AIC's 45th Annual Meeting

The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) owns and displays a growing collection of time-based media and digital art, including significant works of art by video art pioneer Nam June Paik. In 2009, the museum acquired Paik's complete estate archive, including his writings, correspondence, notes, sculptures, and studio effects. To commemorate Paik's legacy and profound influence on the art world, SAAM holds an annual birthday celebration in his honor and invites contemporary artists to exhibit a selected piece of artwork. For the 2016 Paik birthday celebration, Film and Media Arts Curator Michael Mansfield invited Brooklyn-based artists Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault to present their work titled "the willful marionette." One of thirteen time-based media artworks acquired by the museum that year, it is indicative of SAAM's increasingly diverse collection of media art. The kinetic sculpture combines sculpture, software, and electronics. The eponymous marionette Little Bill (Big Bill being artist Bill Outcault) is a 3-D printed, blue PLA plastic doll designed from scanned images of the artist himself. The marionette is not controlled by human hand, but rather by custom software that interfaces between a system of eleven stepper motors that move the doll, and two Microsoft Kinect cameras which serve as the doll's ‘eyes.' The marionette is thereby able to interact with its audience, and responds in real time to spontaneous human interaction with gestures of its own. Its range of different physical and digital components poses unique risks, a quality which is a frequent challenge to the conservation of contemporary media art. Ariel O'Connor, Objects Conservator, and Dan Finn, Media Conservator, will detail their efforts to effectively document the work's many facets during the installation and acquisition processes. The presentation aims to present a case study that is exemplary of the wide range of expertise that time-based media conservation can require, and the collaborative approach that it necessitates.

At the Smithsonian Institution, stewarding digital assets is an institution-wide concern. The Institution has deployed an enterprise Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) to support this effort. The system supports all units and currently contains over 10 million image, audio, and video assets including event documentation, digital surrogates of collection objects, and component files of accessioned artworks at the Museums. Additionally, the SI DAMS uses a vendor application, bringing with it its own advantages and challenges, functionality that must be taken into account when building out a comprehensive plan for the care of specific artwork component files. The Smithsonian Museums have worked in collaboration with the Smithsonian's Office of the Chief Information Officer DAMS team to build a suite of actions and policies around the care of artwork component files in the system, defined as the DAMS Time-Based Media Art Package, with approved package definitions and workflow checklists used by all of the participating museums. In developing the DAMS TBMA suite of preservation actions, staff members across the Smithsonian consulted the digital preservation guidelines outlined in ISO 16363, A Standard for Trusted Digital Repositories, and the National Digital Stewardship Alliance's Levels of Digital Preservation. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's Conservation Team has developed their internal processes even further, defining the ingest and care of the artwork components in the system as both interventive conservation treatments and ongoing preservation actions, in accordance with the policies and processes for other material artworks. TBMA Package Reports are provided to the Museum biannually in the ongoing management of these file based artwork components. The Hirshhorn has instituted their own policies to incorporate this documentation in the artwork's ongoing condition assessment. DAMS actions are documented in the form of treatment logs in the Hirshhorn's internal systems. As the DAMS Package develops, management of these files is not only being informed by the needs of treatment, but is also influencing how that treatment is documented. In this way, digital preservation and art conservation professionals have built a shared plan drawing from both fields. Crystal Sanchez, Digital Preservation Specialist at SI DAMS, and Briana Feston-Brunet, Variable Media Conservator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, will present their work in building a preservation action framework for the care of digital artwork components in the Smithsonian DAMS. This presentation will examine the shared responsibilities in building and executing policies and actions in the framework, will explore the allocation of tasks to manage the defined requirements, and will speak more broadly to the use of an enterprise Digital Asset Management System in the care of these specific artwork component files, in its role as a preservation repository for this select class of assets. It will also provide perspectives on this choice from both the IT System Admin and the Museum Conservator roles, and provide examples from specific artworks in the collection.

Digitisation programs are frequently aimed at reducing the need for physical access to collection material, with the result that fewer resources are expended on physical preservation. This paper discusses the benefits of a mass-digitisation program where resources are provided for the conservation treatment of collections, in some cases, material that would otherwise not have received attention at this stage, thus reducing the need for more interventive treatment later.

