of digital art and an historian of art and technology. She is Professor of Visual Arts at The New School and author of the seminal book Digital Art. Dr. Paul has previously taught in the MFA computer arts department at the School of Visual Arts in New York (1999–2008); the Digital+Media Department of the Rhode Island School of Design (2005–08); the San Francisco Art Institute and the Center of New Media at the University of California at Berkeley (2008). Source: Wikipedia.
18. See: http://www.franklinfurnace.org/
19. New Langton Arts was a not-for-profit arts organization focusing on contemporary art founded in 1975 in San Francisco, California. New Langton Arts’ history is closely tied to the emergence of new art forms in the ‘70s—performance and time-based art, video and installation, improvised and electronic music, and experimental writing. Source: Wikipedia.
20. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64. All of Red Hat's official support and training and the Red Hat Certification Program center around the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is often abbreviated to RHEL, although this is not an official designation. (Source: Wikipedia).
21. The PS/2 connector is a 6-pin Mini-DIN connector used for connecting some keyboards and mice to a PC compatible computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987.
22. VMware, Inc. is a company providing virtualization software, founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. Source: Wikipedia.
23. In computer security, a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs. It is often used to execute untested code, or untrusted programs from unverified third-parties, suppliers, untrusted users and untrusted websites. The sandbox typically provides a tightly-controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as scratch space on disk and memory. Network access, the ability to inspect the host system or read from input devices are usually disallowed or heavily restricted. In this sense, sandboxes are a specific example of virtualization. Source: Wikipedia.
24. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of remote computing services (also called web services) that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com. The most central and well-known of these services are Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. Source: Wikipedia.
25. A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine capable of executing Java bytecode. It is the code execution component of the Java software platform. Source: Wikipedia.
26. Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards. Source: Wikipedia.
27. MySQL is the world's most used relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. The MySQL development project has made its source code available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as under a variety of proprietary agreements. MySQL was owned and sponsored by a single for-profit firm, the Swedish company MySQL AB, now owned by Oracle Corporation. Source: Wikipedia.
28. Palm handhelds were Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) which ran the Palm OS. Source: Wikipedia.
29. SWF is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript. Originating with FutureWave Software, then transferred to Macromedia, and then coming under the control of Adobe, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function. Currently, SWF is the dominant format for displaying "animated" vector graphics on the Web. It may also be used for programs, commonly browser games, using ActionScript. Source: Wikipedia.
30. ActionScript is an object-oriented language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (now owned by Adobe Systems). It is a dialect of ECMAScript (meaning it is a superset of the syntax and semantics of the language more widely known as JavaScript), and is used primarily for the development of websites and software targeting the Adobe Flash Player platform, used on Web pages in the form of embedded SWF files. Source: Wikipedia.
31. In computing, configuration files, or config files configure the initial settings for some computer programs. They are used for user applications, server processes and operating system settings. The files are often written in ASCII (rarely UTF-8) and line-oriented, with lines terminated by a newline or carriage return/line feed pair, depending on the operating system. They may be considered a simple database. Source: Wikipedia
32. See: learningtoloveyoumore.com/
33. See: http://rhizome.org/
34. An application programming interface (API) is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other. An API may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and variables. Source: Wikipedia.
35. See: http://cycling74.com/
36. Opcode Systems, Inc. was founded in 1985 by Dave Oppenheim and based in and around Palo Alto, California, USA. Opcode produced MIDI sequencing software for the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows, which would later include digital audio capabilities, as well as audio and MIDI hardware interfaces. Opcode's MIDIMAC sequencer, launched in 1986, was the first commercially available MIDI sequencer for the Macintosh computer and one of the first commercially-available music sequencers on any commercial computer platform. Source: Wikipedia.
37. An RS-232 port was once a standard feature of a personal computer for connections to modems, printers, mice, data storage, un-interruptible power supplies, and other peripheral devices. However, the limited transmission speed, relatively large voltage swing, and large standard connectors motivated development of the universal serial bus which has displaced RS-232 from most of its peripheral interface roles. Many modern personal computers have no RS-232 ports and must use an external converter to connect to older peripherals. Some RS-232 devices are still found especially in industrial machines or scientific instruments. SOurce: Wikipedia.
38. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by the customer or designer after manufacturing—hence "field-programmable". The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware description language (HDL), similar to that used for an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) (circuit diagrams were previously used to specify the configuration, as they were for ASICs, but this is increasingly rare). FPGAs can be used to implement any logical function that an ASIC could perform. The ability to update the functionality after shipping, partial re-configuration of a portion of the design and the low non-recurring engineering costs relative to an ASIC design (notwithstanding the generally higher unit cost), offer advantages for many applications. Source: Wikipedia.
39. The Commodore 64 was an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. During the C64's lifetime, sales totalled between 12.5 and 17 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. Source: Wikipedia.
40. VHDL (VHSIC hardware description language) is a hardware description language used in electronic design automation to describe digital and mixed-signal systems such as field-programmable gate arrays and integrated circuits. Source: Wikipedia.
41. H.264 is a digital video compression codec for high definition images and video using the MPEG-4 standard, developed by the VCRG (Video Coding Experts Group) in partnership with the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), also known as AVC (Advanced Video Coding). Source: Wikipedia.
42. DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc.), including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.
43. C is one of the most widely used programming languages of all time and there are very few computer architectures for which a C compiler does not exist. C has greatly influenced many other popular programming languages, most notably C++, which began as an extension to C. Source: Wikipedia.
44. Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring. Source: Wikipedia.
45. The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips. Over the following decade several versions of the same basic design were released, including the original Atari 400 and 800 and their successors, the XL and XE series of computers. Overall, the Atari 8-bit computer line was a commercial success, selling two million units through its major production run between late 1979 and mid-1985, a total of around 4 million units.

