On Curating New Media Art

The book addresses the challenges of preserving and exhibiting media art drawings on theory and institutional practice. It includes findings from collaborative research projects involving artists and museums and considers established methods. The book is structured around the processes of collecting, valuing, documenting, preserving, restoring and exhibiting media art and includes chapters by Annet Dekker, Gaby Wijers, Pip Laurenson, Barbara le Maitre, Renate Buschmann and others.
"In chapter 10, Sarah Cook zooms in on the challenges posed by curating computer- and internet-based media artworks, also known as 'new media art'. These works are often created by multiple authors, are highly interactive, and are variable in space and time. Besides, their Web-based and interactive nature often makes them unfit for display in traditional exhibition spaces. Cook points out that the debate on how to curate new media art has largely taken place in the field of museology, with a focus on the problemsn these works cause for traditional museum practice. She asks why extra-institutional freelance curators of contemporary art - who generally have more flexibility and thus could possibly be better suited for exhibiting new media art - have so far largely ignored thisnewest art form. ... the chapter takes the form of an edited discussion on curating new media art from the CRUMB website. Therewith it also functions as a platform for showcasing ideas from various leading curators of new media art." - Julia Noordegraaf