NETWORKED ALTERNATIVES: DIGITAL CURATION AND ARTISTIC PRODUCTION ON ARTIST-RUN PLATFORMS Colin Post A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Information and Library Science Chapel Hill 2020 Approved by: Christopher A. Lee Denise Anthony Amelia Gibson Cary Levine Ryan Shaw © 2020 Colin Post ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Colin Post: Networked Alternatives: Digital Curation and Artistic Production on Artist-run Platforms (Under the direction of Christopher A. Lee) This dissertation explores how artists creatively engaged with digital and networked technologies care for their artworks and related studio or personal archival materials. As digital and new media artworks frequently face preservation concerns and require regular maintenance shortly after the point of creation, artists often become the first stewards of their own work.
Central to these artistic engagements, artists leverage digital and networked technologies to circulate artworks in exhibition and display contexts outside of museums and commercial galleries, including online platforms and hybrid gallery spaces that I refer to as ‘networked alternatives.’ I position these networked alternatives in longer histories of artists’ experiments with digital and networked technologies as well as artists’ efforts to effect their own exhibition contexts alternative to arts institutions and markets. Along with the artists, the curators of these spaces play crucial roles in the digital curation of these artworks and archival materials. The curators not only work with artists to mitigate technical issues in the process of staging networked exhibitions but also undertake largely volunteer labor to ensure the long-term viability of artworks featured in these exhibitions. As artists and curators care for these artworks and archives throughout the lifecycle of these materials, they seek out information and learn new skills contributing to situated knowledges needed to perform digital curation labor.
From the creation of new artworks to the iii ongoing care of older works, these artists develop digital curation repertoires that become fundamental to their broader artistic efforts. Processes and practices for managing data across complex information systems are integral to activities involved in creating, exhibiting, and experiencing digital and new media artworks. I analyze these digital curation information needs and practices through the theoretical framework of information worlds, examining the various other individuals, organizations, technologies, communities, and sociopolitical factors that impact these information needs and practices. These artists and curators in turn shape the art worlds and various other social worlds constituting their information worlds; the digital curation repertoires of these individuals both drive and reflect broader changes in how art is created, disseminated, and experienced across these social worlds.
iv To Annot v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have researched and written this dissertation during one of the most trying and rewarding periods of my life, and the successful completion of this project has only been made possible through the enduring support of many, many people. I first owe a huge debt of gratitude to my committee, all of whom offered guidance, insightful feedback, and much needed encouragement. In the moments after successfully defending my dissertation proposal, I informed my committee that my wife and I were expecting our first child. My wife’s pregnancy and the first year of our daughter’s life would coincide with the inception, maturation, and completion of my dissertation research.
Along with congratulatory wishes from my committee, I received the reassuring information that four of my five committee members had successfully completed their own dissertations while expecting and welcoming children into the world. In addition to their scholarly insights that have informed my research and writing, my committee members have also shared in the joys (and tribulations) of new parenthood. They have all provided sound models for balancing demanding academic undertakings with a rich family life, and I will carry those lessons with me as I begin my career following graduation. My advisor, Cal Lee, deserves special thanks for his support and feedback: he has been instrumental in guiding me from my initial research idea through to a (pretty long) dissertation.
Any readers of this document will appreciate the careful feedback that Cal provided on everything from grammar and sentence structure through to the intellectual core of my arguments. My wife, Rachel Finkelstein, deserves undying credit for being an incredible mother and a supportive partner. Even while returning to her job as a high school teacher, Rachel afforded vi me time to type away at my desk along with daily encouragement. She placed my emotional wellbeing and my professional success among her top priorities, and I will be forever grateful for that.
Through all this, we have grown closer than ever, laid a strong foundation for our family, and together, we have raised an inquisitive, gregarious, and thoroughly silly daughter, Annot Finkelstein. Although it has been at times extraordinarily difficult to look after a newborn while writing a dissertation, I am routinely revivified by the energy exuded by this little girl. She is a fount of inspiration as I continue my work in this area. Both of our parents have been along with us on this journey, too.
They have made countless trips to visit us (and have provided free child care), making it possible for us to focus on our work as well as to continue nurturing our relationship with each other. Long before I started working on this dissertation, my parents, Keith and Rachel Post, have encouraged my creativity and curiosity, two indispensable strengths for any scholar. I hope to raise my daughter just as my parents raised me. Rachel’s parents, Marvin Finkelstein and Karen Olson, have been outstanding cheerleaders for both of us, and they’ve tracked the progress of this dissertation with great enthusiasm—and not just because they want their grandchild’s dad to have a job.
Rachel’s sister, Michele, and my brother and sister, Andrew and Aubrey, have likewise joined the cheering section, showering us with regular encouragement as we raise our daughter and make progress in our careers. Beyond our immediate families, both Rachel and I have been so fortunate to find a community of fellow scholars, artists, and friends in North Carolina. Among them, Patrick Golden and his partner, Rosa Kneller, have been constant companions. I have shared in many successes and setbacks with Patrick, who has always been just as ready to share a beer or some moments of respite at a favorite fishing spot on these occasions.