Interview with Mathieu Charreyre (WDA)

rony — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:06:23 +0000

interview_tag:

slideshow

packed

WDA head office, Paris, May 7, 2011

Mathieu Charreyre founded the WDA association with two friends since childhood in 1996, with the ambition of creating France’s first information technology heritage museum. Today, the WDA’s collection includes several hundred computers, game consoles, calculators, games and programs from the 1970s to the present day. Over time, the WDA and its members have developed a wide range of activities and services based on their experience of restoring and repairing computers. Emanuel Lorrain (PACKED vzw) met Mathieu Charreyre to learn how the WDA manages the preservation and repair of their devices. During the interview, Mathieu Charreyre was briefly joined by Olivier Lippmann, a member of the WDA since 2009, and who has provided the association with his help and knowledge in the field of electronics.

PACKED: Could you tell us about your career and the birth of this collection?

Mathieu Charreyre: I am self-taught and I have been working in the field of information technology since I was 15, starting as a salesman in a computer shop in Paris. At that time, information technology was a world of enthusiasts and I met a lot of people who went on to become important figures in what would later be the sector of French-speaking Internet. In 1995, I worked for the first public Internet service provider in France: CalvaCom, then in 1996, I was the 20th employee of the company: Club Internet, which then had only been in activity for two months. I worked there from 1996 to 2001, first as a technician and then ending up as the manager of the Call Centre’s computer network. At the same time, I created the WDA association in 1996 that was initially based on a private collection that I had started with two of my childhood friends in 1988. By means of the WDA, I successively created two companies, in 2001 and 2005, that weren’t really a success. Today, a third ersatz of a commercial project; a service company based upon the knowledge of the members and on the resources of the WDA, is about to be set up. However, we want the heart of the WDA to remain voluntary and all these projects are aimed at supporting the unpaid voluntary activities of the association.

PACKED: Where is the WDA situated in the landscape of computer collections?

Mathieu Charreyre: In France, there are four major collectors with an associative status: Aconit1 in Grenoble, Silicium2 in Toulouse, and MO53 and WDA in Paris. Despite being younger, the MO5 association is better known to the general public than WDA. Aconit aims to become a true foundation, and possesses a major collection of electromechanical objects: these are very large computers.

PACKED: Are there connections between these different collections?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, there are some connections and the WDA is for example both a partner and a member of the Aconit. Since 2009 I’ve been trying to create what I call the “European Network for the Sustainability of Digital Heritage & of Collections”, in partnership with the CNAM4, the BNF5, the CNRS6, the Cité des Sciences7, the Bolo8 Museum in Switzerland and a number of other persons and associations. The idea behind this network is to try to unite all the collectors, whether they are private individuals, professionals or non-profit organisations like our own, so that everyone can specialise and excel in his own field.

PACKED: What do you imply by “to specialise”?

Mathieu Charreyre: I mean that everyone must emphasize their own particular know-how. One of the problems with the WDA is that its collection has become too generic, and this is why we regularly cut down on the size of the collection. In 2007, we had more than 900 pieces, and now we are down to 600 pieces, because we are trying to keep only the pieces that will be of real historic importance in the future. All of these collections and associations should cooperate and work intelligently. This is why the WDA pays annual membership fees to all these different associations. I launched the network so that even the personal collections of enthusiasts who don’t see the value of their collection can be connected. Someone who has gathered a collection over a period of several years may find that they have splendid pieces, which are impossible to find today. When these private collectors stop collecting for one reason or another, the network must act like a sort of safety net to avoid these pieces being thrown away. Instead, it will be possible to redistribute them inside the network.

PACKED: How did you start collecting?

Mathieu Charreyre: Like all the other nostalgic thirty-something collectors of today, we started buying the devices we wanted but could not afford when we were children. We started by buying what we could find on flea markets, even if it was in poor condition, and then we swapped these for machines that were more recent or in better condition. Sometimes, when this was possible, we would merge two machines to obtain one good one, whilst trying to respect the serial number and trying not to separate a machine from its box. We wanted the machine to have the same serial number and the motherboard9 to have the same date in the serial number.

After a while, we ended up getting all the machines we wanted and the collection was then going in too many different directions. In a bit of a compulsive manner we found ourselves with almost the entire Apple collection in 2007, which meant more than 130 different pieces. Then it appeared to us that it was useless to keep certain pieces that weren’t really of interest. We had almost every model and we decided to concentrate on the real innovations and important technical changes, and forget the modifications that were more of a response to the commercial factors of the time.

PACKED: Apart from direct purchase, how do you get all this equipment?

