Phantoms of the Digital Opera: The need for long term preservation of born-digital actorsand multimedia objects using methods that permit ongoing new creations

Abstract

While the rapid improvement in computing power and digital tools have offered a vast new realm of creativity to more independent creators than ever before, that same rapidly changing pace also offers a unique threat to those digital creators: What can you do when the length of time you need to finish your project is longer thanthe length of time your computer’s OS or software is supported? How can a small creative or research group best ensure that their work can still be actively worked with in five years –or twenty-five years? In this paper, I’ve assessed digital preservation recommendations over time, discussing the gap between the recommendations for preserving a completed workand digital creators’ ongoing needs to be able to create further work.I have three case studies created from longitudinal interviews with digital creators to determine how their own creative ecosystemshaveheld up to the pressure of time, where their systems have begun to degrade, and how they continue their digital work across yearsor decades.Currently, either maintaining an aging system or recreating entire worlds with different, newer systemsare the best available options for the digital creators I interviewed, though neither is optimal. Hardware and software vendors’ intentional dropping of backwards compatibility prohibits accurate forward migration for many digital media creators. The Pericles model seems promising, but Pericles itself is not open to individuals. Future improvements in emulation,including cloud-based virtualization,may offer a path forwardif these services can improve their user friendliness and resolve the version compatibilityissues that create obstacles today.

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Creators

Dena Strong

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Date

Keywords

kyoto

Publication Type

paper

License

CC BY-SA 4.0 International

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