MFA Photography, Video and Related Media presents "A Digital Repertoire," a lecture by Dragan Espenschied, Director of Digital Preservation at Rhizome, the leading art organization dedicated to born-digital art and culture, an affiliate of the New Museum since 2003. Espenschied will discuss the practice of digital preservation, the materials, metaphors and idioms that shape that practice, as well as examples of work done for Rhizome and the artist's creative practice.

Dragan Espenschied (born 1975, Germany) is a musician, artist and researcher. Since 2014 he has led the preservation department at Rhizome, a pioneering digital art organization holding a collection of more than 2,000 pieces of net art. In this position, he established emulation, web archiving and linked data as institutional practices, and developed new approaches for preserving and presenting works of net art online and in gallery space.

A Digital Repertoire:

The preservation of art that uses computers and digital networks poses many technological challenges. We are confronted with fragile assemblages of devices, software and communication infrastructure. How such pieces are preserved, traded, loaned and collected is determined by ideas of how they are manifested, what they are "made of." This lecture will examine how materials, metaphors and idioms are shaping digital preservation practice, based on examples of Espenschied's work at Rhizome and as an artist.

Talk

Dragan Espenschied: A Digital Repertoire