A museum that purchases a painting understands what it possesses: an object that may be hung, loaned, and restored. A museum that purchases a digital work may end up with a file it cannot open, a token pointing to a third-party server, or an exhibition copy that will degrade within a few years. If it has not also acquired the documentation, the rights, and the knowledge to reinstall it, it has purchased a work that it may be unable to display again.
What major museums require
Museums with the most experience in digital art have transformed acquisition into an operation more comprehensive than the purchase of an object:
- Matters in Media Art, a network created by the Tate, the MoMA, and the SFMOMA, organises acquisition around questions of documentation, condition, rights, loans, and installation.
- The Metropolitan publishes specific checklists for animation, audio, film, software, video, and web, in addition to identity and iteration reports for each work.
- The Tate links acquisition to the properties that define the work, an interview with the artist, the equipment and files, and the capability to reinstall it.
In every case, acquisition includes files, components, knowledge, permissions and obligations. It is a solid, public reference, not a universal rule: each acquisition must be adapted to the identity, the risks and the legal regime of the work.
Before acquiring: knowing what is being purchased
The initial decision is not technical, but ontological and contractual. One must identify whether the work is a fixed file, an executable system, an installation, an edition, a generative output, or an experience dependent on services. From there, the dossier must separate at least five layers: the master or code, exhibition copies, equipment, documentation, and rights.
The preliminary phase must also estimate the total cost of ownership. The purchase price is not enough: storage, copies, integrity checks, licences, servers, domains, spare parts, specialist staff, migrations and future reinstallations all count. Matters in Media Art structures acquisition precisely as a process that begins before the work is accepted and continues after it has been incorporated.
What should be included in the acquisition
Depending on the work, the set may include:
- Constituent files and masters, identified by version and checksum.
- Source code, executables, and dependencies, with build and startup instructions.
- Exhibition copies, differentiated from preservation materials.
- Equipment and peripherals, indicating which are essential, historical, consumable, or replaceable.
- Artist interview and questionnaire, detailing the traits that define the work and the authorised margin for change.
- Installation, maintenance, and shutdown instructions, in addition to an audiovisual reference of the expected operation.
- Rights and licences, including technical copies, exhibition, loan, documentation, migration, and access to the code.
- External services, accounts, domains, APIs, data, and a plan for their eventual discontinuation.
The certificate and the contract must describe the same set. Ownership of the medium or the file does not, in itself, convey exploitation rights.
What they do not guarantee
These protocols have limits. They do not guarantee that the external services a work depends on will keep running, nor do they allow third-party software to be redistributed without a licence. And they work in institutions with conservation departments, budgets and the ability to negotiate bespoke contracts.
Nor do all museums apply them in the same way. The Whitney, for example, commissions and exhibits net art through its Artport portal, but I have not found a public acquisition protocol as detailed as that of Matters in Media Art. Nor have I located a recent acquisition of digital art, other than those I discussed in the post-NFT series, with a record detailing its components, rights, and maintenance commitments.
After acquiring: verifying and maintaining
Incorporation does not conclude with delivery. It is advisable to verify checksums, open files, test the installation in a controlled environment, document incidents, and create separate copies. Each subsequent installation should be recorded as an iteration: equipment used, configuration, decisions, differences, and authorisation.
This history prevents conservation from relying on the memory of a single individual. It also allows for the distinction between an authorised technical replacement and a transformation that alters the work. The guide on master archives develops the file structure; the guide on installation instructions addresses the assembly.
What is missing in Spain
In my view, Spanish museums do not lack models, as international protocols are public: they lack a shared and visible practice. Each digital art acquisition is resolved in isolation, and the process is not published. A common protocol, however brief, would protect smaller institutions that lack specialised conservators, and artists who would otherwise not know what to request.
The same applies to a private collector on a smaller scale: purchasing a digital work is also purchasing the information required to preserve it. I explain this in the guide on purchasing digital art and in the series on digital art after NFTs.
About the open conversation
This text separates data from my interpretation and does not constitute legal advice. If you work in digital art acquisitions, conservation, or collections and wish to clarify a point or discuss this reading, this notebook remains open: write to me.
The author's relationship with the cases
I hold digital work in my collection, the Esteban-Ruiz Collection, and these issues affect me as a collector. I have no relationship with the museums or the artists mentioned.