In 2012 the State Library of New South Wales, Australia (SLNSW) was awarded an AU$62.3M state government grant to undertake a 10-year program of mass-digitisation, which aims to create 20 million digital objects.

This year, the Digital Excellence Program is aiming to digitise 1.9 million items from across 33 collections using both onsite and offsite digitisers. Material formats vary widely and include books, manuscript papers, maps and plans, serials, pamphlets, newspapers, photographs and negatives, cassette, reel-to-reel and DAT tapes, film, coins, medals, oil paintings, drawings and watercolours.

Mass-digitisation programs of this scale and with this variety of material formats are not common, so it is exciting to be able to work on this program, devising innovative methods of approaching mass-treatment of SLNSW’s cultural heritage collections. Initial project scoping identified that 22 of the collections require input from Collection Care – over 215,000 pages of treatment and 10,500 artefacts requiring packing for offsite digitisation.

While SLNSW’s Collection Care department is large, only three conservators are allocated to the digitisation program. With such a vast quantity of material, and of varied formats, requiring attention, how does Collection Care design effective preservation approaches to suit available resources of time, space, staff and materials?

Innovative strategies are required to realise a program of this scale. The Collection Care team works as part of a larger digitisation project team, which draws on the expertise of specialists from other departments, such as curators, archivists, librarians and digitisation specialists, as well as the support of project managers and all levels of library management. In this way judicious collection selection is undertaken, taking into account collection condition information, as well as considerations of collection rarity, value and level of use.

Once collections are chosen, the second phase of the project is to determine the resources required. Collection surveys are conducted to determine the extent of stabilisation treatment required in order to image the items, and therefore the required resources of space, time, staff and materials.

In order to handle these mass-treatment programs, the Collection Care team have developed innovative preservation platforms to reduce the extent of interventive treatments. In three brief project case studies, different aspects will be explored, including using cataloguing processes to gather condition information on an audio collection; developing time efficient treatment methods to stabilise large paper-based collections; and the importance of rehousing to improve the long-term preservation of a numismatic collection.

Through the practical design and successful implementation of ethical conservation treatments, SLNSW is prolonging the lifetime of their cultural heritage collections, while simultaneously providing access through mass-digitisation, providing benefits well into the future.

The current landscape of art conservation faces many challenges when it comes to digitization technologies that are used to render artworks for public display and preservation. Chicago Film Archives (CFA) faced a unique challenge in acclimating the newest instance of the Kinetta Archival Film Scanner into its digitization workflow. I aim to discuss acting as the inaugural user of the machine and its operating software after a previous instance of the scanner was revised by its two-person production team. Acquiring the scanner was a result from CFA's aspirations to expand its means of collection care through digital preservation and access efforts; the urgency of this being solidified after being granted a MacArthur Foundation MACEI award in February of 2016 with the understanding that this aspiration was to be fully underway within the year. Upon receiving the scanner in March of 2016, CFA's small staff was trained on the scanner by its creator at its Chicago-based office. From there, the staff worked to learn the workflow from notes taken during the initial training sessions and remote support from the scanner's creators; no instruction manual was available to consult as CFA offered the first set of regular users to approach the daily workings of the machine and its software. The staff faced regular calibration failures, software crashes, digital artifacts, and breakdowns of physical scanner parts. By learning how to effectively communicate issues through providing focused contexts and details about them, CFA worked with the creators of the Kinetta Archival Film Scanner to correct these recurring issues. Working through the scanner's technological and physical challenges allowed CFA to author an operations manual meant to be both relevant to future Kinetta users, as well as define a new approach to caring for the archive's collections.

2017 marks the 20th anniversary of The Electronic Media Group at AIC. We would like to celebrate this milestone by taking stock of the past 20 years and celebrating the evolution of the field.

