Transformation Digital Art is LI-MA's annual international symposium on the preservation of digital art. Hosted across two immersive days at our home base in Amsterdam, LAB111, the symposium invites artists, curators, institutions, scholars, and students to come together and push the boundaries of digital art conservation. This year, we will explore new research and practices looking at the generative and circular potential of performance and media art (documentation), including the intersections of AI, robotics, and media art, through presentations, workshops, and discussions. Join us as we explore how digital artworks are documented, preserved, and presented.

The programme below is confirmed, but additional information will later be provided regarding more detailed timing and descriptions of individual programme elements, as well as participant biographies. To discover the programme of Day 2, follow this link. To stay updated, subscribe to our newsletter.

09:30 - 10:00 Registration and coffee

10:00 - 10:10 Welcome and introduction – Gaby Wijers (Director, LI-MA)

10:10 - 12:30 The Evolving Process 

Moderated by Annet Dekker (Curator & Researcher,
University of Amsterdam)

Louise Lawson (Head of Conservation, Tate) & Erin Brannigan (Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance, University of New South Wales) — Precarious Movements? Conservation and Choreography 

Louise Lawson and Erin Brannigan will explore the intersection of dance, media art, and performance in the museum. They will be discussing its circular potential and the evolving, living process of conserving performance.

Aga Wielocha (Researcher, Bern Academy of the Arts) — Intermedial Transmissions

Revisiting Dick Higgins’s concept of intermedia and its relevance to contemporary media art, Aga Wielocha will  explore ‘activation’ as both a theoretical and practical strategy for sustaining artworks beyond institutional settings, enabling artists to shape their work’s future.

Susanne Kensche (Conservator of modern art and sculpture, Kröller- Müller Museum) and Marijn Geist (Junior curator, Kröller- Müller Museum) — From Analog to Digital… and Back Again? Revisiting Kubusproject 

Ton Bruynèl’s Kubusproject (1969–1971) is an interactive installation that unifies sound and sculptural elements. First restored in 2008, Kubusproject underwent another conservation in 2024, as LI-MA and the Kröller-Müller Museum explored a hybrid approach, balancing digital updates with analogue authenticity. Susanne Kensche and Marijn Geist will examine the challenges of keeping media art alive while staying true to the artist’s intent.

Lilian Stolk (Director, The Hmm) — Preserving Practice

The Hmm and NADD are developing a workshop programme that positions archiving as an integral part of artistic practice. The Hmm director Lilian Stolk will highlight the research process and explore how embedding archiving into practice can foster new modes of engagement, preservation, and artistic continuity.

12:30 - 14:00  Lunch break

14:00 - 15:45 Interactive Sessions on Re-activation

Attendees may choose ONE of the following sessions, taking place simultaneously.

Session One

Infrastructure Project: A Workflow for Collaboration

Joost Dofferhoff will contextualise the recently completed Collaborative Infrastructure project. One of the key next steps in the project is making this knowledge accessible to collections and artists.

REACTIVATE AmsterdamREALTIME? 

AmsterdamREALTIME (2002) was a groundbreaking GPS art project that tracked the movements of Amsterdam residents in real-time, automatically generating a dynamic map of the city. Anticipating the smartphone era, it highlighted how GPS technology would transform human orientation and spatial memory. Esther Polak (artist) and Bente van Bourgondiën (programmer) will explore the challenges and relevance of preserving this early 2000s digital technology.

Session Two 

From Identifying to Preserving Amiga Artworks

Upon its release, the Commodore Amiga (1985) quickly became popular with artists for its unique graphics and sound capabilities. However, Commodore’s bankruptcy in 1994 posed significant challenges for preserving Amiga-based artworks. In this workshop, Olivia Brum (Junior conservator, LI-MA) share insights into their AMIGA NU project, and Morgan Stricot and Matthieu Vlaminck (Media and digital art conservators, ZKM) will showcase Amiga artworks from their collection, including Stansfield/Hooykaas’ Table of Orientation (1995) and Ken Feingold’s The Surprising Spiral (1991), with a focus on emulation as a preservation strategy. 

15:45-16:00 Break

16:00 - 17:30 Performance 

Moderated by Annet Dekker.

Dragan Espenschied (Preservation director, Rhizome) — Performance and Symbol Manipulation

Language used to describe computers is full of metaphors. The fields of digital preservation and digital art conservation are no exceptions, where terms such as "file," "vault," and "location" had a considerable influence on practices and developments. Currently, the biggest confusion seems to exist around "performance." Art using computers has strong connections to festivals such as ISEA and Ars Electronica; digital art was presented in museum spaces previously used for opera and theatre; source code is compared to musical scores. Dragan Espenschied will question how productive these metaphors are, and to what degree "performance" can be a meaningful term for software preservation?

Naoto Hieda (Artist and researcher) — archive.glitches.me

Naoto Hieda explores the lingering artifacts left behind after a live installation or performance ends: afterimage of the pixels, sweat and saliva on the laminate floor, meeting link without the host. As a queer and neurodiverse artist, Hieda’s work involves collecting and reimagining these remnants, giving them new life. 

17:30 End