Author: Lili Kurcz

Stretching with Precarious Movements 

Louise Lawson (Tate) and Erin Brannigan (UNSW) introduce Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, a multi-year research project that interrogates how choreographic works designed for gallery and museum environments can be supported and reactivated within institutional contexts. The initiative expanded through multiple collaborative case studies and resists the fixity often associated with conservation. Instead, it proposes the idea of co-shaping, where works are activated through conditions that acknowledge liveness, changeability, and networked authorship instead of seeking likeness. 

As conditions for this process to thrive, they argued that the continuous cycle of conversations between networks of people, time and space for the works to perish, and the critical dismantling of boundaries are crucial – conditions not unfamiliar to those making the work in the first place. A central thread of the follow-up discussion was the question of terminology: how concepts like activation, materialisation, and preservation are understood and negotiated from their distinct perspectives. In response, they pointed to the Glossary aspect of their project: a collaborative effort to build a shared vocabulary that could support and sustain the evolving, networked choreographic landscape into the future. 

The Case of Alison Knowles’ House of Dust 

Researcher at Bern University of Applied Sciences Aga Wielocha discussed a different kind of elasticity and co-shaping as she walks us through her PhD research on the work of Alison Knowles. She contextualised The House of Dust by centring on the idea of reactivating Fluxus, encouraging us to get inspired together. We follow the journey of this pioneering artwork through its many meticulous reinterpretations: from the original generative poem to its physical manifestation on the Burbank campus, its celebrated presence at Art Basel in 2021, and finally, its transformation into tinyBE, a 3d-printed, temporarily inhabitable sculpture. “In interacting with the work through people’s medium of choice, social entanglements, friendships, and entirely new artworks became possible,” they cite. 

Wielocha raised critical questions around authorship, intermedial translation, and the boundaries of reinterpretation. How far can a work be stretched and still retain its name? Could this process be a strategy for sustainable conservation? She argued that the absence of the artist, rather than their resistance, can be the real challenge. Her call was to view reactivation as homage, and to embrace transmateriality as a generative conservation approach.

16 Years Later, Kubusproject Takes the Stage Again 

Conservators Susanne Kensche and Marijn Geist discussed the challenge of reinstalling Ton Bruynèl’s Kubusproject at the Kröller-Müller Museum in 2025.  Reflecting on past reinterpretations, they emphasise the need to balance the original 1971 analogue experience with the 2008 digital restoration. Equipment degradation, particularly in the steel cubes and music centres, complicates this process. Despite digital preservation efforts, replicating the work’s tactile qualities, like the feedback from music centre dials, remains difficult. A hybrid solution is being explored: restoring tactile elements like the dial while maintaining a digital backend, aided by the insight of early collaborators. 

The follow-up discussion underscores important themes surrounding memory and experience, specifically how past visitors may have recalled the original exhibition. The question of tactility in the digital age is another key observation, not only the difficulty of doing justice to an artwork reliant on analogue technologies, but also the way visitors raised in the age of digitalisation relate to different renditions of the work. The conversation highlights this tension between maintaining the work's original sensory qualities while adapting it for modern audiences whose expectations are shaped by contemporary digital experiences. 

Everyday Archival Practices with The Hmm

Towards the end of the panel, the final speaker, Lilian Stolk (The Hmm), drew the audience into an interactive reflection using Mentimeter, a platform for live responses. This session mirrors the ongoing efforts of The Hmm and the NADD1in creating workshops that are aimed at helping artists integrate archiving meaningfully into their practice. Questions ranged from the number of photos on one's phone to their digital archiving methods and whether their work would be easily accessible for others through these means. Though lighthearted, the exercise sparks a spirited conversation while highlighting key takeaways, including the importance of peer learning and setting aside time for archiving. 

In the discussion, questions around individual and institutional responsibilities keep resurfacing. Whose responsibility is to aid the process of archiving? Is there a public domain responsible, or should a network of institutions be developed instead? There seemed to be a shared sense that a distributed approach would be preferable, as "there needs to be care, knowledge, and transfer." One response noted that the NADD is currently working toward a potential solution, aiming to create a project that could eventually integrate into government structures. However, the fragility of new media institutions and a lack of funding are slowing factors in this progress. Additional discussion touched on whether everything truly needs to be preserved and the growing difficulty of trusting any physical or digital medium hosting one’s archive in the era of rapid technological change. 

Conclusion 

True to its name, the panel Evolving Process shared the ongoing triumphs and challenges surrounding the (re-)activation of artworks. Through the case studies, the notion of elasticity emerged as a central thread, looking at works as not frozen in time but constantly reshaped through collaboration, evolving contexts, and memory. Ultimately, the panel illuminated that in the age of rapid developments, conservation must itself remain flexible, accepting loss and transformation as part of the process and embracing the hard questions that allow us to shape the works collectively. 

Header image: Aga Wielocha, Transformation Digital Art 2025. Day 1, 20 March. Photo by Alex Heuvink