Peter Oleksik (MoMA) will chair a panel with Jill Sterret (SFMoMA), Paul Messier (Paul Messier Lens Media Lab, Yale), Glenn Wharton (NYU), Crystal Sanchez (EMG Committee Chair) and Christine Frohnert (EMG Committee Chair 2008-2011) about their experiences in this field, from its inception to the present. Which were the defining events in the last 20 years? What is striking when looking back to 1997, 2007, 2017? How has the field and the EMG developed over this time? Where should we be heading next?

The cathode ray tube (CRT) is a substantial vacuum tube used to display images in television sets, computers, automated teller machines, video game machines, video cameras, monitors, oscilloscopes and radar. It is composed of one or more electron guns and a phosphorescent screen. Like many other examples of redundant technologies, CRTs have been integral to installation and video art in galleries since the ‘60s. Installations and art that incorporate electronic components are often vulnerable to sustained technological development and other factors outside their physical nature, which accelerate their obsolescence. In fact, the declining production of this particular technology coupled with an increasing inability to source used CRTs has become a concern for institutions and collectors where it is integral to a work of art. While external factors influence the lifespan of a CRT, such devices generally benefit from ratings that estimate the lifespan of the instrument - typically related in number of operational hours - before the CRT becomes unreliable and/or ceases to function entirely. Due to the finite longevity of CRT technology, the need to change certain elements is unavoidable, particularly when the physical form of the CRT is essential to the functioning of many works that rely on those instruments as core components. Today, the role of a conservator encompasses a broader understanding of preservation. Specifically, conservators no longer focus exclusively on the repair of an art object, as they are also concerned with documentation, determining the acceptability of change and managing the changes deemed necessary. Nam June Paik, who transformed video into an artist's medium with his media-based art and understood the impact of technological redundancy/obsolescence, granted the owners of his works permission to make the technical modifications necessary to ensure their continuous operation. In preparation for the loan of "Nam June Paik: Global Visionary" to Smithsonian American Art Museum (December 13, 2012 – August 11, 2013), the conservation department at The Art Institute of Chicago embarked on a conservation project to revive one of the Paik robot assemblages in their collection, Family of Robot: Baby. Prior to the Smithsonian, Baby had not been exhibited since 2000 (at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in the exhibition, "The Worlds of Nam June Paik"). This presentation will focus on the history of CRT replacement in art, the efforts conducted to maintain the CRT technology for Baby's video playback and the viability of this overall approach. It will conclude with a discussion of works by several other artists in which changing the CRT technology for playback or as a sculptural component is impossible, and the implications that will have on those works.

Since the early 1970s, video artist and engineer Dave Jones has garnered iconic status as one of the most important video toolmakers within the Western and Upstate New York media art communities. He is well-known for transferring concepts and techniques from analog audio synthesis--such as filtering, sequencing, and voltage control--to the realm of video synthesis and image-processing. His most prominent inventions include the Jones Synchronizer, Jones Digitizer, Jones Sequencer, Jones Colorizer, Jones Keyer, and the Jones Frame Buffer. Jones' technological innovations in the creation of analog and digital tools for image-processing and generative video graphics have been invaluable contributions to the history and development of experimental video, having influenced artists such as Gary Hill, Peer Bode, and hundreds of artists-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center over the course of its 40 year legacy. His tools have served as integral devices for the creation and exhibition of video installations, many of which have since been collected and shown in numerous cultural heritage institutions. In her essay "Preserving Machines” from The Emergence of Video Processing Tools vol.2, Mona Jimenez posits that video processing tools, such as those created by Jones, are best documented and preserved through collaboration between conservators, toolmakers, artists, and scholars. Responding to this call, this paper will present the findings and results of a week-long residency at Signal Culture alongside Dave Jones, as a case study in producing comprehensive and centralized documentation of a complex image-processing tool, addressing origin and development, technical specifications, conservation issues and recommendations, as well as the broader context of its enduring influence artists and the history of media art.

