Rescuing new media art from technological obsolescence

Abstract

As time passes and digital technologies become obsolete, more and more new media artworks face the possibility of being lost forever. As many new media artworks depend on certain technologies, when these technologies are replaced with other or are not available any more, steps should be taken to make older artworks compatible with newer technologies that replace them. Using Jon Ippolito’s concepts of storage, emulation, migration and reinterpretation, this text attempts to provide a basic framework to understand each different concept and the advantages and disadvantages to their implementation. This is all done using Gilbertto Prado’s restoration of Desertesejo (2000/2014/2018) to illustrate the process.