ANALOG WELCOME, DIGITAL ARCHIVE
JULY 22 – SEPT 11, 2016
KUANDU MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, TAIPEI
Concepts and roles of archive are changing and stretching along with the development of digital technology. Archives find themselves in front of an unprecedented task, as computer files replace stacks of paper or reels of film that used to serve the purpose of documentation and storage in the past. As concerns a new dilemma over technological gap between old and new materials, for instance, a fresh perspective will be drawn from saving and reproduction of digital files or preservation and sharing of documentation, which have become easier than ever through the Internet. When it goes to visual art, digital archive transforms approaches to the form of video art in particular, not to mention its contribution toward the preservation of various publications and images produced on the occasion of each exhibition.
Analog Welcome, Digital Archive is an exhibition based on the participation of eight leading institutions that represent the field of media art or video art. Participants from each institution submitted the media works selected from their own archive, according to historical significance of an artwork in relation to the archive or the situation of video medium after the 1960s. This show exemplifies a new phase of video art exhibition enabled by the emergence of digital archive. To elaborate, video has now become available to be transmitted as DVD or media file and shown in any locality in a quality equivalent to the original, without visiting relevant institutions via airplane or transporting film from one location to another.
Even so, despite the considerable development of technology, an exhibition of exchange is still not easy as one may think, especially when the items to be share between institutions are video “works.” As Bernhard Serexhe, chief curator of the ZKM, pointed out during the preparation of this show, it is a mistake to assume the right to disclose something to everyone in every site simply because it is “digital.” An artwork protected under copyright is supposed to be prohibited from arbitrary distribution and each organization adheres to a different set of rules concerning the operation and release of digital archive. Therefore invigoration of an archive exchange project requires constant meetings and discussions, which are the part that cannot be comforted by digital technology. Add to this, the exhibition itself that presents moving image to the viewers is a place governed by the physical restrictions of space and time, filled with heavy equipment. Although art archive goes digital, it is analog on which inviting everything to one spot heavily relies.
Analog Welcome, Digital Archive is an experiment devoted to sustainable archive sharing projects in the future. The charms of video works featured in this show speak for the reason that all sorts of actual and analog labor are necessary to archive sharing. The essence of archive resides in the preservation of documentation, which in turn is one of the most basic forms of history. Chosen with particular attention to the term “history,” the works participating in this exhibition carry monumental meaning as preserved material, alongside their primary meaning as art. Whether it is an old black and white film or a recent record, or a social practice or a silent performance, these videos allude to stories saturated in artistic image. They are not only documentations of the long gone past, but also scenes that we should not be able to run into if materials were not stored. There still remain new things in the past. It is the encounter in the present, not old memories, what archive exhibition welcomes.