Empty String: Addressing Lacunae Across Conservation Paradigms

TITLE
Empty String: Addressing Lacunae Across Conservation Paradigms

ABSTRACT
This ongoing research aims to address the treatment of lacunae in conservation from two perspectives: that of medieval art and that of contemporary time-based media art.

The historical treatment of lacunae will be brought to bear on the restoration of Peoples’ Portrait: an interactive, dispersed, software-based artwork by Chinese American artist Zhang Ga, held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. When it was originally created in 2004, Peoples’ Portrait was intended to form a networked, international “portrait” of viewers on a spectacular scale across the sites where the work was shown, including the Centrale Bibliotheek in Rotterdam, Times Square in New York City, the Central Business District of Singapore City, Ars Electronica Center Linz, and QUT Cultural Center, Brisbane. At each location, the artist created kiosks where audience members could pose for selfies. These image files were relayed to a central server and then called up for display on large video walls across the various sites, creating a moment of simultaneity and spatial collapse. This work was acquired by the Whitney Museum as a part of their Artport series, but ceased functioning due to Adobe’s sunsetting of its Flash software, as well as the loss of the server, previously housed at Parsons School of Design | The New School, which held the photographs of the audience-members. While the software currently runs (imperfectly) on the Flash emulator Ruffle, no portraits are displayed.

Twenty years after its creation, the authors examine the source code for the no-longer-functional People’s Portrait to assess whether and how the piece might be restored for future display. Each brings a different context and set of conservation norms to the project: Carlsmith specializes in time-based media and contemporary art conservation, while Misko focuses on the conservation of medieval European paintings. Working together to question their own assumptions and biases, and in consultation with the artist and Whitney Museum curatorial staff, the authors will make recommendations for how to address the lacunae in Peoples' Portrait so that the work can be shared with the public once more.