Mathieu Charreyre: In France, companies generate a lot of digital waste and because of this, they are subject to being fined. To these companies, we offer an attractive alternative; they give us their waste and we keep the parts that interest us. All the rest gets sent to what we call the « junk room ». These types of donation arrive four to five times per week and we turn down about the same amount. This can also be an advantage for their accounts, because it is considered to be a donation to a non-profit organisation. A number of private individuals also bring us pieces and it is often them who bring us the most interesting pieces, and in the best condition. Very quickly, we realised that rather than visiting second-hand traders where the dealers were already making lots of money by selling any old thing, we simply had to be patient. Three months ago, an eighty year old lady came in to bring us a great number of new games consoles still wrapped, which had never been opened, including a completely new Nintendo NES10, a number of Game and Watch11 and still more new consoles and Olivetti12 computers. All these machines were in perfect condition and I was really curious to find out where they had come from. In fact, she and her husband had played all the competitions they’d come across in magazines for 20 years, and they would often win and there was a room in their house dedicated to prizes from magazines: television sets, cameras, etc. For sixteen years now, we have been well known as a non-profit organisation, and people are starting to realise that we take care of these items, and that when they are brought here they are in good hands. It is also the last free and voluntary junk service in the region around Paris.

PACKED: Is this why you have to refuse certain offers of equipment?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, because our offer to companies and to individuals is to recover their computer equipment, whatever this may be, in exchange for a signed piece of paper including the serial numbers of the machines testifying that they made a donation to the association. In the 1990s, this system allowed us to obtain some beautiful pieces from companies, but since 2000 we recover almost entirely “disposable” equipment, which is of no use to us at all.

PACKED: How do you handle these multiple deposits that are of no use to the collection?

Mathieu Charreyre: Less than 1% of the equipment we receive goes to the tip. This is possible thanks to the partnerships and exchanges with other collectors that we’ve known for nearly 20 years. When it involves old items and I have a double, we will try to do a swap. All the pieces that have no historical value and that are considered to be disposable are given away. If it is very recent equipment, that is to say less than five years old, it will be restored by the volunteers of the association in exchange for financial compensation. This compensation represents between 40 to 60% of its generally quoted value. Any equipment that is of historical value will be refurbished according to WDA standards and offered to other collectors for exchange. We do not sell collectors items, as we do not wish to outbid the prices practiced by certain dealers.

PACKED: Which machines do you consider to be “disposable”?

Mathieu Charreyre: The term “disposable” is not necessarily derogatory; it designates the equipment that from the WDA’s perspective is of no particular interest, because it is part of a commercially mass-produced series. They are neither rare pieces, nor are they of any historical interest. For example, the Optiplex by Dell13 that we received recently are machines that, after just one year, could be found in all companies, whilst making a fortune for Dell. However, it is not the first model of its kind, and it is of no interest to us. What’s more, these computers use plastic, aluminium and electronics that are very low-grade. It’s this type of computer that we will quickly refurbish and pass on so we can receive other donations. It is essential for the WDA that the donation/refurbishing process be completed quickly. First of all, we check if the machine works and if it doesn’t work we recover certain parts.

PACKED: Are computers such as the iMac G314, which were also very popular, also considered to be disposable?

Mathieu Charreyre: In 2007, we possessed almost the entire Apple range, including these iMac G3s in “5-flavors”, that is to say in all the different colours in which they were sold. After a cut in the Apple collection, we decided to keep only the Bondi-Blue, which was the first model in this translucent iMac G3 series. There is such a large number of models, which differ only by the capacity of their hard-drive or their colour, and the logistics that would have to be deployed in order to try and freeze and preserve each one of these machines would be too great, especially with cathode ray tubes. Cathode ray tubes are very complicated things to preserve. For the Amstrad computers for instance, instead of having the same monitor in as many examples as there were different Amstrads, we keep only one of each model compatible with several generations of computers.

PACKED: So you do not keep one monitor for each base unit?

Mathieu Charreyre: No, we have neither the time nor the space to do that. It also depends on the machine to which the screen corresponds. Recently, we received a Micral15, which is a very beautiful piece for our collection. We received the original monitor at the same time, and we are going to preserve the set. Unfortunately, we do not have enough room to keep two examples of each monitor. Out of the 600 pieces we preserve, the monitors are not even counted because they are considered to be accessories, just like keyboards or mouse devices. For the WDA, a collection piece is a machine: a calculator, a games console, a computer or a telephone. For the monitors, we simply try and keep the one that is in the best condition and can be preserved for longest. At the present time, CRT monitors are a major issue, because it is very complicated to freeze them. For the WDA, the machine is often more interesting than the monitor, and this determines our priorities. If the machine has to work for a test, I think that it will always be possible to emulate or to recover the video signal to re-display it on more recent monitors or with different displays that will exist in the future. However, even for the computers, we still have choices to make

PACKED: What steps do you take to slow the deterioration of the tubes?

Mathieu Charreyre: We discharge the tube so that there isno longer an electric current in it.

PACKED: How do you store the documentation related to the equipment?

Mathieu Charreyre: The association has a local server that stores digital copies of all the electronic and wiring diagrams that we have on paper, as well as all the documentation that we recover directly in digital form from the web.

PACKED: Do you have a virtual library for the documentation?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, we keep both the digital and paper versions. For the collection, we want to keep the object as it was when it was sold with all the original elements. This includes the box and the manuals, if they were provided with the machine. For Alice computers made by Matra16 for example, we preserve the device with all the technical and electronic diagrams that were supplied with the machine as standard.

PACKED: So you preserve the machine in the state in which it was sold?

