The third-generation version of the Variable Media Questionnaire, an instrument developed by Still Water’s John Bell and Jon Ippolito to help guide the future of artworks endangered by technical and cultural obsolescence, will be launched publically this March at the 2010 DOCAM conference in Montreal.
Blurb from the presentation “Crowdsourcing Preservation: The Variable Media Questionnaire 3.0”:
Gone are the days when conservation meant manila folders and obscure academic journals. Rescuing new media art from oblivion will require a large and connected community. This approach is embodied in the third and latest version of the Variable Media Questionnaire, unveiled for the first time at this conference. This Questionnaire makes it easy to compare differing viewpoints on the same artwork, or similar problems affecting different artworks. While anyone can access the VMQ as a free Web service, its data can also appear alongside collection records of separate institutions, thanks to a “Metaserver” that ties together dispersed databases.