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= LI-MA Living Media Art = LI-MA (Living Media Art) is a media art institute based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, dedicated to presenting, preserving, and researching media art, including video art, installations and software based art. Since the seventies LI-MA has been storing, managing, and conserving a substantial collection of New Media Art for artists and art institutions. By actively distributing LI-MA contributes to the presentation of contemporary artworks worldwide. The organization actively distributes these artworks, contributing to their presentation and visibility.

LI-MA goes beyond storage and distribution; it hosts regular screenings to showcase new works in its distribution catalogue, thereby enhancing the visibility of contemporary digital artworks. Additionally, LI-MA organizes the annual Transformation Digital Art Symposium, focusing on the preservation of media art.

Through exhibitions, workshops and collaborative initiatives, LI-MA serves as a space for artists, researchers, enthusiasts interested in exploring the dynamic intersection of technology and creativity within the realm of media art.

History
LI-MA traces its roots back to the late seventies with the inception of the video gallery MonteVideo in 1978, directed by René Coelho. MonteVideo served as a grassroots organization where video pioneers explored the creative possibilities of the medium and exhibited their works.

In the early 1990s, MonteVideo merged with another organisation, Time Based Arts, in what later became the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk). NIMk soon became a key international player in the presentation, production, and preservation of media art, contributing significantly to the field's development and recognition.

However, in 2012, NIMk faced financial challenges and lost its funding due to the national budget cuts for supporting organisations. Consequently, NIMk ceased its activities. In response, former employees of NIMk decided to continue their work in the field of media art.

In cooperation with various public and private parties, LI-MA was founded in 2013. While NIMk had a broad range of tasks relating to the production, presentation and distribution of media art, LI-MA focuses on preservation, distribution and knowledge building and transfer. The institute aimed to fill the gaps in knowledge about the management and conservation of media art.

Today, LI-MA stands as one of the most important media art collections, actively representing over 500 artists and managing approximately 10.000 works from around 50 different collections in the Netherlands, such as the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Bonnefantenmuseum, Kröller-Müller Museum, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) as well as private collections.

Collection
The LI-MA collection is accessible for research and distribution on the website Mediakunst.nl. Including many international as well as local artists the collection is distributed on a broad scale. With explanations on the website of how to rent a work, LI-MA promotes access to media art.

Selection of artists in the LI-MA collection

 * Nan Hoover
 * Zeno van den Broek
 * Pola Weiss
 * Fiona Tan
 * Melanie Bonajo
 * Valentina Gal
 * Ghita Skali
 * Eoghan Ryan
 * Mateo Vega
 * Ulises Carrion
 * Marina Abramović
 * STEINA

Main Areas
During the past decade, LI-MA has profiled itself as an international service platform for media art and has secured the knowledge and network of the institutions that preceded it, aiming to support creators and collectors to give vulnerable analogue and digital cultural heritage a sustainable future. LI-MA works towards lasting access to media art and actively distributes its own collection online while providing digitisation services and permanent digital storage for third parties, including artists. Artists are a central part of LI-MA´s practice; in this respect, LI-MA manages also some artists archives like SERVAAS and Nan Hoover.

LI-MA´s focus is in presenting works over time, on the continuation of media artworks. In that sense, they help other institutions who don´t have the means to sustain a media art preservation practice, or that do not have a media art conservators on board, making LI-MA part of a broad network of institutions that regularly collaborate.

On an international level, LI-MA is also relevant in the preservation of the works of artists that were not born in the Netherlands but developed part of their work there. Artists from Iceland, who studied at the Van Eijck Academy in Maastricht, or from South America, who worked in Amsterdam, have their work preserved at LI-MA. This is specially relevant for the international community, since sometimes their work has not been preserved in their home regions.

Projects
LI-MA is one of the pioneers in preserving media art, and the institute has been involved in some relevant international and national projects. The projects each focus on one of LI-MA's main areas, with a focus of transfering knowledge and increasing the visibility of media art.

Digitising Contemporary Art
The project Digitising Contemporary Art was a European project extended between 2011 and 2015 which aimed to digitise contemporary artworks made after 1945 and increase their visibility. Within the framework of the DCA project, LI-MA digitised over 500 artworks made between 1993 and 2005, including additional video artworks from media art pioneers from the Netherlands. Next to this, 1,500 media artworks from the collection have been made accessible online.