Mathieu Charreyre:Yes, and we neither add nor remove anything. For example, Oric Atmos17 computers would start up as soon as they were plugged in, and had to be unplugged to switch them off. Later on, a little switch placed between the Oric Atmos and the power supply was offered as an option, although the computer was still delivered without this as standard. Despite the fact that we have recovered several of these switches thanks to the CEO18, we do not preserve them with the computers. Unlike the manuals, they are preserved separately.

PACKED: So, the computers are always stored in their original packaging?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, and we avoid stacking the boxes one on top of another because they can sometimes be fragile. In the case of the Matra Alice, for both the 32 and the 90, it is the French cartoonist Moebius19 who designed the computers and the graphic style of the documentation. The boxes in which these computers were sold were sort of red suitcases similar to the cases in which Hilti sold their screw guns. These are sturdy boxes, but because there is a drawing by Moebius on them, we have covered them to protect them and avoid any scratches. The resin used to make the box is not of very good quality and so we have wrapped it in cellophane to slow its decomposition as much as possible.

PACKED: Which types of services does the WDA carry out for other collections or persons?

Mathieu Charreyre: Mainly restoration. In 2007 for example, in collaboration with the Aconit, we restored some machines for a commercial for Renault. The Aconit provided the equipment and we provided our know-how in the restoration of materials, because since 2005, we have carried out a large number of non-aggressive restoration tests on plastics, polymers and other resins used in the manufacturing of equipment. We use products that we have tested on a selection of plastics and resins over a period of more than ten years. As a consequence, I sometimes do auditing and restoration of certain private collections. Certain other computer collectors have implemented de-yellowing processes that are very aggressive on the plastics and accelerate their deterioration in two or three years. The plastic recovers its whiteness, but it becomes so porous and fragile that it then breaks very easily. I think that you have to be able to accept that unfortunately, certain plastic surfaces will yellow a bit. It is the case for Amstrad20 monitors that have always been manufactured out of low-grade plastic. Of course, you should restore them when you can, but it is important that this doesn’t reduce their life expectancy. What we try to do at the WDA is to freeze them in time as much as possible to avoid having to intervene afterwards.

PACKED: Do you also have techniques to “isolate” the electronics?

Mathieu Charreyre: When a machine is taken into the collection, whether it’s a computer, a games console, a calculator or a telephone, we immediately isolate everything that can be considered to be flammable such as capacitors or batteries. The objective is always to try and freeze the machines in time.

PACKED: What does to “isolate” a component in a computer signify?

Mathieu Charreyre: In the case of capacitors, this means unsoldering them and for batteries, this means removing them entirely and storing them separately in an airtight package. The goal is to remove any electrical activity from the device to protect it from any premature ageing of the components. In this manner for example, you avoid alkaline battery leaks that can cause terrible damage by attacking the plastic of the machines. About ten years ago, we lost some very beautiful pieces because of this. A leaky capacitor can also have catastrophic consequences, if the liquid attacks the resin of the PCBs21. Depending on the type of resin, the plastic will then become porous, rubbery or change colour, etc…

PACKED: Does all the equipment go through this process of isolating the components?

Mathieu Charreyre: Certain types of equipment are less problematic such as calculators and mobile phones, for example. However, at the same time we have had problems with old liquid crystal displays that leaked. Each time, we must think of solutions to avoid this type of thing, but it is often on an ad hoc basis, there is no standardised approach. We try and freeze the machine as much as possible, and when the device must be used, we will re-solder the components to put it back into working order.

PACKED: There are a lot of capacitors in a computer; which ones do you remove?

Mathieu Charreyre: The ones that are most likely to be faulty, for example all those that are linked to the regulation of the voltage of the different electronic components of the computer. They always keep a little bit of power in them and present a potential risk. Amongst these, accumulators are the most dangerous, that is to say batteries and rechargeable storage batteries, including the ones that are soldered onto the motherboard. A battery that is not used and left inside a machine will start to leak in less than ten years, whatever the conditions of storage.

PACKED: Have you also developed strategies for the metal parts of the computers?

Mathieu Charreyre: We have worked on different processes for metal and iron oxide such as the removal of rust. This is something we have worked on with the Aconit, because it is a major problem with their collection. Our collection includes mainly items made of plastic in that the oldest ones date back to the early 1970s. The Aconit, on the other hand, collects items, some of which were produced in the 1950s and 1960s. But the IBM PS/122 for example is made only of metal and this is also the case for the IBM PCs of the 1980s. These are machines that weigh 30 kilos and rust loves this kind of metal and becomes one of the main problems. Each time, for metals as for plastics, we carry out tests.

PACKED: What other types of problems do you encounter?

Mathieu Charreyre: There are also problems with mechanical parts because in the large disc players, there are belts made of rubber that becomes porous. For this, there isn’t really any solution unfortunately. The WDA has a large collection of modems, some of which work with membranes, because these were acoustically coupled modems working by means of modulation. These acoustic membranes, which were used to reduce ambient noise, were made of rubber. Whenever possible, we try to preserve them by storing them almost in a vacuum.

