Documenting the Analogue Past in Marijke van Warmerdam's Film Installations

Dutch visual artist Marijke van Warmerdam is best known for her film-based installations, which present simple settings or actions, such as a girl performing a handstand, in short, 16mm film loops that are projected in the gallery space. In 2011 van Warmerdam took the decision to digitize most of her film installations. From a conservation perspective this is remarkable, since the disappearance of the analogue 16mm projectors from the gallery space significantly alters the experience of van Warmerdam’s film-based works. However, with reference to recent ideas from performance studies, in particular the notion of "dramaturgy," I argue that there is no inherent difference between the analogue and digital versions of her installations. The case serves to explore a more radical freedom of interpretation in the execution of time-based media installations and proposes a perspective on documentation that shares responsibility among all different stakeholders, extending the "ecosystem" of time-based media conservation beyond the museum’s walls.