4•4
Follow the money Integral to an understanding of the field is comprehending the range of funding structures that have emerged to support it. Just as not every preservation initiative can be covered here, neither can every funder. What follows is a cursory look at some of the major trends and players in the field of media art preservation. As in arts funding in general, governments – national, regional and municipal – play a huge role. For example, INCCA’s Inside Installations project was supported by a large European Union grant, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute was an Austrian government programme, and most of the smaller centres obtain
their basic operating funds from government sources. But as politics sways so too does arts funding and, as all who are dependent on it are painfully aware, government funding alone is not nearly enough. Perhaps somewhat surprising is the amount of activity in the field that has been funded by the private sector. A prime example of this is The New Art Trust, a foundation started by media art collectors Pamela and Richard Kramlich in 1997. As part of the criteria of their joint bequest to MoMA, SFMOMA, and the Tate, they supported the Matters in Media Art project. While this type of ‘gift-based’ patronage can certainly be seen as safeguarding private investment, the foundation has also funded numerous other publications and symposia – significantly EAI’s Resource Guide. Another major private source of funds to emerge in the last ten years was the Daniel Langlois Foundation, the project of software developer Daniel Langlois. Begun in 1997 the Langlois Foundation not only funded the production of new work within the field of art and technology, but also the research for its preservation. 9 Their Center for Research and Documentation, both a physical and virtual resource, includes among the many gems the papers of Steina and Woody Vasulka and the tennis racquet used by Robert Rauschenberg in 9 Evenings.
9 http://www.fondation-langlois.org.
10 http://www.docam.ca.
While not a collecting institute in the formal sense of the term, the ArtBase stores a ‘copy’ of a work and its metadata within the larger conceptual framework of Rhizome – a still preeminent hub for art on the web. The scope of the work is impressive, and this list could be expanded with numerous other institutes and projects. Despite the challenges, costs and amount of material at risk, many case studies, tools for preservation and scholarship have been completed and made publicly available in a relatively short period. But it should not be all congratulations and ‘high fives’ just yet – much work still has to be done and funding is as much of an issue as ever.