“During the last twenty years, interactive installations of virtual art have been on show at festivals and exhibitions and have proved very popular with the public. Further, this new art form increasingly dominates debates on art theory. So far, however, museums and art galleries have neglected to build systematic collections of these artworks.”
The Database of Virtual Art: For an Expanded Concept of Documentation
Published in 2003 by founder of The Archive of Digital Art Dr. Grau, is a paper by Archives & Museum Informatics Europe discussing the history and difficulties with archiving digital art in. Because digital art and technology art such new studies and ways of creating media they are constantly changing and lack the infrastructure to continue to support obsolete versions of programs. The different ways digital art is experienced also poses its own challenges with formats like VR, panorama and interactive works inevitably losing aspects of the original concept while being preserved. While works have already been lost to time thee paper discusses ways we have progressed to document and maintain the initial forms of digital art.
Paul Sermon, Telematic Vision, 1992.
Grau, Oliver. “The Database of Virtual Art: For an Expanded …” Archimuse, 12 Sept. 2003, www.archimuse.com/publishing/ichim03/016C.pdf.