Time-based media is a term coined by museum conservators for durational works of art that unfold over a period of time. This work often relies on technology, but includes mediums such as

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

and

social practice Social practice is a theory within psychology that seeks to determine the link between practice and context within social situations. Emphasized as a commitment to change, social practice occurs in two forms: activity and inquiry. Most often ...

. In the late 1990s, various institutions and organizations started forming think-tanks and working groups to develop standard practices for the acquisition, analysis, and care for these works over time.

Time-based media conservation

Time-based media art presents unique challenges for the field of conservation. While early media conservators often came from traditional sculpture conservation backgrounds, contemporary media conservators benefit from having diverse backgrounds and experiences. The American Institute for Conservation formed the Electronic Media Group in 1998. The variable media initiative was active at the Guggenheim from 1999 to 2004. Matters in Media Art - a collaboration between the New Art Trust,

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; ...

, SFMoMA, and the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

- launched in 2005 to help institutions, collectors, and conservators keep works of media art alive. NYU launched the Time-based Media Art Conservation Education Program in the fall of 2018 under the guidance of Christine Frohnert and Hannelore Roemich. In recent years, various time-based media working groups have formed at major institutions such as the

Whitney Whitney may refer to: Film and television * ''Whitney'' (2015 film), a Whitney Houston biopic starring Yaya DaCosta * ''Whitney'' (2018 film), a documentary about Whitney Houston * ''Whitney'' (TV series), an American sitcom that premiered i ...

, The Met,

The Smithsonian The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, and The National Gallery of Art.

Collectors

Outside of institutions, major collectors of time-based media art include

Robert Rosenkranz Robert Rosenkranz (born August 5, 1942) is an American philanthropist and the chairman of Delphi Capital Management, an investment concern with over $35 billion in assets under management, and the founder of a group of investment and private equit ...

, Ingvild Goetz,

Julia Stoschek Julia Stoschek (born 1975) is a German socialite and art collector. Career Julia Stoschek was born in 1975, the daughter of Michael Stoschek, the German billionaire businessman and chairman of Brose Fahrzeugteile. Stoschek first began buyin ...

, and Pamela and Richard Kramlich.

In the media

The podcast ''Art and Obsolescence'' features interviews with artists, curators, conservators, and collectors regarding time-based media and its conservation.

Artists

The list below consists of notable artists who create or have created significant works that fall under the time-based media category: *

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei (, ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly ...

* Alan Michelson *

Alvin Lucier Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. (May 14, 1931 – December 1, 2021) was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in M ...

American Artist A list by date of birth of historically recognized American fine artists known for the creation of artworks that are primarily visual in nature, including traditional media such as painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking, as well as ...

Ana Mendieta Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. Born in Havana, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961. Ear ...

Annea Lockwood Annea Lockwood (born July 29, 1939, in Christchurch, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-born American composer and academic musician. She taught electronic music at Vassar College. Her work often involves recordings of natural found sounds. She has ...

Annie Sprinkle Annie M. Sprinkle (born Ellen F. Steinberg on July 23, 1954) is an American certified sexologist, performance artist, former sex worker, and advocate for sex work and health care. Citing: Sprinkle has worked as a prostitute, sex educator, fem ...

Arthur Jafa Arthur Jafa (; born Arthur Jafa Fielder, November 30, 1960) is an American video artist and cinematographer. Early life and education Jafa was born on November 30, 1960 in Tupelo, Mississippi and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi which was hig ...

* Beryl Korot *

Bill Viola Bill Viola ( , ; born 1951) is an American contemporary video artist whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, d ...

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

Carolee Schneemann Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual artist, visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, human sexuality, sexuality and gender. She received a Bachelor of Arts, B.A ...

* Candice Breitz *

Christian Marclay Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality. Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. A pioneer of using gramophone records ...

Dumb Type Dumb Type is an artist collective based in Kyoto, Japan founded in 1984. Dumb Type is a group of creative art forms that express the new and daily life of the twentieth century modern and technological world of Japan. During the 1980s Dumb Type ...

Doug Aitken Doug Aitken (born 1968) is an American artist. Aitken's body of work ranges from photography, print media, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to narrative films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, installations, and live perf ...

