LI-MA – Living Media Art presents the 10th edition of Transformation Digital Art (TDA), its annual international symposium dedicated to the sustainable care and preservation of digital art. Taking place in Amsterdam, this two-day event brings together artists, researchers, museum and heritage professionals, and students to share knowledge, practices, and critical perspectives on how digital artworks can remain accessible over time.

For more than a decade, TDA has served as a platform for exchange at the intersection of artistic practice, technological change, and preservation work. The 2026 edition is organised around the theme “Networks: Structures of Collaboration, Care, and Trust”, foregrounding the infrastructures, dependencies, and collective responsibilities that shape digital artworks throughout their lifecycles.

DAY 1 – Thursday 26 March

09:30 Walk-in and coffee

10:00 – 10:10 Welcome and introduction: 10 years of Transformation Digital Art – Gaby Wijers (Director and Founder, LI-MA)

10:10 – 10:15 Framing: Collaboration and Trust – Annet Dekker (Researcher and Curator) 

The evolving discourse around decentralisation, networks of care, and the commons challenges traditional notions of who takes care of digital art. Preservation increasingly depends not only on technological solutions or institutional conservation, but also on trust, agency, and collaboration among artists, communities, institutions, and audiences. Across three panels, and moving between different scales and organisational forms, Day 1 explores how trust-based systems shape the preservation of digital art, raising questions of ownership, accessibility, and long-term viability.

10:15 – 11:00 Keynote: Sarah Friend (Artist): Good Death

Reflecting on the idea of the “good death” of digital objects, Sarah Friend examines mindful and transparent end-of-life strategies for digital works. Situating these ideas within debates around decentralisation, she explores how trust and community can support preservation while addressing the risks of fragmentation and data loss.

11:00 – 12:30 Panel: Collaborative Preservation in Technical Environments

This panel explores how trust, care, and collective responsibility are reshaping the preservation of digital art, particularly in technical and decentralised contexts.

• Kelani Nichole (Founder, TRANSFER Data Trust)
  
• Tereza Havlíková & Sakrowski (Curators, Zentrum für Netzkunst) – Inserting Net Art
  
• Ronny Heiremans (Artist) – Jubilee: Eavatea
  

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 15:30 Panel: Relational Preservation

Focusing on ethical, conceptual, and practical frameworks, this panel considers preservation as a relational process shaped by values, negotiation, and responsibility.

• Brian Castriota (Lecturer in Conservation of Contemporary Art, University College London) & Hélia Marçal (Associate Professor, University College London) – Refusal as Care Under Techno-Colonial Hegemony
  
• Flaminia Fortunato Time-based Media Conservator, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)  & Chiara Borgonovo (Researcher, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele) – Conversation on Conservation
  
• Inge Hinterwaldner (Professor of History of Art and Media, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) & Annet Dekker – Codes of (In)formal Preservation

15:30 – 16:15 Break

16:15 – 17:15 Panel: New Collaborative Initiatives

This panel highlights emerging networks and initiatives building new infrastructures for the care and preservation of digital and experimental art.

• Aga Wielocha (Conservator and Independent Researcher, Hochschule der Künste Bern) – Beyond the Work
  
• Patricia Falcão (Time-based Media Conservator; EMBARK Action Vice-Chair, Tate) – The EMBARK Network
  
• Esther Moñivas (Professor and Researcher, Complutense University of Madrid) &
  Paula Fernández Valdés (Assistant Archivist, Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute – IPCE) – SafeARTECH Research Project
  

17:15 – 17:45 Jonas Lund (Artist) – Network Maintenance

A living network of connected interfaces where ownership becomes care, and attention and responsibility sustain both art and the systems that bind it.

Parallel Programme

10:00 – 13:00 Software Art Preservation Student Workshop – Joost Dofferhoff & Mauricio van der Maessen (LI-MA)

A hands-on workshop introducing practical tools and frameworks for analysing and caring for software-based artworks, drawing directly from LI-MA’s preservation practice.

14:00 – 17:00 ROTBOTS/CONTENTMACHINES Workshop – Constant Dullaart (Artist, Director Distant.Gallery, Founding Professor Networked Materialities at AdBK Nürnberg) and Fabian Hampel (Artist, AdBK Nürnberg)

Participants collaboratively build a content-generating machine, gaining critical insight into algorithmic production, platform logic, and the infrastructures shaping contemporary digital content.

Header & thumbnail: Transformation Digital Art 2023. Photos by Pieter Kers.