In this talk Dr Castriota takes a critical look at the presuppositions latent in certain models employed in time-based media art conservation that frame an artwork’s identity as the object of conservation. Artworks that combine a complex and ever-changing ecosystem of materials and technologies may undergo versioning, migration, and partial or total re-fabrication over relatively short timespans. With many artists remaining actively involved in these changes, Castriota argues that “notions of the finished work or a persisting, singular identity are often challenged by the ongoing transformation of these works.” These ideas are explored in part through a time-based media artwork in IMMA’s collection: Alanna O’Kelly’s Sanctuary/Wastelands.

This talk situates some of the concepts and practical issues encountered in contemporary art conservation within an alternate theoretical discourse on identity, offering a rare insight into both the theories and practices of time-based media art conservation.

Presented in the context of IMMA Archive: 1990s, From the Edge to the Centre which celebrates an ambitious IMMA Collection and Archive Digitisation Project initiated in 2017 and made possible by the support of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

Dr Brian Castriota is a Glasgow-based researcher and conservator specialised in the conservation of time-based media, contemporary art, and archaeological materials. He holds a Master’s degree in History of Art and Certificate in Conservation from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU (2014), and a PhD in History of Art from the University of Glasgow (2019). As one of fifteen doctoral research projects in the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłowdoska-Curie ITN New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art (NACCA), his thesis research examined notions of artwork identity and authenticity commonly invoked in conservation theory and practice.

Since 2018 he has worked as a freelance conservator for time-based media and contemporary art at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, as well as the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. He currently serves as Supervising Conservator with the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis in Turkey and has worked with the expedition since 2011. Prior to his doctoral studies he was a Samuel H. Kress Fellow in Time-Based Media Conservation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and worked as a contract conservator for time-based media artworks at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

He is a regular guest lecturer on the subject of time-based media and contemporary art conservation at the University of Glasgow and Edinburgh College of Art, and is an adjunct instructor for the NYU Institute of Fine Arts’ time-based media conservation stream of their MA/MS degree programme.

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