Video Data Bank (VDB) is a leading resource in the United States for video by and about contemporary artists. The VDB Collection includes the work of more than 550 artists and 6,000 video art titles, and work is available to exhibitors through an international distribution service. Steadfast in staying ahead of exhibitors needs, VDB has been long committed to digitization and preservation of its video archive, including the Videofreex Archive special collection. Founded in 1969, the Videofreex were one of the first video collectives in America: through the mid-1970s they produced content using newly available consumer video equipment that chronicled the counter-culture movement and broadcasted the first pirate TV station in the country from Lanesville, NY. In 2001, VDB began acquiring the Videofreex tapes from locations around the country, the majority of which are on ½” open reel. Digitizing the tapes has been a high priority for VDB, and thanks to generous donations early on, many tapes were digitized through the Bay Area Video Coalition's Preservation Access Program. In 2014, VDB received project funding to enhance ongoing, in-house digitization activities. This presentation will discuss the work involved in preserving the Videofreex Archive, from initially acquiring, cataloging, and prioritizing the tapes, to recent in-house digitization activities – notably, obtaining and repairing ½” open reel decks, as well as cleaning and stabilizing tapes against further deterioration.

Arduinos are low-cost, open-source and easy-to-use microcontrollers, supported by a large community. As a flexible and programmable platform, they can take input, monitor processes, create output, and connect to a number of external devices and custom electronic circuits using various protocols. Their design is tailored towards a non-technical audience, which makes them accessible tools for both advanced technicians and anyone less familiar with electronics. Originally created for artists and designers, they are found in numerous contemporary art installations. By describing two case studies, this paper explores their application as part of a conservation treatment: Bruce Nauman's Life Death/Knows Doesn't Know, 1983, a neon lights installation whose sequencer stopped working; and Anthony McCall's Slit Scan, 1972, a high-speed slide projection that ran too fast with available slide projectors. While there were rather straightforward technical problems to solve, diving into each case study—together with curators and the artist or their representatives—revealed a more complex set of issues. Using Arduinos allowed for a quick change of settings and their comparison brought new facets of the works to light. With contemporary devices like these various hardware emulations are possible. Arduinos in particular have the potential to replace legacy controllers used in sequenced media artworks that have since become obsolete or difficult to source. By introducing Arduinos to a wider audience other possible applications for conservation may be revealed, leading to further research on this innovative device.

With an eye toward time-based media conservation uses, Mark Hellar
(Mark Hellar Studios) and Sasha Dobbs (SFMOMA)  will showcase some
examples of microcontrollers such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and
Beaglebone as implemented in an art-making and conservation context.
They will discuss these tools' wide-ranging capabilities, a few case
examples, and review best practices for documentation when utilizing
these systems.

Light has a long history of use in art, but as a medium it can pose many new challenges for conservators. As soon as lighting technology becomes available on the market, it is being manipulated in contemporary art. Equally as fast, the production of these light sources becomes obsolete with the introduction of new technological innovations and additional lighting regulations.  Since it is necessary to recognize artificial light sources as artists' media, it is essential to characterize them systematically in order to enable the preservation and appropriate presentation of a diverse range of light sources.
To meet the challenges of the growing collections of light-based works in museums, a documentation approach is needed. This will be necessary to maintain the original light effects of these works, particularly given the rapid changes in lighting technologies. Research was undertaken at Glasgow Museums to develop a solution for the care of the museum's collection of light-based artwork. The study evaluated whether the use of an inventory is a practical and effective way to manage a collection of light-based works in an institution. The assessment revealed many complexities when documenting various lamp types but that an inventory is a suitable strategy for managing the vital upkeep of replacement light components.
This documentation approach is currently being refined as it is applied to the collection of light-based works in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where scientific instrumentation is also available. At LACMA, spectral light meters are routinely used to characterize the spectral outputs of new LED bulbs for gallery lighting. The spectral and colorimetric information that these meters provide would also be useful for lights incorporated in works of art to monitor them as they age or to evaluate replacement bulbs.
By combining the documentation strategy with scientific data on light sources, it is possible to objectively characterize light when it is used as a medium in works of art. This approach will better inform conservation decision-making and lead to enhanced preservation of light-based art objects in the future.