PACKED: Does this mean that you remove the belts from the machines?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, because otherwise there is a risk that they might disintegrate. We try to find two or three other belts that will be compatible even if these are not originals, and to this aim reference lists are very useful. We wrap all the belts in cellophane and they are put away in the box with the machine. Within the network of collections, we used to be partners of an association called CPC Hardware. This association had developed real expertise in the domain of electromechanical restoration of Amstrad CPCs: the electronics, the floppy disc drives and cassette players… They had recovered the references for the different models and evolutions of the Amstrad CPC and bought large quantities of belts from a factory in Germany, which made these with the right tension and the right length, despite not being originally intended for Amstrad computers.

PACKED: Are associations such as this what you consider to be specialists?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, just as the European Oric Committee (CEO) specialises in Oric computers. There are three Oric computers in all: the Oric Atmos, the Oric-1 and the Oric Telestrat. The members of the CEO are experts on these computers; they are between fifty and sixty years old and they know them perfectly. They have an electronics engineer called Jean Boileau, and each time one of our Orics needs to be maintained, we entrust him with it rather than tinkering with it ourselves. He unsolders each component and tests them one by one. He unsolders certain chips and adds a rack so they can later be removed much more easily. He will unsolder any chips or EPROMs and add a rack to them so they can be plugged into the card more easily. The CEO has modified all of our Orics in this manner, and all of the chips can be isolated, including those that hold the ROM. We prefer to entrust them to specialists, based on the idea of a network.

PACKED: Apart from these associations, are there also governmental initiatives with which you collaborate?

Mathieu Charreyre: We have attended several of the meetings held by the curators of digital heritage of the CNAM as guests to express our point of view. The issue that was raised was how to be sure that the equipment preserved in the basement of the CNAM will be in the same condition in 50 years. My opinion is that not only will we never be sure, but also we can be sure that it won’t be. Then, the BNF (National Library of France) approached the WDA as part of the project they called ‘the acquisition of video cultural heritage’. This involves all kinds of software: programs, games, drivers, etc, which we regularly supply them with for all kinds of platforms and on all kinds of media, whether these are cassettes, tapes or CDs, etc. The BNF sends us request lists on which we base our work. The BNF works to very strict standards and wishes to preserve absolutely everything, including the anti-copy protections, etc. Vincent Joguin, who was president of the Aconit, developed Disk2FDI23, a program that allows media from different platforms to be recovered: Apple, Amiga, etc. and to create from this an archive containing the data. Like its name implies, Disk2FDI creates files in FDI format. It’s a program that has been approved by the BNF and we own a complete licence, which is very useful to us, although we do use other programs so that we are not dependent of a single standard.

PACKED: It is a program that allows data from different media to be recovered?

Mathieu Charreyre: It is a rather complex and restrictive software and hardware platform in the sense that you need a machine of a certain type and there are rules that must be respected so that the data can be saved. We have set up a standard machine that allows us to recover data from about twenty different media. These FDI Rips were thought out to be as sustainable and as portable as possible. Vincent Joguin was closely involved with questions of sustainability and he is a collaborator of the European project KEEP24 of which the BNF and the CNAM amongst others are participants, and which aims to create a portable emulation core. The idea of this core is to make existing emulators and future emulation solutions as durable as possible. However, the initial data remains essential and it is important to take care of it, because floppy disks,audiocassettes as well as other types of tape become faulty very quickly.

PACKED: Is the transfer and recovery of data from legacy storage media a service offered by the WDA?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, three weeks ago for example, we recovered some data that was stored on SyQuest 44Mo25 disks. We possess more than 200 different drives, and this is something we are asked to do more and more frequently. However, there are media such as certain 8” disks that are very complicated to transfer, because there are several different 8” drives and also because, depending on the platform used - whether it is Datamaster26 or something else – the sectors are formatted differently. Adjusting this takes a long time.

PACKED: Does the WDA often participate in exhibitions by lending equipment?

Mathieu Charreyre: In 2007 we were able to produce an exhibition called L'Homme Nomade at the town hall of Boulogne, which included just under 130 items. Generally speaking, we do not do exhibitions if our demands cannot be fulfilled. For example, having PVC of sufficient thickness to protect the machines against ultraviolet rays, and having no direct sunlight on the computers, or having the machines arranged at a certain distance from the audience so that people cannot touch them, etc. Unfortunately, it is rarely possible for all of these conditions to be met and in this case, I pass on these requests for exhibitions to other collectors who might be interested. The idea of the WDA has always been to work in a durable way. We haven’t been collecting machines for the past twenty years just to see them cease working in ten years time.

PACKED: If a museum has a problem with a device, can they contact the WDA to obtain a machine, spare parts, or assistance in repairing a faulty appliance?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, the WDA offers maintenance services for private individuals and for companies. As well as our collection, we possess millions of spare parts for a great variety of equipment. Thanks to the experience we have acquired over time, we are starting to realise that 60% of the time, such or such a defect is the most common on a given machine. For example, on a particular generation of iMac G527, well-known failures are the capacitors of what is called the VRM (Voltage Regulator Module). In the same way, each device has its Achilles’ heel and for our collection we have set up strategies for preventive conservation. For example, the Silicon Graphics O228 has a very fragile CD slot and we remove it from all the units that we conserve. On the other hand, faulty capacitors such as those of the iMac G5 are simply removed because we consider them as interchangeable components.

PACKED: Certain technicians have a tendency to think that it is preferable to switch equipment on from time to time, notably to keep the capacitors in good condition?

