Reconstruction of new media artworks: a theoretical model and two pilot studies

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Aleš Vaupotič
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Aleš Vaupotič
University of Nova Gorica
Borut Batagelj
University of Ljubljana
Narvika Bovcon
University of Ljubljana

The technological aspect of new media art presents a complex issue for museums or artists wishing to preserve new media artworks for an extended period of time. Additionally, new media art typically exists at a fragile threshold of potentiality: through imagination and the implementation of new technical solutions, it reflects societal changes by shaping emerging communication models. This paper addresses various challenges in reconstructing and preserving new media artworks and describes several theoretical and practical approaches successfully implemented in Slovenia. Our theoretical framework highlights three parameters that define a new media object: 1) the interfaces-database relation, 2) single-user game-like interaction vs. digital community platform, and 3) machine-based creativity. These parameters can be employed to assess whether and how the original and reconstructed projects retain their fundamental characteristics, and if these changes align with the repercussions of technological mediation in society as well. The paper presents two pilot studies on the reconstruction of new media artworks that were nonfunctional in 2022: from 2000, Nation – Culture by Vuk Ćosić, and from 2005, Matrix Coincidence Dating Club by Srečo Dragan.

Keywords
born-digital cultural heritage, theoretical model, reconstruction, Slovenian new media art, Vuk Ćosić, Srečo Dragan

Article Details

How to Cite
Vaupotič, Aleš et al. “Reconstruction of new media artworks: a theoretical model and two pilot studies”. Artnodes, 2025, no. 36, pp. 1-11, doi:10.7238/artnodes.v0i36.431875.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

(c) Aleš Vaupotič, Borut Batagelj, Narvika Bovcon, 2025


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Author Biographies

Aleš Vaupotič, University of Nova Gorica

Senior research associate at the Research Centre for Humanities, University of Nova Gorica. Between 2021 and 2023, he served as the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. He received his doctorate in Comparative Literature from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana. At the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, he obtained a master of Arts in the field of video and new media. He leads the Sustainable Digital Preservation of the Slovenian New Media Art (ARIS J7-3158) project, which exemplifies an interdisciplinary approach to the issues surrounding the informational turn, understanding digitization within the cultural sector, and the challenge of preserving cultural memory during the transitional period marked by the pervasive digitization of culture. He is the author of the scientific monograph Vprašanje realizma (The Question of Realism, 2019).

Borut Batagelj, University of Ljubljana

PhD in Computer Science from the Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana in 2007. His research interests encompass pattern recognition, computer vision, and machine learning, focusing particularly on biometrics and face recognition. Since 2000, he has collaborated on new media art projects with Prof. Srečo Dragan and Prof. Franc Solina. He teaches courses on multimedia production, interactive installations, and information visualization at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science.

Narvika Bovcon, University of Ljubljana

Professor of video, new media and animation. She received her doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, the University of Ljubljana, in Theory and History of New Media Art and Visual Communications, with an emphasis on Slovenian authors. She is employed in the Computer Vision Laboratory at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana. Her research deals with the connection of digital humanities with new media art, she devotes herself to digital animation, data visualization, analysis of digitized art collections, user interface design, mixed reality and digital reconstructions of exhibition setups. Since 2016, she has been the editor-in-chief of the journal Likovne besede/Artwords. She is the author of new media art projects and exhibitions, the scientific monograph Umetnost v svetu pametnih strojev (Art in the World of Smart Machines, 2009) and several scientific articles.

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