Feb 22nd, 2008
Art and Data Storage
The obsolence of technology causes problems for institutions safeguarding knowledge on outdated storage media. For example, one has to see the speed at which the music industry went from LP vinyls to audiocassette, CDs and Mp3s to understand what the challenges facing the retrieval of data on obsolete media. These challenges are the subject of a just-published Christian Science Monitor article.There appears to be some possible solutions to migrate data from obsolete technology to current ones. On one hand, it is possible to maintain old computers and readers to be able to read archaic media. Microsoft chose such an approach. The company has purchased many computer systems, even the historic Altair computer, to be able to run every single operating sytem it produced. This expensive solution may not be a problem for a company with the means of Microsoft but it isn’t necessarily the solution for everyone.
Another solution is emulation. This allows a simulation of the old system on the new system. That way, obsolete media can be accessed. The problem that arises in that case is the emulation of emulators when new technologies are put in place.
Both solutions are expensives ones. Two teams of researchers, one American , the other European, will be looking for answers for these challenges in the coming years.
There are already three models being discussed: a pay-per-use model where users pay for each transfer, a privatized model where corporations hosting the files are responsible for its maintenance and a public model where the governments are the ones responsible for the public good.
The American project, lead by Dr. Francine Berman of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Library of Congress. The NSF provided in total 100 million dollars in funds to her project and four other ones.
The European project will try to find ways to protect 4.3 billion dollars of data a risk of being obsolete and lost.
These initiatives raise some questions.
In art, like everywhere else, new technology is transforming the way things are being done. They are being used by artists to produce current art pieces. But what will be left of video art made of BetaMax movies in 20, 30 or 100 years?
Although it is always possible to transfer these movies to DVDs, isn’t is a form of transformation of the art piece to do so? I guess each case has to be studied indiviually, according to the artist’s wishes.
But still, I wonder what Marshall McLuhan would say about this, he who stated that medium is the message?
To draw a comparison, in a world where oil on canvas would become obsolete, would anyone consider that a scan of the Mona Lisa is the same as the original painting?
Anyhow, the article doesn’t mention if the tast forces will study art pieces. Hopefully they will since there are archivists in the group. This is something to be followed in the coming years.
