Equipment Significance and Obsolescence in Diana Thater’s The Bad Infinite

Abstract

The meanings of technology-based works of art are often constructed and communicated through variable equipment components that deteriorate physically and mechanically over time. The conservation of these artworks is uniquely challenged by the diminishing availability of specialty parts and expertise necessary to keep obsolete, work-defining equipment components functioning. However, their meanings also change rapidly as the technological landscape familiar to us shifts with time (Phillips 2012). Defined as time-based in the short-term, the temporal dimension of these media artworks also unfolds over the longue durée as equipment components become outmoded.

Keywords

• time based media
• patina
• age
• value
• integrity
• authenticity