INCCA hosted the sixth Student Café on the 23rd of October 2025, focusing on the long-term preservation challenges posed by time-based media artworks. Continuing the initiative to support emerging professionals, all participating students and early career researchers were offered one-on-one mentoring sessions with members of the INCCA Steering Committee in advance of the event, helping them refine their presentations and strengthen professional connections within the field.
The Café featured presentations by Isobel Finlay, Bird Nord, Chang Lan, Mariana Passos, Miriam Chair, and Olivia Schoenfeld, covering a diverse range of research and practical conservation projects addressing the ongoing care of time-based media art.
The first presentation, by Isobel Finlay, discussed a conservation treatment of David (2004) by Sam Taylor-Johnson, focusing on the re-digitization of the artist's Digital Betacam submaster to ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of the work. Bird Nord followed with a practical presentation on the maintenance of CRT-based video installations, offering a toolkit of diagnostic and minor repair procedures to support conservators working with ageing display technologies. Chang Lan explored the preservation of obsolete multimedia artworks, using Blonde (1998) by Joy Gregory as a case study to examine emulation techniques and source code analysis as strategies for sustaining access to web-based art. Mariana Passos then presented her research on Dara Birnbaum's Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry (1979), addressing documentation and collaboration strategies for complex video installations acquired without adequate records. In the fifth presentation, Miriam Chair examined approaches to exhibiting analogue film through the example of Craneway Event (16mm) by Tacita Dean, discussing the balance between preservation, projection, and hybrid workflows in a museum context. Olivia Schoenfeld concluded the session with her research on disk imaging for computer-based artworks, focusing on Brody Condon's DeRezFX.Kill(KarmaPhysics<Elvis)(2004–2006) to evaluate technical workflows and long-term accessibility across systems.
Following the presentations, a Q&A and an open discussion with the participants provided a space to reflect on the shared challenges of preserving and maintaining time-based media artworks, such as hardware dependence, data migration, and the evolving nature of digital display. The conversation reinforced the importance of collaboration and knowledge exchange within the conservation community to address the rapid technological changes that shape this field.
English live captions and AI Portuguese translation were made available throughout the event to ensure accessibility for all attendees. The 6th INCCA Student Café once again highlighted the importance of supporting new voices in contemporary art conservation and fostering dialogue around the future of time-based media preservation.
Find the speakers' bio here.
Photo: Screenshot of INCCA Student Café pt.6: Time-Based Media