Generative Preservation/ Li-Ma

1 Generative /Transmission/Preservation/Interpretation, etc… looking for a different model

(chinese whispers) =>blockchain /Preservation of the generated

I chose this title because we are here in Lima in the context of preservation,  thinking of applying the model of live performance (with or without text or score) to digital art and net art. So I use “generative” in my title to move away from the notion of repetition or replication, and go into the notion of growth and expansion.

Generative Transmission: with internet you can’t really separate the art from the circulation of the art, the piece from the museum

Before the net I was working (oa) with generated text (with algorithms, Markov chainers etc…) . I realised through the interactive narratives of Mouchette  that generated text could happen in the form of a question generating an answer

2- Re-interpretation as a form of transmission
*a- code re-interpretations
-The web page stored on a server is sent and read and re-interpretated by the local computer. This implies technical incompatibilities within the different versions of platforms, OS, browsers, etc.. but also visible difference: size, colors, rendering of compressions, screen qualities, etc… Mouchette index page has changed and is now tiled, (which I accept).
(We are also part of this re-interpretation, it’s not only a technical question: we choose the computers we buy)

But a lot of code gets broken through time and new versions of browsers, plug-ins disappear, etc. No standard solution for me, it’s always detail by detail, a new decision has to be taken every time something doesn’t work anymore.

Rhizome has created emulators for different platforms and browsers versions. It can be a valid solutions, but an art site that spans on more than 15 years, it’s not a real solution: I decide (or give up) the reparation of the code case by case.

*b- creative re-interpretations are at the core of early net art.


-My first parody : Absolute Mouchette: “absolut”, when I realised Mouchette was famous.

-The identity-Sharing Interface:  The Mouchette Net: Here I give to the users a tool to re-interprete Mouchette and include it inside the website on the index page.

*c Some characters might have the faculty of inspiring replicas, or even replicating themselves (like Mr Smith in Matrix)

3-Cross media Re-interpretation.
Mouchette from Bernanos to Bresson to Neddam.
With an effect of retroactive interpretation.
My experience of cross-media re-interpretation is that it goes back and forth, and it that sense it is also generative. When I find re-interpretations I include them, or just a link, or some archived data in and somehow it become part of Mouchette, and is referenced with

4-The “genre” as a preservation (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, book, films, and hybrids: Frankenweenie, FrankenFood, ect… (the meme)

A reinterpretation:


Girlhood and the Plastic Image, by Heather Warren Crow

5-Preserving the mechanical turk



Everything about the Fly / Li-Ma

Database Browser for fly

6- Is preservation an art or a science?


Am I the artist or the museum? NO, I am both all in one?

Am I the artist or the museum, am I creating or preserving and giving access to the art, disseminating the art?

Officially when I am working on the preservation of Mouchette (maintenance and preservation), I am neither.


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