How does a work of art change over time, and which elements can and should be preserved? What does it mean to preserve works that fundamentally address and embody the idea of change? This year, we’ll explore the evolving landscape of media art—encompassing all (hybrid) forms of video art, electronic art, software-based art, and internet art. Whether in museum galleries, art academies, virtual realities, or physical spaces, the symposium will examine the evolving nature of digital art preservation. 

Due to their changing, performative, and live character, media art has a strong affinity with performance. Performance and media art have led to radical changes in documentation, conservation, and exhibition practices. Re-execution or activation creates an accumulation of relationships between different versions of a work, which is not about reproducibility or hybridity, but about their generative, circular potential. This introduces a new set of questions about what the work actually is, both physically and conceptually. To explore these complexities, the symposium will serve as a platform for engagement, discussion, critical reflection, learning, and connection.

LI-MA's annual symposium remains one of the most relevant in the realm of digital art preservation, a unique moment during which the entire community can come together.

Programme Overview

Transformation Digital Art 2025 will investigate, among other topics, the challenges of preserving digital, performative, and processual artworks and the intersections of art, AI, and robotics, and the evolving methodologies of conserving, documenting, and presenting digital art.

The programme features a mix of presentations, hands-on workshops, and discussions, bringing together artists, curators, conservators, students, and researchers to engage with both philosophical and practical aspects of digital art conservation.

Programme Highlights

Louise Lawson, head of conservation TATE, will share her thoughts on dance, media art and performance in the museum, its circular potential and "the Living Process of Conserving". Researcher and collection care professional Aga Wielocha will discuss her approach to preserving both material and immaterial artworks, focusing on strategies for activation and knowledge transfer. Naoto Hieda, PhD candidate and artist, will explore the intersection of coding, performance, and archiving, using the lens of neuroqueerness and live coding. Artist Esther Polak and programmer Bente van Bourgondiën will discuss the preservation challenges of early GPS art projects like AmsterdamREALTIME (2002), which revolutionised locative media. Kaat Somers, researcher FOMU, will discuss and explore the possibilities to map an artwork and archive via WIKI. 

Dragan Espenschied (Preservation Director, Rhizome, New York) will give a lecture on framing performance. A panel featuring Paulien ‘t Hoen (coordinator SBMK, practical philosopher), Gaby Wijers (Director, LI-MA), Claudia Röck (time-based media conservator), and Dusan Barok (artist/researcher) will discuss the question of how to transmit one’s legacy and gain knowledge. Susanne Kensche (Kröller-Müller Museum) will revisit the preservation of Ton Bruynèl’s Kubusproject (1969-1971). Nanna Bonde Thylstrup will explore the politics and ethics of data, while Susanna Ånäs will introduce the MEHI – Media Art History in Finland project. Lilian Stolk (The Hmm) will share insights from the research, executed together with the Network for Archives of Design and Digital Culture (NADD), on artists’ archiving needs, exploring how creators document and preserve their own work.

Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a workshop exploring the future of artworks made with Amiga computers with Olivia Brum (junior conservator LI-MA) and colleagues from ZKM, as well as a workshop on data modelling Vernacular of File Formats, by Kaat Somers, Bert Lemmens, and Rosa Menkman. Participants will also have the chance to take part in a workshop by If I Can’t Dance, with Anik Fournier and Sara Giannini, which will go into depth about how digital tools can expand accessibility in performance practices, engaging concepts like presence, embodiment, and interpretation through the archival documentation of Constantina Zavitsanos’ Entrophy (2022).

Furthermore, a panel discussion on the artistic and documentation possibilities of AI for media art and performance, featuring Gabriella Giannachi and Steve Benford of the Somabotics project, and the artist duo Lancel/Maat, will explore the transformative potential of AI and robotics in art-making and documentation.

More to be announced.

Tickets

Tickets for the symposium are available here.

• Tickets for either Day 1 or Day 2 are €75 or €35 for students (incl. VAT) each. A passe-partout ticket for both days is €100.
• All tickets include lunch. 

Promotional design by Nicole Martens / NM(studio).