Mathieu Charreyre: Yes, there are indeed several schools of thought, but I would think that if an object is inert and that all that is in some way “alive” in the object is removed, then this inertness will allow it to be preserved for longer. Capacitors are considered to be consumables, so I prefer to remove them to be sure. By default, we do not trust the capacitors, although we keep the originals once they have been removed. The capacitors are not rare components, apart from the very big ones; they are always easy to find. In the meantime, we isolate the capacitors from the machines simply to avoid them ageing inside the device and seriously deteriorating it. Manufacturing plays an important role in the ageing of components. We recently received a stock of computers from an insurance company that had bought machines assembled in China with no brand. The computers were only 5 to 7 years old and all the capacitors on the motherboards were faulty. In a similar computer sold by Dell at around the same time, the capacitors were often still in perfect condition, whereas these ones had literally exploded. Olivier Lippmann: Chemical capacitors are the components that are the most prone to having their characteristics degrade over time. Indeed, inside, there is a sort of liquid or acid gel, and with time this product ends up slowly evaporating, as the rubber seal through which the terminals protrude is no longer airtight. In the worst case, the liquid may leak and corrode the components situated around it or attack the tracks of the circuit board. Even without being used, a capacitor bought new and stored in the right conditions will have problems after about thirty years. There are also dry capacitors consisting of an insulator placed between two sheets of aluminium. This is soaked in a resin and is normally completely inert. Over a period of several decades, this resin ends up losing its qualities and depending on the function and location of the capacitor, you might face major damage caused by the explosion of the component. For a tutorial on the WDA forum, I repaired a power supply and on the photos you can clearly see that the capacitor has split and burst open.

PACKED: Can applying voltage help it last longer?

Olivier Lippmann: It all depends on the way in which it is used, but I would think that the more voltage and electric current flowing through a component, the more it will suffer and age more quickly. This is particularly true when this type of component is used in switched-mode power supplies.

PACKED: Are capacitors the most unstable components?

Olivier Lippmann: Yes, in particular when they are used in environments with high power and/or high frequencies (video, power supplies, emitters, etc.). By comparison, a resistor changes little, as it is simply made of carbon or metal film. However, after a certain number of hours of use, even the resistors that have an impressive life span will wear out if they are used under high voltage or intensity, this is the case in switched-mode power supplies – that is to say all power supplies today – which are small but submitted to very high power. There are high peaks in the electric current and voltage, which end up wearing the component prematurely. In poor-quality power supplies, 1 to 2W resistors are used whereas they require a capability of 5W. They work for six months and end up burning and cutting out. As for PCBs, it greatly depends on the way in which they were built. Old PCBs or transistors, if they are stored in dry conditions and without static electricity, can be preserved for a long time. On the other hand, I have already seen rusty terminals in certain second rate circuits of low-cost manufacture.

PACKED: After a certain amount of time, the components lose their stability, as it were?

Olivier Lippmann: Yes, indeed. To begin with, the component is designed to deal with a certain voltage or a certain current. Over time, it loses its original characteristics and endures an ever lower amount of power, and then it eventually burns out.

Mathieu Charreyre: As I was saying earlier, each device has its Achilles’ heel, and to improve our knowledge of these, we organise reviewing sessions. It was in organising one for Apple IIs29 that we noticed, for example, that there was a problem with the power supplies.

Olivier Lippmann: When we plugged in the screens, they would work for a short time then suddenly, a bit of smoke would appear and the fuses would trip. Systematically, a capacitor of the power supply would stop working because of the intense current running through it. It is a well-known and recurrent problem of Apple IIc monitors, which were built by a subcontractor that had used components that didn’t respect certain standards. In the best case it trips the mains, and in the worst case it burns.

PACKED: Could one say that the smaller and denser the electronics become, the harder it is to retain the stability within a device?

Olivier Lippmann: Indeed, the smaller the components and circuits are, the harder it becomes to manufacture them and the less tolerant they are. Another consequence of miniaturisation is that all the electronic components are much closer to each other. Twenty years ago, a capacitor with the same specifications was four times the size of the same capacitor manufactured today. It is the same for PCBs; in thirty years the transistor count of integrated circuits has gone from a few thousand transistors to several hundred million in the same space! As a consequence, the power required to supply these circuits is also on the increase and today it is almost essential to allow for meticulously designed cooling systems, without which the circuits would only work for a few more seconds before burning out. Today, manufacturing an integrated circuit is top-flight chemistry because the distances between the elements are tiny: just a few nanometres. A processor manufactured thirty years ago and preserved in the right conditions will probably work with no problems in thirty years’ time, whereas a processor built today and preserved in similar conditions; I wouldn’t bet my life on it. There are metals that interact with each other and a large number of chemical phenomena that take place. If we compare this with the automobile industry, a car built 50 years ago was heavier and was less spacious, but it was more robust or, in any case, very easily repaired. Today, a car will hardly run for three or four years without any problems. One of the reasons for this is that there are a lot more electronics in a modern car and a car is subjected to conditions of humidity, of hot and cold that repeatedly cause thermal and mechanical shocks that subject the components to high stresses.

PACKED: Do microchips also change over time? Can the information they contain disappear?

