PARTICIPATION IN VIDEO ART PRESERVATION: ACTIVISM, PROLIFERATION AND COMMUNITY ARCHIVES

Valdés P.F. · AusArt (2024) · DOI: 10.1387/ausart.25549

Resumen

Throughout its history, video art has been commonly employed as an artistic weapon against social injustice and inequality. Because of its experimental and technological nature, that activist aspect is continuously fazed by obsolescence, the biggest challenge in preserving these types of artworks. The present article offers an understanding of video art as a proliferative artefact, consequently focusing its conservation strategies around access. In this framework, online spaces appear as a resource of particular relevance for their accessibility, allowing for the diffusion and reactivation of the social demands of video artworks. Is it possible to design effective participative practices in institutional spaces? Simultaneously, how should we transform these institutions to allow equal participation? With the concept of post-museum in mind, a reflection is made concerning the possibilities, limits and effects of extra-institutional agents’ participation in the preservation processes of video art.