As a pioneer in media art, contemporary artist Jennifer Steinkamp is critically acclaimed for her abilities to weave digital media into large-scale installations that envelop the audience vis-a-vis streams of moving images. In this paper, I use Steinkamp's animated installation Botanic that was exhibited in Times Square Arts: Midnight Moment as a case study. The goal is to discuss the implications of technological obsolescence; potential loss of quality during file re-formation and data migration, as well as pinpointing underlying threats in each stage —3D modeling, animation, rendering, and post-production—posed by incomplete documentation, missing digital components, and software incompatibility. From creation to completion, the complexity of Botanic not only presents technological challenges but also an ethical dilemma that contemporary conservators have been facing in the past few decades.

To a certain extent, normalization of proprietary formats and data migration can help increase the sustainability of digital objects. However, the nature of Steinkamp's Botanic involves CAD (Computer-Aid Design) software applications and computer-generated graphics that require meticulous care. Unless a comprehensive understanding of the born-digital objects and digital elements within the files is established–whether the element was intentionally created by the artist, is an unreproducible result by the system, or was automatically generated from software's default settings–significant translation errors can occur during file re-formation. Through carefully disassembling the artist's creation process, I attempt to focus on the internal structure and relationship between Maya, After Effects, scripts, and final deliverables.

For this analysis, I provide recommendations from macro to micro to construct a documentation system that can help future caretakers to fully understand the creation process and the usage of different digital objects. The conservation actions enable information exchange across software and emphasize migration between different versions of the same system. I aim to add a certain level of compatibility to the file; and at the same time, preserve as much information as possible for future conservators to contextualize and make accurate interpretations of the geometric-centric artifacts. I strive to provide a risk assessment that will inform museum professionals as well as the artist herself to identify sustainability and compatibility of digital elements in order to build a documentation that can collect and preserve the whole spectrum of digital objects related to the piece.

This joint paper introduces the Guggenheim initiative "Conserving Computer-based Art” (CCBA) and the museum's collaborative case study research with faculty and students from the Department of Computer Science of New York University's Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences. New methods of artwork examination and condition assessment are explored based on the authors' cross-disciplinary study and source code analysis of computer-based artworks from the Guggenheim collection, including installations, sculptures and Internet art. The talk gives special attention to the development of conservation documentation that is informed by computer science methods and aims to serve future decision-makers of different disciplines, ranging from programmers to collection caretakers and art professionals. Guided by the objective to accommodate and establish the care of computer-based art within the greater field of contemporary art conservation, the authors investigate the conceptual anatomy and functional dependencies of the studied computer-based artworks and identify analogies and differences between them and traditional conservation objects. The authors discuss the applicability of existing conservation ethics, principles and practices to the care of computer-based art and map the needs for further research and best practice development within the field of contemporary art conservation. The research discussed in this paper presents an integral part of the Guggenheim's current CCBA initiative to survey, save and study 22 computer-based artworks in the museum's collection.

Emulation has evolved over the last few years to become a viable preservation strategy and is becoming more and more common, not only in archives but also in Museum practice. In order to better understand when and how to use it, as well as what processes and infrastructure must be in place, Tate collaborated with Klaus Rechert from Freiburg University to develop a workflow, and created a report describing a framework for the use of emulation for preservation of artworks. This was made possible by PERICLES, a European funded project which focuses on evaluating and representing the risks for long-term digital conservation of digital resources. As part of that collaboration we then tested that approach in a workshop with the participation of Dragan Espenschied of Rhizome on works from the Tate's collection. Later the same process was applied to net art pieces in Rhizome's collection. As illustrations we will use two examples from the Tate Collection, "Sow Farm” by John Gerrard (T14279), "Subtitled Public” by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (T12565), and "The File Room" by Antonio Muntadas from Rhizome's collection. We were able to demonstrate that the proposed workflow is applicable to a very broad range of software-based artwork, from interactive installations to web-based projects. It provides a useful tool to reveal technical boundaries of software ensembles, and discover useful technical abstractions that work across different artifacts, which in turn help to define treatment approaches. Tate is now planning to implement this process across the other works in the Collection and any new acquisitions; Rhizome is applying this process to the body of its collection.

