Tate publishes Software-based Art Preservation resources

[patricia.falcao]

Dear colleagues,

Since 2017, Tate’s Time-based Media Conservation team have been working on the Software-based Art Preservation project, a programme of research developed to help us document and preserve software-based artworks in the collection, and ensure they remain displayable in the future. Building on research undertaken at Tate over the past decade, the project has defined standardised workflows and processes for the preservation of these works. We have then worked to systematically apply these approaches to the existing artworks (most of which were acquired long before their formulation), while taking the opportunity to identify any works with at-risk components.

We have now published some of the outcomes of this research on the project webpage: https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/software-based-art-preservation 

The page includes:

• A disk imaging guide describing workflows and tools for the disk imaging of storage media, intended as a practical introduction to the topic for time-based media conservators.

• Templates for documenting disk imaging and emulation processes.

• Report template for capturing information about software-based artworks, from production history to technical dependencies.

• Metadata fields and controlled vocabularies to describe technical aspects of software-based artworks in our collection management system.

We hope you find these resources useful, and feedback is very welcome!

Tom Ensom and Patricia Falcao