The technology and media specifity of many
contemporary practices, particularly those working in time-based and digital
media, may mean the work is transitory with a legacy of work in which those
values and ideas are compromised due to the obsolescence of the technologies
they employ.
The physical legacy of some artists working
in non-traditional media may be short-lived through a dependency on factory-built
consumer technology. This is a matter of current debate for artists, collectors
and conservators. I argue in the attached essay that artists using consumer technologies may be
creating a compromised oeuvre that is only partially accessible to future
audiences.
