Research Summary

This research addresses the definition of a framework for new media conservation, departing from a representative map of artist intent for the preservation of visual arts in Portugal. Due to their nature, new media artworks depend on occasional materializations and specific technological components that are vulnerable to obsolescence. Thus, this research aims to document artist intent, primordially linked to the idea of authenticity. The documentation to be created with the revision of the enunciative materiality of a specific artwork will result from interviewing a group of artists. The primary goal will be to assess, analyzing each particular artistic project, what intangible aspects will pertain to each artwork. It is aspired that this research, urgent and pioneering in the national context, withholds a primordial step in a new media preservation campaign in Portugal, attending to the fact that the knowledge produced in this sphere is mostly Anglo-Saxon.