The Variable Media Network proposes an unconventional new preservation strategy that has emerged from the Guggenheim's efforts to preserve its world-renowned collection of conceptual, minimalist and video art and that is supported by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. The aim of this affiliation is to help build a network of organizations that will develop the tools, methods and standards needed to implement this strategy.

The variable media paradigm pairs artists with museum and media consultants to provoke comparison of artworks created in ephemeral mediums. The initiative aims to define each of these case studies in terms of medium-independent behaviors and to identify artist-approved strategies for preserving artwork with the help of an interactive questionnaire.

For artists working in ephemeral formats who want posterity to experience their work more directly than through second-hand documentation or anecdote, the variable media paradigm encourages artists to define their work independently from medium so that the work can be translated once its current medium is obsolete.

This requires artists to envision acceptable forms their work might take in new mediums, and to pass on guidelines for recasting work in a new form once the original has expired.

Links

Information on the Daniel Langlois Foundation's role in the Variable Media Network- http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=98

Information on the Guggenheim Museum's role in the Variable Media Network- http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/conservation/conservation-projects/variable-media

Above description taken from: http://www.variablemedia.net/