Abstract

Third Summit on New Media Art Archiving

Keywords: Art & technology, new media art, archiving, preservation, documentation, artist-centered digital archiving, archive as a multidimensional resource, local digital archive, Cyprus

Amongst the thematic schemes of the CYENS CoE is the fostering of art & technology synergies, and the development of infrastructures and archival practices to support the great volume of data under the cultural and creative sectors, powered by emerging technologies like Virtual, Augmented, and Extended Reality (VR, AR, XR). While this scheme is still in its genesis, it poses a distinct opportunity to establish an in-house and country-wide digital archive of new media art that develops simultaneously with the artworks and art & technology projects it hosts.

This paper delves into the key considerations that are necessary to effectively collect, preserve, and provide access to new media art in a way that meets the needs of various stakeholders
such as artists, scientists, and cultural producers. It also provides a methodological outline that incorporates state-of-the-art approaches in line with the ISEA Summits for New Media Art Archiving aims of archival connectivity; additionally, it employs the affordances of emerging technologies from parallel archival projects of the centre. By combining these affordances into an agile strategy, a reflexive archive can be developed from the growing database of CYENS’ art & technology related activities that will serve both as a preservation tool and an active repository for artists and scientists. This archive could additionally assist the contributors to further develop and disseminate their artworks and practices, across cultural, scientific and industry circles.

The goal of the proposed archive would be to become a local and regional documentation hub of new media art, preserving it for the future and making it accessible to an international
network of institutions and archives.

• Myrto Aristidou holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Athens School of Fine Arts (2009) and a master’s degree on Heritage and Interpretation, Department of Museum Studies of the University of Leicester, UK (2013). Her research interests include museum studies, art and museum education, art science and technology synergies, and archival practices. She is currently a PhD student in the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus, and a Research Fellow at the CYENS Centre of Excellence, Nicosia, Cyprus. Her PhD research focuses on digital archives, art & technology synergies and media art.
• Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert is an artist/researcher. She is interested in the ontology and workings of everyday photography and archives, as well as the intersections of new technologies and photography. Theopisti is a member of the advising committee of the peer-reviewed journal “photographies”, the vice-chair of the “International Association of Photography and Theory”, a curator of the IAPT Photobook show (2016, 2018, 2021) and has received several international fellowships and awards. She has exhibited her work in a number of art exhibitions in Cyprus and abroad and she is passionate about photobooks. She is currently Associate Professor at the School of Fine and Applied Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology, and the group leader of Museum Lab at CYENS Centre of Excellence.
• Kleanthis Neokleous graduated from the University of Cyprus in June 2011, with a Doctorate in Computer Science and has a multidisciplinary academic background in various fields including Virtual Reality and 3D graphics, Electronic Health (eHealth), Cognitive Psychology, Computational Neuroscience, Machine Learning and Space Science and Technology. He was involved with the conception, design, preparation, writing and coordination of many National and EU research projects. During and after his PhD, Dr. Neokleous co-founded in parallel two innovative startup companies in Virtual Reality technologies and eHealth applications in line with his aca-demic and research interests. Since June 2019, he is the team leader of the Immersive Technologies for Intelligent and Creative Applications (ITICA) Multidisciplinary Research Group (MRG) of the first Research Centre in Cyprus focusing on Interactive media, Smart systems and Emerging technologies (CYENS).
• Kyriaki Yiakoupi holds an MA in Conservation Studies (Historic Buildings) from the University of York, UK, 2011 and BA (Hons) in Interior Design from the University of Wolverhampton, UK, 2010. Kyriaki has participated in several international multidisciplinary projects with expeditions to develop her skills in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage. Kyriaki’s main scientific interests are related to the ethics and philosophy of conservation, the analysis and interpretation of the historic buildings, along with the introduction of many different techniques of 3D technological equipment in order to understand the static and pathological condition of the structure, the geometry, the style and preservation accuracy through 3D architectural modelling and Digital Cultural Heritage Technologies

This work is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº739578 and the government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development.