E. Jane E. Jane, also known by their performance name MHYSA, is an American interdisciplinary new media artist and musician. Early life and education Jane was born in Bethesda, Maryland in 1990. Jane graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in 2012 ...

Gary Hill Gary Hill (born April 4, 1951) is an American artist who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Often viewed as one of the foundational artists in video art, based on the single-channel work and video- and sound-based installations of the 197 ...

George Bures Miller George Bures Miller (born 1960) is a Canadian artist noted for his collaborative works with his wife Janet Cardiff. Miller and Cardiff represented Canada at the 2001 Venice Biennale. They are based in British Columbia, Canada. Solo works Wor ...

Hito Steyerl Hito Steyerl (born 1 January 1966) is a German filmmaker, moving image artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary.

Ian Cheng Ian Cheng (born March 29, 1984) is an American artist known for his Simulation, live simulations that explore the capacity of living agents to deal with change. His simulations, commonly understood as "virtual ecosystems" are "less about the wonde ...

Joan Jonas Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.John Akomfrah *

Janet Cardiff Janet Cardiff (born March 15, 1957) is a Canadian artist who works chiefly with sound and sound installations, often in collaboration with her husband and partner George Bures Miller. Cardiff first gained international recognition in the art worl ...

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, pr ...

Jon Rubin Jon Rubin is a contemporary artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Projects Fruit and Other Things ''Fruit and Other Things'' (2018-2019) is a project created in collaboration with artist Len ...

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

Lenka Clayton Lenka Clayton (born 1977 Cornwall, England) is a British-American conceptual artist and educator based in Pittsburgh. Her work contemplates, exaggerates and defamiliarizes accepted rules and practices of everyday life, extending the ordinary to ...

Lynn Hershman Leeson Lynn Hershman Leeson (née Lynn Lester Hershman; born 1941) is a multimedia American artist and filmmaker. Her work combines art with social commentary, particularly on the relationship between people and technology. Leeson is a pioneer in new med ...

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

Martine Syms Martine Syms (born 1988) is an American artist based in Los Angeles who works in publishing, video, installation, and performance. Her work focuses on identity and the portrayal of the self in relation to themes such as feminism and Black cult ...

* Meriem Bennani *

Miranda July Miranda July (born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger; February 15, 1974) is an American film director, screenwriter, singer, actress and author. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital presentations and live performance art. She w ...

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...

Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson ( is, Ólafur Elíasson; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's ...

Pierre Huyghe Pierre Huyghe (born 11 September 1962) is a French artist who works in a variety of media from films and sculptures to public interventions and living systems. Education Pierre Huyghe (pronounced ''hweeg'') was born in Paris in 1962. He lives ...

Pipilotti Rist Pipilotti Elisabeth Rist (born 21 June 1962) is a Swiss visual artist best known for creating experimental video art and installation art. Her work is often described as surreal, intimate, abstract art, having a preoccupation with the female ...

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born 1967 in Mexico City) is a Mexican-Canadian electronic artist who works with ideas from architecture, technological theater and performance. Lozano-Hemmer lives and works in Montreal and Madrid. Biography Rafael Lozan ...

Richard Mosse Richard Mosse (born 1980) is an Irish conceptual documentary photographer. Early life and education Mosse was born in Kilkenny, Ireland. He lives and works in New York and Berlin. He received a first class BA in English literature from Kin ...

Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...

Shirin Neshat Shirin Neshat ( fa, شیرین نشاط; born March 26, 1957 in Qazvin) is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centers on the contrasts between Islam and th ...

Shu Lea Cheang Shu Lea Cheang () (born April 13, 1954) is a Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker who lived and worked in New York City in the 1980s and 90s, until relocating to the EuroZone in 2000. Cheang received a BA in history from the National Taiwan ...

* Sondra Perry * Steven Vitiello * Tacita Dean *

Tourmaline Tourmaline ( ) is a crystalline silicate mineral group in which boron is compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is a gemstone and can be found in a wide variety of colors. ...

* Team Lab *

Valie Export Valie Export (often stylized as 'VALIE EXPORT'; born 17 May 1940) is an avant-garde Austrian artist. She is best known for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work. Her artistic work also includes video installations, compute ...

* WangShui *

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...

References

{{reflist Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage Museology

Time-based media conservation

Collectors

In the media

Artists

See also

References