My dear, lifelong friend Kolin vii Smith has always been ready to talk baseball when I’ve needed a break and offer words of encouragement when I’ve needed a boost. I was also supremely fortunate to receive a five-year fellowship from the Royster Society that not only funded my doctoral education, including two full years of non-service funding, but also fostered an interdisciplinary community of faculty and graduate students that truly enriched my time at the University of North Carolina. Of course, this research would not have been possible without the inspiring community of artists that I have worked with for the last several years now. Cameron Buckley and Daniel Smith, the curators of Paper-Thin, welcomed my interest in their project and provided me with everything I needed or wanted to know, including generous introductions to all of the artists who have contributed work to the platform.
I am extremely grateful to all of the artists who, in turn, contributed to my research. All the artists discussed in the dissertation are carrying out stellar projects that warrant attention beyond the present document. I hope to honor them by continuing to share this research on their amazing work in publications and presentations, as well as with my future students. Moreover, I see the present research project as only the start of my involvement with this remarkable community of artists.
There are many more friends, family, and mentors that I would like to thank, but I worry about adding too many more pages to the dissertation. In lieu of rattling off an endless string of names, I’ll close by saying that if we spoke at any time between 2016 and 2020, you have a part in this accomplishment. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1) The First Stewards of Digital and New Media Art .2) Paper-Thin and Networked Alternatives .3) Statement of Purpose and Research Questions.4) Overview of Research Design and Methods .5) Overview of Main Findings. 27 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1) Digital and New Media Art .2) Information Needs, Behaviors, and Practices .2) Conceptual and Theoretical Framework.2) Sociology of Art and Art Worlds .3) Relevant Approaches to Cultural Heritage Preservation .3) Post-Custodialism and Community Archives.4) Personal Information Management and Personal Digital Archiving.4) Artists’ Information Needs and Behaviors .5) Art and Networked Technologies.
111 CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN .1 Overview of Methods .1) Constructivist Grounded Theory .3) Art Historical Methods .2) Reflection on Research Methodology .1) Relationship between Method and Theory .2) Self-reflective Statement on Positionality as Researcher .1) Case Study and Sample Selection .4) Evaluating the Study. 148 x CHAPTER 4: DIGITAL CURATION INFORMATION NEEDS AND PRACTICES .1) Artists’ Information Needs and Practices .1) Digital Curation Challenges .2) Personal Archiving Practices .3) Practices of Care .4) Organizations and Communities .2) Information Needs and Practices of Paper-Thin Curators .1) Overview of Paper-Thin .3) Paper-Thin as Archives. 279 CHAPTER 5: ARTISTS’ INFORMATION WORLDS .1) Overview of Social Worlds and Arenas .2) Permeable Art Worlds .1) Local and Networked Arts Communities .2) Intersections and Tensions with Information Technology Industries .3) The Shape of Digital Art History .3) Changing Conditions for Exhibiting, Selling, and Experiencing Art .1) Relationships between Artists and Curators .2) Relationships with Collecting Institutions and Private Collectors .3) Relationships with Audiences .4) Gaining Skills to Create and Care for Artworks.1) Implications for Cultural Heritage Institutions .2) Implications for Arts Education and Pedagogy .3) Limitations of the Study .4) Directions for Future Research. 351 xii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Overview of Study Participants.
136 Table 2 Overview of Digital Curation Challenges and Related Practices. 153 Table 3 Overview of Information Needs and Sources. 155 Table 4 Overview of Paper-Thin Volumes. 239 xiii LIST OF FIGURES Fig.
1 Temporary splash page for NewHive. 3 Workflow for D'Alessio's creative projects. 4 Documentation photographs on VVORK. 5 Zachary Dean Norman, image still of Ragged Point Barbados from Endangered Data.
7 Sarah Rothberg, Memory/Place: My House. 8 Raul De Lara, Invasive Species (Burning Man). 9 Andy Lomas, from Mutant Vase Forms. 10 Phillip Stearns, GyrFalcon (Open Vault).
11 Screenshot of Paper-Thin’s landing page. 12 Andy Lomas, Cellular Forms. 13 Hunter Jonakin, Collector’s Digital Art Piece. 14 Daniel Baird and Haseeb Ahmed, HWBMx8.
15 Zachary Dean Norman, transform dot rotate. 16 Martina Menegon, I’ll Keep You Warm and Safe In My People Zoo. 17 Installation shot of Paper-Thin v3. 18 Installation shot of Paper-Thin v3.
19 Installation shot of Paper-Thin v3. 20 Social worlds/arenas map. 21 Sarah Rothberg, installation shot of Touching a Cactus. 318 xiv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Cultural heritage institutions have steadily developed novel techniques, approaches, and tools for the ongoing care of digital and new media art, but these works often face preservation concerns long before entering institutional collections, and far more works will never enter into institutional collections at all.
Significantly, artists themselves along with the curators of smaller galleries and art platforms, which I describe with the term ‘networked alternatives,’ have taken on primary responsibilities in the digital curation of artworks and related archival materials. Created and exhibited with rapidly changing digital and networked technologies, these artworks are sustained only through the application of both routine and exceptional digital curation efforts, including refreshing storage media, format migration, and altogether recreating older artworks with current technologies.