Research

Preserving the history of Australian Media Art

Experimenta holds an extensive store of original materials (discs, tapes, CD-ROMS)  relating to its 30+ years, including an extraordinary history of Australian media arts practice. 

In order to preserve and make accessible this increasingly fragile and deteriorating archive, Experimenta is a key industry partner in the Australian Research Council funded Archiving Australian Media Art project, where we are working with cultural institutions across the country to conserve significant media artworks and develop a best–practice method for the preservation of digital media arts heritage to be shared publicly. This 3 year research project began in 2019 with our archive being deposited into the ACMI and the State Library of Victoria collections to ensure public accessibility.

Partners: Australian Centre for the Moving Image; The Trustee for Art Gallery of NSW; State Library of South Australia; Experimental Media Arts.  Australian Network for Art and Technology; dLux Media Arts Incorporated; UNESCO PERSIST; Rhizome; Griffith University  Art Museum.

Investigators: Melanie Swalwell; Denise de Vries; Helen Stuckey (RMIT); Nick Richardson (ACMI); Carolyn Murphy (AGNSW); Andrew Piper (SLSA); Angela Goddard (Griffith); Jonathan Parsons (Experimenta)