Mathieu Charreyre:Up to now, we have observed that the life expectancy of the chips is fairly good. It is rare for us to have machines in which the ROM30 no longer works. It happens, but it’s rare. Because this type of component is vulnerable to light as well as certain electromagnetic currents, we have dumps, which are Rips of these ROM we preserve. What’s more, the chip itself can be replaced by another, as long as the capacity and the dimensions are identical. If you download the dump to it, it will work; the chip is just a storage device, just like a floppy disk.

PACKED: Some of the problems that electronic equipment encounters would seem to be linked to the conditions of storage. Where and how are your machines stored?

Mathieu Charreyre: Between our various outbuildings, we have a total of 230m3 of storage, shared between different locations. Some are in the South of France, and certain machines are distributed between the different members of the association. The storage places are also selected depending on the immediate need we may have for spare parts. These places must not be too dry, but above all they must not be damp and it is of course essential that they are weatherproof. Good ventilation is important and ideally, all the parts should be placed next to each other without touching, but this requires a lot of space.

PACKED: How is the collection referenced?

Mathieu Charreyre: The website and the association’s cataloguing are done in PHP31MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Depending on the type of use, it is open source or proprietary. It is one of the most widely used database management systems in the world, both by private individuals (mainly for web applications) and by professionals, and it competes with Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. Source: Wikipedia.with a MySQL32 database, including the forum. For each entry, there are several fields: type, category, inventory number, condition, identity of the donator, if it is a swap, etc. The number and the type of fields depend on the category in which the item is, depending on if it is a games console, a processor, a computer, a program, a game, etc. Some of these fields are visible externally when you visit the WDA website, others are not.

PACKED: What type of information is not made public?

Mathieu Charreyre: The “restoration”, “maintenance” and “cleaning” fields for example, because they include the brand names of products we use, which are only available internally for the association’s members. You would also find the date at which a treatment was started, finished and in what way; for example: treating rust on the screws, unfinished reassembly or a swap of ports, etc. This can allow us to know if the plastic has been damaged due to a certain treatment, amongst other things. However, other information is available regarding the restoration of the machines. For example, the “acquisition” field regroups the photos of the notable donations that are made to us, that is to say those that contain interesting objects. I reuse these photos to compare their condition before and after restoration. There are also links between certain machines in the database and the forum if it contains an interesting relevant resource. For example, when a restoration work has been done, I find that it is interesting to link the description and the corresponding discussion in the forum to the device’s page.

PACKED: This is one way of preserving the WDA’s knowledge. In what other ways do you preserve this knowledge?

Mathieu Charreyre: I have not yet tackled the question of knowledge as an issue of utmost importance for the WDA, considering that I’m only 35 years old, but it’s true that we will have to think about this. From time to time, we have interns, which we teach certain things, which allows some of our experience to be passed on. I do also record interviews of certain collectors with my dictaphone. For the time being, this documentation is not very organised, these are simply audio files that are stored on the association’s server. For example, I did this for a TRS-8033 collector and for someone close to the Fédération des Équipes Bull34, to whom I asked several questions. These individuals are starting to become old, and it would be a shame if their know-how, their anecdotes, and what they can tell us about the history surrounding a machine were not well documented.

Notes:

