What makes digital art authentic?

This essay-presentation explores questions of authenticity in the world of digital art preservation and conservation. Digital art forms like new media and net.art have raised questions for museum professionals and members of the digital preservation community. Authenticity—how to understand and preserve it—is a major concern for digital art stewards. Curators and preservationists need clear criteria for authenticity for several reasons: 1) to retain the value and integrity of the work, and 2) for community users to engage with it as the author intended. However, the variable nature of digital art makes that difficult. Evaluating the authenticity of digital art is problematic for many reasons. For one, digital art is mediated through hardware and software that will change over time. Migration and emulation are solutions, but these preservation decisions may affect users’ perceptions of authenticity.

Recent scholarship calls for a more complex view of authenticity for digital objects, including art. According to MacNeil and Mak, authenticity is not a fixed or singular quality; they argue that digital objects are “in a constant state of becoming,” with various authenticities depending on context (47). To address authenticity issues, projects such as InterPARES and CASPAR investigate digital preservation solutions and best practices. However, no clear strategy for documenting authenticity standards has been established. The OAIS Reference Model provides opportunities for stewards of digital art to document their criteria for authenticity judgments. By making this criteria transparent, users will be able to meaningfully engage with digital art and assess authenticity on their own terms.

This presentation is divided into three sections: Challenges, Paradigm Shifts, and Solutions.

• The Challenges section covers three obstacles related to digital art preservation: defining terms for authenticity; preserving media systems; and validating authentic digital artwork.

• The Paradigm Shifts section covers recent trends in authenticity scholarship, as scholars call for a more complex, variable view of the concept. Implications for digital art are also discussed here.

• The Solutions section offers a model for documenting art authenticity criteria. That is, what makes a digital artwork authentic? Here, the OAIS Reference Model gives us a way to document criteria for digital art authenticities.