Home ANNUAL SUMMITS 2010 Summit “Don’t believe I am an Amazon”: The Preservation of Video Installations based on Performance Art

“Don’t believe I am an Amazon”: The Preservation of Video Installations based on Performance Art


© DOCAM 2010

Day 2, Session 7

Martina Pfenninger (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna)

Agathe Jarczyk (Atelier für Videokonservierung, Berne)

 

The preservation and documentation of performance-based video installations pose a particular challenge. The case study on the preservation of an early video installation by Ulrike Rosenbach is used as an example of the problems that can be encountered. The artwork varied and was adapted in the course of time. Some of the components were at different stages of degradation and the legibility of the original act is compromised. Four archived tapes, all differing in content and in quality, were evaluated in detail...

 

... The applied methodology was a qualitative survey of the content. The results were interpreted considering the history of performance and exhibition practice. The aim of the study is to emphasize the crucial aspects of performance-based video art that need to be documented.

 

Martina Pfenninger received her diploma of Conservation of Modern Materials and Media at the University of Arts in Berne in 2004. She then worked at the Schaulager in Basel, installing the Jeff Wall and Tacita Dean / Francis Alÿs exhibitions. From 2005 to 2007, she worked at the Restaurierungszentrum in Düsseldorf as a case researcher and assistant co-organiser of the EU-project Inside Installations. Since 2007, she has been a member of the teaching and research staff of conservation and restoration of contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

 

Agathe Jarczyk studied Conservation of Modern Materials and Media at the University of Arts in Berne, Switzerland, and received her diploma in 2001. From 2002 to 2008, she worked as a conservator in a video production company for video artists. Since then, she has been head of the Studio for Video Conservation in Berne. She is also a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Conservation and Restoration of Modern Materials and Media at the University of the Arts, Berne.