ABSTRACT

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a leader in the field of collecting and displaying contemporary design across a wide range of media, including born-digital and interactive works, 3D computer-aided designed and printed objects, as well as more traditional materials. As digital acquisitions have increased, an interdisciplinary group was formed in order to best guide this expanding area of collecting. This group worked collaboratively to steer the recent Digital Collections Materials Project, a critical review to develop enhanced protocols for preserving extant digital collections. This paper reports on the results of its collections survey and case studies, demonstrating how theories of contemporary art and time-based media conservation can be applied to the unique needs of a design institution. Concerns circling obsolescence and scarcity – referring both to expert knowledge and replacement materials – are examined with regard to mass-produced consumer electronics and newer born-digital works. In order to unpack these questions in a novel way, the term “riskscape,” borrowed from anthropologist Arjun Appadurai and co-opted by environmental and social disaster studies scholars, is introduced as a tool to better reflect the interconnected nature of commercially produced objects and the processes by which they become institutionalized.

摘要

史密森尼设计博物馆的库珀休伊特 (Cooper Hewitt) 是收集和展示当代设计领域的领导者，这些媒体包括原生数字和交互式作品、3D 计算机辅助设计和打印对象，以及更传统的材料。随着数字收购的增加，一个跨学科的小组成立，以最好地指导这个不断扩大的收藏领域。该小组合作指导最近的数字馆藏材料项目，这是一项批判性审查，旨在开发用于保存现存数字馆藏的增强协议。本文报告了其收藏调查和案例研究的结果，展示了当代艺术和基于时间的媒体保护理论如何应用于设计机构的独特需求。围绕过时和稀缺性的担忧——既指专业知识又指替代材料——在大量生产的消费电子产品和较新的数字作品方面进行了审查。为了以一种新颖的方式解开这些问题，从人类学家 Arjun Appadurai 借用并被环境和社会灾害研究学者增用的术语“风险景观”被引入作为一种工具，以更好地反映商业生产的物体和它们被制度化的过程。