“Complex acquisitions: understanding the infrastructural properties of born-digital objects in museum collections” presented by Arrigoni and

Symposium:

• ISEA2022: 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA2022:  

• Short Papers Online Content

• Complex acquisitions: understanding the infrastructural properties of born-digital objects in museum collections

• Gabriella Arrigoni,

• Whilst born-digital collections continue to be developed in several museums internationally, this paper contributes to debates as to how we conceptualise born-digital objects. Many complex artifacts of digital culture, in fact, elude the behavior of traditional collected objects. Here, we concentrate on three examples to illustrate different degrees to which born-digital museum acquisitions can be understood as infrastructures. By examining an immersive reality piece, a procedurally generated film, and a digital platform, this paper addresses hybridity, fluid relationships across the main and auxiliary parts of an acquisition, and the lack of clear boundaries to define what the collected object is. It concludes that developing deeper understandings of the infrastructural properties of born-digital museum acquisitions could support changes in institutional practice and thinking to better accommodate this emergent area of collecting.

Project Website:

• https://www.vam.ac.uk/research/projects/preserving-and-sharing-born-digital-and-hybrid-objects

Keywords:

• Born-digital
• infrastructure
• digital preservation
• platforms
• contemporary collecting

Category:

• Paper
• Short Paper