Mladentseva, A;
(2022)
Responding to obsolescence in Flash-based net art: a case study on migrating Sinae Kim’s Genesis.
Journal of the Institute of Conservation
, 45
(1)
pp. 52-68.
10.1080/19455224.2021.2007412.
Preview |
PDF
Miadentseva_Responding to obsolescence in Flash-based net art_VoR.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Many internet artworks from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s used Adobe Flash technology for creating animated content. However, in the light of recent web standard developments (HTML5), Adobe has stopped supporting Flash and its related tools. The removal of Flash has made those net artworks non-functional and unviewable, including Sinae Kim’s Genesis (2001), the focus of this study. Recently proposed emulation- and virtualisation-based strategies are not always suitable, particularly if there is a desire to keep the artwork on the ‘live web’. This article outlines an alternative method of migration facilitated by reverse engineering techniques—specifically decompilation—and foregrounds the significance of maintaining online access to the obsolete Adobe Shockwave Flash (SWF) files through the source code. On this premise, the source code is re-imagined as a site for further re-enactment, allowing a departure from its current role as a marker of ‘authenticity’.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Responding to obsolescence in Flash-based net art: a case study on migrating Sinae Kim’s Genesis |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/19455224.2021.2007412 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/19455224.2021.2007412 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | internet art; Adobe Flash; time-based media conservation; source code; re-enactment; reverse engineering |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History of Art |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176258 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
