An institution may acquire a digital work only to discover subsequently that it lacks the code, licence, password, library or information necessary to exhibit it again. The problem arises when the dossier conflates what the public sees with everything the work requires.
Acquisition is not downloading
An acquisition may involve ownership of the medium, edition, master files, exhibition copies, executable, code, libraries, equipment, licence, instructions, documentation and future support. Not all works require every element; their absence must be a deliberate decision.
The Met inquires before accepting
The Metropolitan Museum requires an artist questionnaire for the acquisition of time-based media. Subsequently, its procedures for each type of work serve as an adaptable starting point. The sequence is significant: first identify what constitutes the work, then request the relevant components.
Software: more than source code
For software, the list may include an agreement, certificate, instructions, licence, executable, source, libraries, images, editor, third-party applications, external components and approved hardware.
Requesting source code does not guarantee preservation: an environment, version, dependencies and rights are also required. A work may be acquired without source code if the contract and strategy accept that limitation.
Web art: files do not always reproduce the service
The procedure for web art may request HTML, scripts, images, video and code. However, a connected work may depend on a database, authentication, API, domain or external service. The acquisition should specify what is included in the package and what remains outside.
Identity and iteration after purchase
The Met employs identity and iteration reports. The former describes the core, materials, history and flexibility; the latter documents equipment and decisions from an exhibition. This combination prevents the initial installation from accidentally becoming the sole definition.
Tate: acquiring before mature procedures
Tate's software conservation project began in October 2017. It explains that many works had been acquired before standardised workflows were formulated. The project develops documentation, disk images, emulation, risk assessment, metadata, software libraries and storage.
Becoming: an initial acquisition as a test case
Tate includes Becoming (2003), by Michael Craig-Martin, among the works addressed and identifies it as its first software-based work. The public value of the case is not to provide its contract, but to demonstrate how an early work contributes to the subsequent creation of procedures.
Whitney artport: access, commission and collection
Whitney launched artport in 2001 as a portal and commissioning space. A commissioned and accessible work is not automatically an acquired work. The page must distinguish between what belongs to the collection and what is part of the programme.
The World’s First Collaborative Sentence
Douglas Davis's work was created in 1994 and donated to the Whitney in 1995. In 2012, the museum undertook a preservation effort that rendered it functional for the first time since 2005. The donation had not guaranteed continuous access: subsequent intervention and documentation were required.
What must align in the dossier
The contract, certificate, inventory and instructions should describe the same entity. It is prudent to verify what the collection is acquiring, which files are received, which rights are obtained, which services are excluded, which modifications are authorised, what support the artist provides and which versions count as the work.
Acquiring capacity, not a promise of eternity
No package guarantees that a work will function indefinitely. A documented acquisition improves the capacity to reconstruct, compare, request authorisation, preserve evidence or explain a loss.
Acquiring a technological work is to accept an organised duration. The collection does not merely receive files, equipment and rights: it assumes future decisions regarding maintenance, iteration, replacement and access. No list of deliverables guarantees budget, personnel or technical capacity. It does, however, allow one to know what obligation has been accepted and with what means it may be addressed.
What precedents fail to demonstrate
These do not demonstrate that all museums require code, that a work without source code is unacquirable, or that public procedures align with confidential contracts.
To take action
The master record organises identification and provenance. For hybrid components, consult inventorying a physical and digital collection. The guides on preserving code and delivering editable files specify dependencies and rights. In the Notebook, each layer has its case: technological installations, generative art, invisible dependencies, inventory of multi-location works and documentation as capacity for care.
About the open conversation
It remains an open question what a collection discovers too late when it receives the visible work without files, rights, instructions, dependencies, or the future capacity for execution. At what stage of the acquisition should this be queried, and who is responsible for responding?
No universal list guarantees continuity, and public sources do not permit the reconstruction of confidential contracts.
If you are an artist, collector, gallerist, technician, or museum professional and possess a protocol or documented case study, this notebook remains open: write to me.