Collecting and Conserving Net Art

Reviews / Votes

"The book, highly original in its approach, builds on existing literature in this field by offering a novel and ground-breaking way to think of net art and its influence on conservation practices that does not consider net art as fixed but rather a process, an assemblage that can mutate over time and according to context. The implication for museum professionals is that they become part of a 'network of care' that is collaborative and most likely interdisciplinary, looking at preserving not just the object of art but also its variability. The book is likely to have a strong impact for academics and professionals working in the field.
Gabriella Giannachi, University of Exeter, UK

"Annet Dekker's book Collecting and Conserving Net Art is the most comprehensive analysis to date of how net art is influencing art conservation practices. It is the result of very rigorous research. In a clear and analytical way, Dekker describes the processes involved in net artworks and their consequences for museums as the starting point for her proposal of an "expanded conservation practice" in the computational age. The reader will also find a superb analysis on the question of what net art is. In many of the conferences and meetings on digital art that I have participated in over the last fifteen years, the issues addressed in this book have been recurring topics that needed to be treated in depth. Therefore, this book is going to be a key material not only for many masters programs on digital and media arts, but also for numerous postgraduate courses in museum and conservation studies, where this book should also attract a lot of attention"
Juan Martin Prada, Universidad de Cadiz, Spain

Collecting and Conserving Net Art makes an invaluable contribution to the fields of digital conservation and new media art history and theory. Rigorous, concise, and original, the book takes the machinic, systemic, social and cultural aspects of net art as a starting point for developing models for the art form's preservation. Dekker argues against the superficial claims that net art isn't presentable, collectable, or preservable in order to establish a framework for conserving, documenting, and embracing the variability of the art form. Collecting and Conserving Net Art is a testimony to both the unique philosophical and pragmatic challenges that net art poses to standard preservation practices and the need for a publication that provides an in-depth discussion of these challenges.
Christiane Paul, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and Whitney Museum of American Art, USA