Firstname Lastname

Annet Dekker is a curator and researcher. Currently she is Assistant Professor Archival and Information Studies and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor and co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University. She has published numerous essays and edited several volumes, among others, Documentation as Art (co-edited with Gabriella Giannachi, Routledge 2022) and Curating Digital Art.

From Presenting and Collecting Digital Art to Networked Co-Curating (Valiz 2021). Her monograph, Collecting and Conserving Net Art (Routledge 2018) is a seminal work in the field of digital art conservation.

There is a need to preserve our digital cultural heritage for the future. However, the increasing speed with which technical media used in digital preservation become obsolete leads to problems such as changes to the aesthetics and content of the artworks, organisational shifts, and ecological burden.

Drawing from the concept of care as described by Mol et al. (2010) and Puig de la Bellacasa (2017) and connecting this to the idea of networks of care (Dekker 2014), this presentation will show how the conceptualisation of care in digital preservation helps to comprehend the challenges of digital art preservation and networked culture more widely.

By analysing three art projects in which networks have formed around the preservation of the project, this presentation will emphasise that while there are multiple typologies of networks of care, there is a shared focus on a relational arrangement of care in which preservation is negotiated between different actors, including humans, but also material and technical elements.

When acknowledging that these actors, and thus the care, may change over time, the implementation of networks of care can lead to more sustainable solutions for digital preservation.

Firstname Lastname

Annet Dekker is a curator and researcher. Currently she is Assistant Professor Archival and Information Studies and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor and co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University. She has published numerous essays and edited several volumes, among others, Documentation as Art (co-edited with Gabriella Giannachi, Routledge 2022) and Curating Digital Art. From Presenting and Collecting Digital Art to Networked Co-Curating (Valiz 2021). Her monograph, Collecting and Conserving Net Art (Routledge 2018) is a seminal work in the field of digital art conservation.

There is a need to preserve our digital cultural heritage for the future. However, the increasing speed with which technical media used in digital preservation become obsolete leads to problems such as changes to the aesthetics and content of the artworks, organisational shifts, and ecological burden.

Drawing from the concept of care as described by Mol et al. (2010) and Puig de la Bellacasa (2017) and connecting this to the idea of networks of care (Dekker 2014), this presentation will show how the conceptualisation of care in digital preservation helps to comprehend the challenges of digital art preservation and networked culture more widely.

By analysing three art projects in which networks have formed around the preservation of the project, this presentation will emphasise that while there are multiple typologies of networks of care, there is a shared focus on a relational arrangement of care in which preservation is negotiated between different actors, including humans, but also material and technical elements. When acknowledging that these actors, and thus the care, may change over time, the implementation of networks of care can lead to more sustainable solutions for digital preservation.