Transformation Digital Art
Between 2014 and 2016 the project Transformation Digital Art, initiated by LI-MA and the Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art (SBMK). The aim of the project was to identify the possibilities and consequences of technical and aesthetic changes in different manifestations of digital art; it was based on case studies of the work of digital pioneer Peter Struycken. A workflow for the preservation of these type of artworks was developed using the OAIS system, the international reference model for digital preservation, a documentation model was also developed. ==== Artwork Documentation Tool ==== The Artwork Documentation Tool was developed by LI-MA for digital artists. Its aim is to allow the artists an autonomous way of documenting their work to create the right preservation and presentation plan. It is seen as relevant to move the responsibility from the museums to the artists. LI-MA's research was influenced by the Variable Media Questionnaire and a 'manifesto' by the artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. In his text he emphasises what conservation practices are best for media art from his perspective, offering an insight in the artist's understanding of what documentation means for him.

UNFOLD: Mediation by Reinterpretation
UNFOLD: Mediation by Reinterpretation is a research project organised in 2016 by LI-MA that aims to examine reinterpretation as a strategy for the preservation and documentation of media art. UNFOLD researched processes of documentation and conservation of performance and their survival and transmission through live actions and proposes to conceptualise and practice preservation as an interpretative act. For this purpose, LI-MA asked different artists to select and reinterpret works by famous figures such as Steina and Woody Wasulka, Nan Hoover or Dan Graham.

CD-ROM Archiving
The project CD-ROM archiving was developed by LI-MA in 2016 with the support of the Netherlands Coalition for Digital Preservation. The study focused on artworks created specifically for this medium and evaluated an archiving strategy based on emulation; a methodology for sustained access to CD-ROM artworks was developed and tested by professionals from various institutions.

Documenting Digital Art
The three-year project Documenting Digital Art: re-thinking histories and practices of documentation in the museum and beyond (2019-2022), was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation funds. It was coordinated by Professor Gabriella Giannachi, Director of Center for Intermedia and Creative Technologies, the University of Exeter, and assisted by curator Dr Francesca Franco from the University of Exeter, Dr Annet Dekker and Katrina Sluis from London South Bank University, and Gaby Wijers Director of LI-MA. Project partners included the Venice Biennale and The Photographers’ Gallery in London. The project analysed how digital art had been documented since the 1970s and looked at actual practices with the intention to develop new strategies for documenting, exhibiting and preserving digital art.

Preservation of VR artworks
Supported by the Dutch Digital Heritage Network and together with the Atria Kennisinstituut voor Emancipatie en Vrouwengeschiedenis (Atria), LI-MA researched in 2021 the Preservation of VR artworks. The study, developed around the artwork 100 Jaar Vrouwenkiesrecht (2018-2019) by Justin Zijlstra, focused on the challenges of preserving artworks that involve virtual reality and other immersive media technologies, and reflected on how to achieve long-term sustainability and migration strategies for obsolescent components.

Digital Canon?!
The research project Digital Canon?! was launched in 2017 to generate attention for digital art and its history, and to initiate a discussion about a digital canon of the Netherlands. During this project a number of works made between 1960 and 2000 were selected for being the "most important and influential" while engaging in critical reflection about the concept of canonisation.

Mediakunst on Wikipedia
The three year project Mediakunst on Wikipedia is a collaborative project developed together with museums such as the Stedelijk Museum, the Van Abbenmuseum, the Frans Hals Museum and the Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE), as well as universities that focuses on distributed and accessible knowledge in regards to media art. The project aims to increase the online accessibility of media art through collective writing workshops that focus on biographical articles for Wikipedia on media artists, together with the creation of a website. The project also creates accessible metadata in Wikidata, the reference database under Wikipedia.

Collaborative Infrastructure
The project Collaborative Infrastructure for Sustainable Access to Digital Art is a project directed by LI-MA that involves 14 Dutch collections, SBMK, the Dutch Heritage Network and the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency. The study is based in different case studies that represent the current state and challenges of preserving media artworks; results are shared periodically in symposiums and workshops.

Digital Care
The Digital Care project was active from March until October 2023. The project focused on questioning whether the oiginal equipment of artworks created in the 1990s until 2000s should be conserved, or whether there is a way to preserve the artwork and presenting it on a different hardware. Some of the main works presented, researhed and discussed in the project are: the_living, 1997-1998, by Debra Solomon, Ideofoon I, 1970-2013, by Dick Raaijmakers and Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam, 1990-present by Remko Scha.

REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art.
''[https://nieuweinstituut.nl/projects/reboot-baanbrekende-digitale-kunst REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art].'' is an exhibition presented by LI-MA and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam from October 2023 untill May 2024. It features the works researched and discussed in the Digital Care project and puts them into a show with new pieces. The aim is to make the long lasting and evolving digital art history visible. Curators of the exhibition are Sanneke Huisman and Klaas Kuitenbrouwer.

Publications

 * A New Era for the Distribution of Media Art edited by Rachel Somers Miles and Gaby Wijsers