The search for archives and collections as a way to digital curation and not forget historical artworks

Abstract

Digital curation does not only mean to have online exhibitions on digital nature works or projects but also being able to recirculate all those historical Media Art works that have been scattered in different places or just forgotten and unknown. For that purpose, many researchers, professors, artists and other specialists seek to lighten the lack of information and documentation around Media Art in Spain, usually through different R&D projects. Thanks to the possibility offered by these projects, it is enabled to research on the historical Media Art archives and collections, the preservation and, especially, the dissemination by means of digital supports. In Spain, this is the relevant case of the work made on L’angelot and MECAD in Barcelona and Medialab Madrid in the capital, as some examples by the Spanish Archive of Media Art (SAOMA) project. Actions such as the identification, cataloging and labelling of the artistic works that belong to public and private collections, both historical and contemporary had taken place. The main result of this project is the online Spanish Network of Archives and Collections of Media Art, as a convergence space for the cooperation on its management, preservation and dissemination through the support of technical instruments in the way to internationalization.