Onderzoekster Megan Winget over 'Preservating Videogames'

She was invited to the Netherlands by a consortium of Virtueel Platform, SBMK and DEN, with the support of the Foreign Visitors Programme of the Netherlands Institute of Heritage (Erfgoed Nederland) to attend the expert meeting Born Digital Art Challenges preservation.

During her stay she contributed to the Born Digital Preservation Challenges international expert meeting with a presentation of the case of born digital cultural preservation she knows best: video games. It was enlightening to see how many of the points she made were similar to those made by Gaby Wijers (NIMk) and Jill Sterrett (head of collections and conservation of the SFMOMA), also presenting their experience and research on born digital art conservation in very different fields.

Megan Winget at NIMk

The idea that led Winget’s speech: to preserve video games you don’t need to preserve just the game –code- and the possibility to play it, but the whole culture created around it, the forums, the controls, the hardware, the habits and sometimes even the slang of the game…in one word, to preserve the game you need to preserve the experience (alongside with as much documentation and meta-information as possible).

Her presence and contribution to the meeting where highly valuable, as they helped bring closer video games (an important part of e-culture widely studied and developed in the Netherlands by schools and other stakeholders of the sector) and the idea of preservation, often related to museums and more traditional forms of art.

She also had time to meet with Francien Eppens, a Dutch researcher involved in the “Inside movement knowledge” a research project focused into new methods for documentation, transmission and conservation of contemporary choreographic and dance knowledge. This indicates how in relation to new art forms, it can be more important to document and preserve elements and process than one performance.

MEETING ATTENDANTS 28 June:

Bas Mühren - Kroller Muller
Caspar Martens - Groninger Museum
Frank Hoenjet - Gemeentemuseum Helmond
Gabriella Giannachi - University Exeter
Gaby Wijers - NIMk
Gert Hoogeboom - Stedelijk Museum
Jacqueline Rapmund - Museum Boymans van Beuningen
Len van den Berg - Centraal Museum
Louis Baltussen - Van Abbemuseum
Hanna Holling - indep. conservator & UvA PhD candidate
Patricia van den Ende - SCHUNCK
Pip Laurenson - Tate
Simone Vermaat - ICN
Tabea Lurk - HKB-BFH
Tinie Kerseboom - Rijksakademie
Tom van Gestel - SKOR
Valerie Schuit - Viewpoint Productions
Vivian van Saaze - University Maastricht
Xander Karskens - De Hallen