Perhaps because the visual arts predominate in museum collections, conservation documentation methods for audio in media installation art are less developed than those for video. However, the aural elements are equally complex, both technically and creatively. In works involving sound reinforcement (electronic amplification of audio signals), artists frequently work closely with audio engineers or other sound specialists to make adjustments that shape the sound within the exhibition space. This talk will propose methods for documenting these decisions and the resulting listener experience of the work. Challenges inherent to both subjective and objective methods of documentation will be discussed, drawing from the fields of acoustics, psychoacoustics, and sound engineering. In addition, condition assessment and characterization of the audio prior to installation is essential to ensure that the capabilities of the sound system are appropriate not only to the technical specifications of the digital files, but to the artist's vision for the listener experience. This talk will include examples of inspection of audio files and streams using software applications, and examination of audio information in file metadata. Several case studies will illustrate possible application of these methods, and may include artworks with live sound performance as well as pre-recorded sound.

Media artworks challenge traditional documentation systems and, in our experience, reveal the limitations and restrictions of the proprietary museum software currently available. With new ways of working being formed in today's museums, innovative systems are required that support collaborative workflows and encourage multi-user participation, all while serving the different needs necessary to keep the art at the center. Building on a rich history in this area of research, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has launched an internal web platform that utilizes the open-source MediaWiki software to capture, document, and distribute both concrete and contextual information around artworks. Widely supporting multi-media assets, SFMOMA's Mediawiki can host videos, audio- and image files, a variety of document formats, as well as link to external sources. Taking Julia Scher's iterative media installation Predictive Engineering as a case study, members of the Mellon-funded research project 'the Artist Initiative' have explored the different ways a comprehensive object record can look like and be created. This extensive research culminated in a two-day colloquium at which scholars from around the globe were invited to critique both the contents of the record as well as the technical platform. SFMOMA's Mediawiki was recently opened to all members of SFMOMA's Team Media consortium, who are now testing its usability. Their feedback and participation will inform further steps and determine if the MediaWiki platform can become a complimentary tool to our existing databases and fulfill the multi-facetted needs of documenting artworks even beyond this most challenging body of works.

The treatment of contemporary art relies on a broad range of information gathered from many sources and stored in multiple formats. Prior conservation reports, analytical results, still and moving image documentation, installation instructions, recordings of artist interviews, emails, and publications represent just some of the sources that conservators and their colleagues draw from to arrive at conservation treatment decisions. As variable works change over time from one iteration to the next, their documentation becomes the resource that defines what a work has been and can be in the future. Given its significance for future research, designing good archiving and access systems for this documentation is becoming a major topic of research. Within museums, collections management databases are the primary resources for storing information about collections. Conservators struggle to enter their documentation into these information management systems. They also strive to incorporate documentation that is archived elsewhere in various formats. They push the limits of what these databases can handle in their efforts capture all of information necessary for future treatment and exhibition decisions.

This presentation provides a model for an alternate software solution to information management for conservation: the wiki. The authors do not recommend replacing hierarchical collections management databases in museums, but they suggest that wiki software provides an option for managing complex conservation documentation in some circumstances. The strengths of wiki software include the category/subcategory functionality provided natively to group documents in unlimited and meaningful ways. Also the powerful hierarchical page/section structure allows conservators to create meaningful URLs for linking within and across webpages.

In collaboration with archivists, art historians, and other scholars at New York University, the authors combined their expertise in conservation and computer science to investigate the potential for wiki software to create an information resource for the artist/activist David Wojnarowicz. As the first task in the larger Artist Archives Project, the David Wojnarowicz Knowledge Base is built with MediaWiki software. It contains information about the deceased artist's materials and technologies, his installations, collaborators, performances, and media works, as well as concerns for future presentation of the work of this pivotal late twentieth century artist. Early in the project, the research team decided that relationships among the elements of the artist's works would determine the nature of the underlying conceptual database. Thus the project became equally a "content” and a "technology” effort. We considered customizing an open source content management system (CMS) using an open source framework such as Drupal but that would have required considerable custom programming leading to both higher development costs and higher future maintenance costs. We selected MediaWiki for our Knowledge Base to insure a stable, open-source, user-friendly and high-performance web environment. In addition we explored configuration options and customization to the MediaWiki software in order to optimize the flexibility of the system design, to support the integration of a wide variety of documentation file formats that support conservation efforts, and to build a flexible user interface to meet the needs of conservators and others in the scholarly community.

