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This text is from the publication Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach, published in 2003 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology.

This text by Caitlin Jones outlines the practical processes involved in setting up the Variable Media Network and the Variable Media questionnaire.

As the recipient of the 2002 Variable Media Fellowship, I was charged with the task of transforming a theoretical platform into a workable system for preservation. The variable media paradigm proposes to explore the medium-independent attributes of an artwork; in the same vein, my first year has involved looking at the "occupationally independent" attributes of a diverse range of fields. Across medium and discipline lines, my position required investigation as a technician, archivist, administrator, conservator, philosopher, and general laborer in both a local and network capacity.

This publication represents the core participants of the Variable Media Network, but is by no means an exhaustive list of those concerned with the field of contemporary-art preservation. In my search for allies and information, I found many actively engaged individuals, institutions, and organizations in this field. While exploring the domains of both art and film conservation, I have drawn on much-needed experience from conservators, archivists, and technicians. Conferences such as"Mortality Immortality?"1"TechArchaeology,"2 and "Preserving the Immaterial," organizations such as the Association of Moving Image Archivists, Conceptual and Intermedia Arts Online, Independent Media Arts Preservation, and International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art3 and institutions such as the Tate Modern and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art have provided extensive information and resources. Particular individuals within these organizations have been invaluable resources and have affirmed that ideas of openness and networking are valuable tools for preservation.

A key element of the network, and a major focus for myself, has been the development of the variable media questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to encourage artists to answer questions about their work in a medium-independent way in order to help with issues that may arise during future installations. In theory this opens the door to new and promising preservation options; in practice the concerns become more complicated. Such a questionnaire needs to provide enough detail to be meaningful, but also must be broad enough to allow for unforeseen issues. We want to describe works according to their behaviors, such as performed or networked, while allowing for a material description that provides context. In addition, it's difficult to imagine formulating questions we don't yet know we will need to be asking. In trying to keep the questionnaire relevant and useful, I found myself consistently bogged down in infinite theoretical possibilities.


Here enters the first of my many crises of faith. How can we quantitatively gather information that is so qualitative in nature? How can one simplify information to ask a standard set of questions about such complex works of art and still make it meaningful in a questionnaire format? And then, how can it be presented so as to engage the artists whose opinions we are seeking? Further still, how can this information, once gathered, be presented in a logical, open, and meaningful environment? To really get down to making concrete decisions about variable media works, these theoretical questions, however general, must be explored.

While moving forward on the exterior network level, the Guggenheim has simultaneously been pushing to come up with workable internal strategies for its own preservation policy. Using the variable media paradigm as one of our guides, the museum is taking major steps to preserve its own collection. In 2003, Moving Pictures, a Guggenheim exhibition that highlighted photography, film, and video from the museum's collections, provided a series of good test cases for me to apply this variable media strategy. Questions of format, installation dimensions, equipment specifications, spatial constraints, image resolution, the importance of documentation, as well as the aesthetic and legal ramifications of exhibiting these works were all highlighted during the period of installation. This experience provided insight into how curatorial decisions, financial constraints, artist's intent, and other issues outside the art object itself can affect the presentation and preservation of a work.

Artworks created in variable mediums bring up thorny issues in a curatorial, conservation, and even in a production environment. The slightest alteration can have serious repercussions. Next year, we are proposing a number of emulation case studies in which we will take tangible, concrete action to preserve endangered works. We migrate film to digital formats. We can upgrade to the latest technology, but for me the questions still remain: Should we be allowed to make these kinds of decisions permanently? Even if the artist says it's OK? Will our ties to the historical document and object value allow us to do this? And, who is best qualified to make these decisions?

It may sound as though I am no further off than when the year started—asking the same questions, which have since multiplied. However, this proves the value of a tool like the Variable Media Network. With works so ephemeral and diverse in nature, I can see only positive merit in establishing a networked environment in which to document and discuss them. We need to allow for uncertainty. We need to ask the opinions of all involved in contemporary-art production, exhibition, and conservation. And perhaps most important, we need to allow for differing opinions that emerge from this dialogue. These works are dynamic and warrant a preservation methodology just as energetic and disposed to change.

1. See Miguel Angel Corzo, ed., Mortality Immortality? The Legacy of 20th-Century Art (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 1999).
2. See Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 40, no. 3 (fall/winter 2001).
3. See Ijsbrand Hummelen and Dionne Sille, eds., Modern Art: Who Cares? An Interdisciplinary Research Project and an International Symposium on the Conservation of Modern and Contemporary Art (Amsterdam: The Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, 1999).