VR as a Preservation and Simulation Tool for Media Art Installations

‘VR as a Preservation and Simulation Tool for Media Art Installations’ is a practice-led research project, focusing on the re-installations of the unique ‘video sculptures’ of David Hall (1937-2014), a pioneer of British video art, to explore new approaches to preserving time-based media. Lockhart used VR as a preservation tool for the first time to make historical media artworks virtually accessible for contemporary audiences, thus offering a new model for new media conservators and curators to address the problem arising from technological obsolescence in contemporary art collections and exhibitions.

Lockhart’s experiments involved the creation of fully immersive digital environments, simulating the experience of artworks as close to their ‘original’ format and material state as possible. Collaborating with VR artist Rhoda Ellis and 3D Animator Sang Hun Yu, Lockhart recreated the videowall piece A Situation Envisaged: The Rite II Cultural Eclipse (1988-1990), and Television Interruptions: The Installation (1971/2006), testing the limits of currently available software and hardware to authentically present artworks in a virtual gallery environment. The recreated environments were then further tested on users as part of NEoN Digital Arts Festival, Dundee, in 2017 and ‘Besides the Screen: Archiving and Preservation in the 21st Century’ conference, King’s College London in 2018, which included a paper presentation, with the aim of improving the model.

The processes involved in the research were demonstrated and discussed with international conservation experts at the 2018 SBMK International Summit on ‘Contemporary Art Conservation’, Amersfoort, and Transformation Digital Art 2019:International Symposium, LIMA, Amsterdam. The research findings were further disseminated in a peer-reviewed conference paper presented and published in the context of ISEA, October 2020, reaching a global audience with expertise in art, science and technology.