Digital Archiving and Preservation of Art: Challenges and Innovation

 Otim Kayaga A.

Faculty of Business and Management Kampala International University Uganda

ABSTRACT

The Digital Archiving and Preservation of Art project (DARPA) is a collaborative effort involving industrial partners and research institutions aimed at addressing the unique challenges of digital art preservation. This initiative focuses on developing innovative methods and processes for the digitization, documentation, classification, and metadata integration of multimedia artworks, particularly those emerging from new media technologies. Digital art preservation necessitates sustainable solutions that account for the dynamic nature of digital content and its reliance on outdated software and hardware environments. The project aims to provide user communities with optimal access to high-quality visual and functional art experiences within a reasonable timeframe and cost. Ensuring standardized metadata, detailed documentation, and semantic annotations for each object is critical for both long-term and short-term preservation of digital artifacts. Achieving these ambitious goals requires close collaboration between industrial and research partners and cooperation with archives, specialized museums, and the digital art community. DARPA leverages modern IT technologies, such as soft computing and artificial intelligence, over a two-year funding period to advance this field. In the context of Europe and the United States, commercial organizations are implementing technologies and patterns for art collection, storage, and retrieval using Creative Commons business models. This study explores the challenges and innovations in documenting, preserving, and ensuring the usability of digital artworks, providing valuable insights for both the field and the public.

Keywords: Digital archiving, Art preservation, Multimedia artworks, Digitization methods, Metadata integration, New media technologies and Sustainable preservation

CITATION: Otim Kayaga A. Digital Archiving and Preservation of Art: Challenges and Innovation. Research Output Journal of Education, 2024 3(2):21-25.