Roger, everyone,
On the topic of the role of technicians and of their credit in exhibition and historic documentation of the work, Jon wrote a good piece a while back on the inadequacies of the museum label as currently used for much new media art in a paper called "Death by Wall Label" (I didn't realize til just now Jon's seeming fascination with all things dying :)
Of course, the wall label is one form of documentation and - dare I say it? - In our book (http://re-collection.net) we also propose a metadata model for new media art (the Media Art Notation System) that is intended less as a proposed standard to adopt whole-cloth and more as a demonstration of how the special requirements for media art may be incorporated into any metadata standard.
Anyway, this model includes ways to include and recognize people with different roles in the creation of the work as being part of the official/formal record of the work and not relegated to the marginalia where recognized at all. Roger, I like your science paper example and the example I usually use for how documenting roles and credits for media art is that they should look more like movie credits than museum wall labels.
Richard Rinehart
---------------------
Director
Samek Art Museum
Bucknell University
---------------------
Lewisburg, PA, 17837
570-577-3213
http://galleries.blogs.bucknell.edu
On Jul 23, 2014, at 11:12 AM, roger malina wrote:
> Jon,kathelin
>
> this discussion on the roles of key technicians in pioneering
> art and technology work brings up some related issues concerning
> attribution of credit to all collaborators that make the work
> possible- often the technicians or engineers are not included as
> co authors of the work= and in the art world typically there is
> one named artist on a work ( with some key exceptions)
>
> in scientific culture- on papers there are systems of attribution
> so that some collaborators are included as co-authors on the
> scientific paper and others in the acknowledgements ( not all
> scientific disciplines have identical approaches- in particle
> physics typically for instance the order of co authors is alphabetical
> whereas in astronomy the first author is the key author who normally
> drafted the paper)
>
> in the history of art and technology there have been a number of
> different models of how technical and engineering collaborators
> are included as co-creators of the work ( and i am aware of a
> number of resulting disputes)
>
> interestingly the context of showing the work can be pertinent-
> for instance at the Exploratorium science musuem exhibits are
> typically not attributed or signed by the engineer or technician-
> but if the exhibit is an 'art work' but may experientally be very
> simiarly to a science exhibit-then the work is 'signed' by the artist
>
> as the editor of leonardo journal i often get articles from artists
> who have a work resulting from a collaboration with a scientist-
> 90% of the time the scientist is not included as a co author on the
> text and i normally challenge this and insist that the scientist
> collaborator be properly attributed-but even if the scientist is
> a co author on the text when the artist shows the work publically
> it is often shows as the artists work without a co creator
>
> in the case of my father although he was an engineer- he worked
> closed with an electronics engineer patrick boucher to develop
> interactive system- boucher was never included as a co creator
> of the work, but he was named on the back of the work
>
> in many cases its clear that the artist and technician work closely
> enough that there is really co-invention- so i would support kathelin;s
> comment that in the documentation of a work its really important
> to fully document the technicians and engineers who contributed
> to making the work possible
>
> the leonardo call for memoirs by pioneers has received a very positive
> response and we have about 20 pioneers writing about their activities
> pre 1984= as the memoirs come in i will make sure to ask them to
> include documentation of the technicians and engineers who made hte
> work possible
>
> roger
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded meJopssage ----------
> From: Jon Ippolito <jippolito@maine.edu>
> Date: Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 8:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Only you can prevent the end of
> history: Preservation recommendations from Re-collection
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
>
>
> Kathelin,
>
> This is an excellent point! Having worked with some great technicians,
> it probably seems shocking that Rick and I left them out of the
> "twelve-step program" that concludes Re-collection. Certainly we
> wouldn't have Nam June Paik without Shuya Abe or Gary Hill without
> Dave Jones.
>
> Once I thought a little more deeply about your suggestion, however, I
> remembered that our twelve stakeholders represent professions that
> desperately need to change if variable media culture is to persevere.
> And given that intent, I'm led to wonder...do technicians really need
> to be doing anything differently?
>
> We could of course plead with artists' assistants to use best
> practices when engineering works for long-term sustainability. But I'm
> not sure this is a realistic expectation. Video synthesizers didn't
> really exist when Abe and Paik pieced one together, so there was no
> standard to turn to; and at the time Jones hacked together custom
> black boxes, synchronizing videos across a cluster of naked CRTs was
> hardly standard practice either. Artists like to work on the edge, and
> in my experience that's one reason inventive technicians are drawn to
> them.
>
> Of course, museums and other collecting institutions absolutely need
> expert technicians to maintain old equipment in the short term. I love
> the look of vacuum tubes and the feel of Bakelite, and am grateful to
> the dedicated media archeologists who store them on shelves. But
> actually running the old electronics may not be a viable option in the
> long term, as bulbs blow, voltage requirements change, and vintage
> components eventually disappear from eBay.
>
> This inconvenient truth came out in comments by Al Kossow of the
> Silicon Valley Computer History Museum at the 2013 Preserving.exe
> conference at the Library of Congress. When Bill LeFurgy and others
> called for libraries to collect hardware along with software, Al said
> "I'd like to offer a contrarian point of view," and went on to explain
> how painful it was to keep frankensteining dead computers back into
> operation. The exchange led the Library's repository chief at the
> time, Leslie Johnston, to conclude, "We cannot all become museums of
> computer hardware."
>
> http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/05/what-are-we-going-to-do-about-hardware
>
> Does that mean collecting institutions can do without technical
> experts? Not on your life! Even if we embrace less media-dependent
> strategies like emulation, migration, and reinterpretation, we still
> desperately need technical ingenuity. The difference is that we will
> rely on engineers less for expertise in outdated technologies than in
> adapting old ideas to new hardware environments.
>
> I've been extraordinarily fortunate to work with technical savants
> like Paul Kuranko, who could migrate video and re-solder circuits with
> the best of them, yet also had the creativity necessary to refashion a
> work for a new space or technology without losing its spirit in the
> process. It's hard for me to imagine having mounted any of my
> media-oriented shows at the Guggenheim without Paul's insights.
>
> So I'd say yes, seek out and reward technicians--but for their ability
> to look forward as well as backward. I'd be curious about the
> experiences of others on this list.
>
> jon
> ________________
> Re-Collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory
> http://re-collection.net
> "Read it if you want to prevail"--Bruce Sterling
>
> On Jul 21, 2014, at 5:10 PM, Kathelin Gray <kathelin@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Engineer/technicians important to find, maintain and service
>> old equipment--
>>
>> Kathelin Gray
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico
>> +1 505 471 8428 landline
>> skype: kathelin
>>
>> On 21 Jul 2014, at 12:43, Jon Ippolito wrote:
>>
>>> Programmers
>>> Lawyers
>>> Creators
>>> Dealers
>>> Sponsors
>>> Academics
>>> Historians
>>>
>>> Rick and I hope these guidelines may answer some of the questions asked on this list and spur additional strategies for safeguarding our heritage in the decades to come.
>>>
>>> jon
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
>>> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
>>> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>>>
>>> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>>>
>>> SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
>>> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
>>> TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
>>> If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
>> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
>> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>>
>> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>>
>> SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
>> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
>> TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
>> If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>
> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>
> SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In
> the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name,
> and password in the fields found further down the page.
> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and
> enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked.
> Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options
> page").
> TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set
> Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
> If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
>
>
> --
> Roger F Malina
> Is in Dallas right now
> for very very urgent things phone/text me me
> +1-510-853-2007
> blog: malina.diatrope.com
> _______________________________________________
> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>
> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>
> SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
> TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
> If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
_______________________________________________
Yasmin_discussions mailing list
Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
