New Media Museum: Preserving Media Arts in V4

The project responded to the problem of under-representation of media arts and culture in heritage institutions in V4 countries. Historians, curators, artists have long recognized video art, digital art, sound art, internet art, interactive installations, and digital culture artefacts as an important phenomenon of recent era. However, the legacy of these works is largely limited to art professionals. The artefacts are almost absent in museum collections and pioneering works from the 1970s & 80s are largely unknown to general public. The main reason for this is the lack of expertise for their preservation in the V4 institutions and the absence of a methodology for technical and administrative handling of the artworks.

Consortium was looking for workable methods for heritage institutions to build and maintain collections of media arts, which are necessary for safeguarding this area for the benefit of society. The main intention was to build expertise based on practical experience. They published a number of case studies on selected new media artworks. Many collaborators from various fields – theorists, curators, conservators, artists and technical experts from partner institutions and beyond – were involved in their creation. It included organizations from the independent sector focusing on presenting and promoting new media art as well as heritage institutions from Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.