Museums of the unfinished for ephemeral memories: notes on the conservation of net art. Revista Museologia & Interdisciplinaridade 6, no. 12 (2017): 22-33.
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the conservation of net art. It describes the overload of documentary production fostered by social networks and its impact on traditional storage methods and contemporary memory culture. It situates the specificity of net art in its ties to dynamic, systemic environments of flow,
over which one has no control, requiring new conservation parameters, and investigates the aesthetics particular to this context. It examines the political forces that have transformed the internet into a surveillance environment, preventing access to older websites, and shows how they affect the preservation of online art history. Finally, it presents our work with MAC-USP to develop a
methodology for dealing with net art in museums. The discussion centers on the specific case of The Book after the Book (O Livro depois do livro) (1999), a website that required a series of updates and code revisions. Based on this experience, it proposes reflecting on net art museums as museums of the unfinished, the unrepaired and the unrecovered. This strategy may make it possible to address
irreversible losses without relying on an imminent process of disappearance.
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