“When interactive artworks act as archives: migrating and documenting Immemory by Chris Marker” presented by Michaan and Bettinelli

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When interactive artworks act as archives: migrating and documenting Immemory by Chris Marker

Researching Chris Marker’s digital artwork Immemory and working on its preservation for the future reveals the relevance of considering certain media artworks as archives in themselves. Created in 1997 for CD-ROM, Immemory has undergone several transformations on form and content, and was brought to the web for an online version between 2007 and 2013, re-coded in Flash format. After Flash became obsolete in 2020, the need for a reflection on how to sustain the work for the future and how to inform future viewers on its various versions led to a conservation study and reflection on the ways to document it. With Chris Marker’s use of re-incorporation of personal documents, references, and quotes from earlier artworks, the topic of historicization is at the core of the artwork and thus requires to play an important part in its study, when archiving it and presenting it to the public. It can serve as an interesting example of how self-contained digital artworks such as CD-ROM-based works from the 1990s can be experienced today depending on what documentation and information is accessible for the
viewer.