The National Gallery of Iceland has received a substantial grant from Creative Europe, part of the European Union’s Culture Programme. The grant is awarded to the project CUSP: Creative Understanding, Saving and Preserving Time-Based Media Art, which aims to strengthen knowledge and expertise in the preservation and presentation of time-based media art. This refers to art that has time as an inherent property (like color and form in painting or sculpture), such as video works, sound works, digital works, and performance.
The institutions participating in the project, in addition to the National Gallery of Iceland, are the National Museum of Norway, LiMa in the Netherlands, Vasulka Kitchen in the Czech Republic, and Mystetskyi Art Arsenal in Ukraine, along with the associated partners Vasulka Foundation, the University of Iceland, and the Iceland University of the Arts.
The project spans the entire lifecycle of time-based media artworks, from creation to long-term preservation, and is divided into several components: artist residencies; research into art history and media history; emergency response and the preservation of works at risk; environmentally sustainable preservation methods; and the strengthening of knowledge and research in the field.
Collaboration will be established with artists working in complex technological media, with the aim of examining the artists’ own perspectives on the preservation, documentation, and preventive conservation of their works. Six artists will be invited to participate in residencies, one to two in each participating country, and conservators will visit the artists to learn about their methods and techniques.
Preservation standards will be developed in collaboration with leading experts in the field. As part of this work, the partner institutions will compile case studies shedding light on the history of time-based media art within institutions that preserve such works. Particular emphasis will be placed on research into the works of Steina and Woody Vasulka, currently underway in the Vasulka Lab at the National Gallery of Iceland. The couple’s archive forms the foundation of the research, and their legacy offers unique insight into the history of new media in visual art, as well as the challenges museums have faced due to technological advancement.
In collaboration with the Ukrainian institution Mystetskyi Art Arsenal in Kyiv, an emergency response plan will be developed. A mobile digitization unit will be established to respond to emergency situations, whether caused by natural disasters or human-made circumstances such as war. Institutions in Kyiv will be offered the opportunity to digitize works at risk, for example on magnetic tape or film. Backup copies of the works will then be placed in long-term preservation at the National Gallery of Iceland and the National Museum of Norway.
While aiming to increase digital preservation, the institutions must also address the environmental impact of such practices. Accordingly, the museums will conduct research into the carbon footprint of digital preservation in order to tackle environmental challenges. Within the project, efforts will be made to enable museums to maintain oversight of the cost and status of digital works through a “green calculator,” as well as to provide tools and technology to improve methods and facilities.
The project is supported by the European Union’s Culture Programme. The total grant amounts to one million euros (just under ISK 150 million), and the project duration is three years.