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
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