1. See: http://www.aconit.org/spip/
2. See: http://www.silicium.org
3. See: http://www.mo5.com
4. See: http://www.cnam.fr
5. See: http://www.bnf.fr
6. See: http://www.cnrs.fr
7. See: http://www.cite-sciences.fr
8. See: http://www.bolo.ch
9. The motherboard is a central element in the architecture of a computer made up of printed circuits and connectors used to interconnect all of the other components such as the processor, the RAM, peripherals, the hard drive.
10. The Nintendo Entertainment System (also abbreviated as NES or simply called Nintendo) is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987. Its Japanese equivalent is the Family Computer or Famicom, released a few years earlier, in 1983. Once the best-selling gaming console of its time, the NES helped revitalize the US video game industry following the video game crash of 1983, and set the standard for subsequent consoles of its generation, from game design (the first modern platform game, Super Mario Bros., was the first video game to justify the purchase of the console by itself, being a killer game) to development procedures. The NES is also the first console for which Nintendo licensed third-party developers. Source: Wikipedia.
11. Game & Watch is a line of handheld electronic games produced by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991; they also feature a clock and an alarm. Source: Wikipedia.
12. Olivetti S.P.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines. The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. Source: Wikipedia.
13. Dell Optiplex is the line of professional desktop computers sold by Dell. Source: Wikipedia.
14. The iMac G3 is the first model of iMac, a family of all-in-one computers designed and manufactured by Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer, Inc). The iMac G3 combines in one single enclosure a 15” screen and the system unit. Originally released in blue known as Bondi blue, it later became available in other colours. The iMac is shipped with a keyboard and mouse in matching tints. Source: Wikipedia.
15. Micral is a series of microcomputers produced by the French company Réalisation d'Études Électroniques (R2E), beginning with the Micral N in early 1973. Source: Wikipedia.
16. Alice is a home computer manufactured by the French company Matra-Hachette, with sales beginning in 1983. It is a clone of a home computer made by the American firm Tandy, the MC-10. Source: Wikipedia.
17. The Oric Atmos was the successor of the Oric 1 and had almost the same features. Its main difference with the Oric 1 was the keyboard and the debugged ROM (the ORIC 1 had several bugs). Although improved, the loading process from tape was still very uncertain. The real mechanical keyboard was really better. Two versions were available, with 16 or 48 KB of RAM. 16 KB version couldn't be upgraded, very few of them were sold. Source: http://www.old-computers.com.
18. CEO is an acronym for the Club Europe Oric (European Oric Club). See: http://www.oric.org
19. Mœbius is the pseudonym of Jean Giraud, a comic and storyboard artist of French comic books. Source: Wikipedia.
20. Amstrad is an electronics company created by Alan Michael Sugar in the United Kingdom, and based in Brentwood, Essex, in England. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar TRADing. In the 1980s, the company launched a popular line of personal computers, Amstrad CPC, in the United Kingdom, in France and in Germany, as well as the range of professional computers, Amstrad PCW, which was mainly used as a word processor under the CP/M operating system. The company evolved over time and later produced a range of cheap personal computers running under MS-DOS, the first of which was the Amstrad PC-1512. Source: Wikipedia.
21. A printed circuit board, or PCB, is a base, usually a board, allowing a group of electronic components to be electrically interconnected, in the aim of creating a complex electronic circuit. It is also known as the electronics card. It is made up of an assembly of one or more thin layers of copper separated by a non-conductive material. The layers of copper are etched by a chemical process to obtain a number of tracks, ending with pads. The printed circuit is often coated with a layer of coloured varnish, which protects the tracks against corrosion and the possibility of a short circuit. The tracks electrically connect different areas of the printed circuit board. The pads, once drilled through, create an electrical link, either between the components soldered through the circuit board, or through the different layers of copper. In certain cases, the pads are not drilled through but are used to solder certain components to the surface of the board. Source: Wikipedia.
22. The IBM PS/1 was a brand for a line of personal computers and was IBM's return to the home market in 1990, five years after the IBM PCjr. It was replaced by the IBM Aptiva in September 1994. Source: Wikipedia.
23. Disk2FDI is a shareware utility running under DOS to create Formatted Disk Image (FDI) files from actual floppy disks. See: http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi
24. See: http://www.keep.eu/keep/
25. (SyQuest Technology, Inc., Fremont, CA) A manufacturer of removable disk drives, founded in 1982 by Syed Iftikar (Sy's Quest). It originally made 3.9" drives for the military and introduced its first 5.25" drive in 1986, essentially pioneering the removable, hard disk industry for personal computers. Its drives became de facto standards in the graphics arts and printing industries with more than a million units sold by 1994. SyQuest subsequently introduced several new drives, all of which were incompatible with its first- generation drives and each other. Source: Wikipedia.
26. The System/23 Datamaster (Model 5322) was announced by IBM in July 1981, only one month before the IBM PC. The Datamaster was an all-in-one computer with text-mode CRT display, keyboard, processor, memory, and two 8-inch floppy disk drives all contained in one cabinet. Source: Wikipedia.
27. The iMac G5 was a series of desktop Macintosh computers designed and built by Apple Inc. using the PowerPC chip architecture. It was the last line of iMac computers that used a PowerPC chip, making it the last of the iMacs that could run Mac OS 9 (Classic) applications. Source: Wikipedia.
28. The SGI O2 is the entry-level workstation of the Silicon Graphics line, manufactured from1997 to 2001. The SGI O2 is recognizable thanks to its blue casing with a rounded shape. On the rear panel, there is a slot for the motherboard and 4 slots for peripherals. On the front panel, there is a CD-ROM drive and the audio connectors are on the side. Designed for professional use in graphics, it is equipped with a powerful graphics card, and it is possible to upgrade it with a card for video capture. The SGI O2 has no floppy disk drive. Source: Wikipedia.
29. The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977. It is the first model in a series of computers, which were produced until Apple IIe production ceased in November 1993. Source: Wikipedia.
30. Read-only memory (ROM) is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware (software that is very closely tied to specific hardware, and unlikely to need frequent updates). Source: Wikipedia.
31. PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for Web development to produce dynamic Web pages. It is among one of the first developed server-side scripting languages to be embedded into an HTML source document, rather than calling an external file to process data. Ultimately, the code is interpreted by a Web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the resulting Web page. Source: Wikipedia.
32. MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Depending on the type of use, it is open source or proprietary. It is one of the most widely used database management systems in the world, both by private individuals (mainly for web applications) and by professionals, and it competes with Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. Source: Wikipedia.
33. The TRS-80 is a home computer manufactured by Tandy RadioShack. Source: Wikipedia.
34. See: http://www.feb-patrimoine.com

Case study report: Straggling (1995/2009, Christiaan Bastiaans)

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:14:33 +0000

Artist: Christiaan Bastiaans

Title: Straggling

Year of creation: 1995/2009

Type of artwork: Video installation

Collection: Kröller-Müller Museum (KMM)

Researcher: Evelyne Snijders (KMM)

Language of case study report: Dutch (with a management summary in English)

To read the case study report download the PDF version.

straggling_christian_bastiaans.pdf

Case study report: Panta Rhei (1998, Ricardo Füglistahler)

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:08:06 +0000

Artist: Ricardo Füglistahler

Title: Panta Rhei

Year of creation: 1988

Type of artwork: Video sculpture

Collection: The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (RCE)

Researcher: Evelyne Snijders (RCE)

Language of case study report: Dutch (with a management summary in English)

To read the case study report download the PDF version.

panta_rhei_ricardo_fuglistahler.pdf