Video Art / Media Art Preservation:  Studies and Suggestions                      THE DANISH VIDEO ART DATA BANK

Guggenheim up until February 2001

Before the conference I was in contact with the Guggenheim Museum in New York and talked with Paul Kuranko, Media Arts Specialst. He told me that up until now they have every 10 years made a new “master” of the tapes in their collection. To further protect this master they also make a so-called “Protection Copy”  + an “Exhibition copy”, a “Research Copy” and a “Transfer Copy”.

 The new “Master” and the “Protection copy” are always made - if technical possible - at the same format/carrier as the original video art work analogue to analogue, digital to digital. At least they will never “go down” in quality but if possible upgrade to a better quality within the same type of format/carrier (e.g. VHS to Beta and so on). The “Exhibition Copy” though is copied on DVD and the “Research Copy” only on VHS.

 They find it a problem with the digital formats that each one compresses in a different way and also they are not quite satisfied with the quality compared with the original video.

 THE DANISH VIDEO ART DATA BANK would of coarse be interested to learn what others are doing or not doing, since it is beginning to become a bigger and bigger problem not only in the future but already now with old tapes and different formats/carriers.

 And with this we touch on the more technical site of what to do.