Since its acquisition by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2002, Ann Hamilton's installation "at hand" —a variable media artwork composed of audio, performative, and physical elements intended to simultaneously entice various senses— has suffered from the consequences of inaction. When the work was slated for exhibition last year, it was discovered that it had gone from a state of dormancy to obsolescence, challenging our ability to access and display the artwork. Treatment of a complex installation such as this can become more complicated with time, as perceptions change, information is lost, technologies become obsolete, and materials degrade, often necessitating increasingly significant intervention to bring it back to an active state. In the case of "at hand," this required a thorough examination, re-evaluation, and inventory of all materials associated with the artwork from the time of acquisition in order to identify specific components and previous alterations, as well as research into the history and intent of the artwork itself. Addressing all of the components, including pneumatic and computer-operated paper dropping mechanisms, the paper, the audio files and playback equipment, and the performativity of the artwork, could only be achieved through the collaboration of media and paper conservators, media preservation specialists, audio-visual specialists, exhibitions staff, and the artist and fabricator. The treatment itself was largely informed by the artist and fabricator, who increased our understanding of the principal action of the artwork —dropping paper from the ceiling using a mechanized dropper unit— as not simply the dropping of paper, but as the replication of the human act of an arm moving forward and releasing paper from a hand. Treatment involved not only the practical repair of the artwork, but also the replication of obsolete components, and the replacement of others in order to bring the work back to an active state. This paper will address all aspects of the conservation of Ann Hamilton's "at hand," including the overall disrepair of the paper dropping mechanisms, the obsolescence and importance of the original paper, and the inaccessibility of the eight audio tracks. The priorities for conservation varied based on materials, paper or electronic, but the idea of the artwork as a type of repeatable performance, with visual, auditory, and tactile components, guided all aspects of conservation.

Stephan van Huene is recognized for his acoustical sculptures—which he called "machines”—that combine movement and sound with the flip of a switch. This presentation will focus on his 1967 machine Tap Dancer composed of wood and leather boots that perform a three-minute tap dance atop a wooden base every half hour. It is only upon opening the base from its four sides that you realize the construction is a homemade version of an electropneumatic console for a pipe organ. The components include a network of integrated circuit boards that are wired to control recycled valves, levers, and bellows linked to percussion elements and the swivel motion and toe tapping of the boots. First used in the 19th century, Tap Dancer draws from the electropneumatic design common to the Wurlitzer organ in combination with a sound composition from wooden-headed mallets striking four wooden blocks from a xylophone - an interesting choice as some of the first Western uses of the instruments were for theatrical acts of Vaudeville. Von Huene's machine-sculptures have many conservation issues, particularly when they are displayed and plugged in for action. The condition of the circuitry is critical to allow the boots to perform their composition, which is intended to be random by way of an EPROM-circuit connected to an E050 timing circuit. Furthermore, the re-used musical components are vulnerable to mechanical stress failure and one broken wire, shorted chip, frozen relay or erased EPROM could stop the show. His sculptures do not come with a schematic; therefore, the function of all of the parts has inherent ambiguity. It is also most common for a series of problems to occur simultaneously, making the diagnosis and restoration time-consuming and challenging even for a skilled electronics engineer. The talk describes challenges that arose during the exhibition of Tap Dancer at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, a series of malfunctions, temporary conservation interventions, and a complete restoration after the exhibition. The paper will provide guidelines for restoring von Huene's sculptures and can serve as a model for other works of art that incorporate early electronics. The experiences exhibiting Tap Dancer has provided informed conservation issues for his "machines" when challenged to exhibit them as the artist intended. The endurance of their structures are inevitably at risk—a matter of concern that will continue to resonate for conservators and curators in the future.