Artist Talk with Juha van Ingen

What does it mean to create and preserve a digital artwork for eternity?

Finnish media artist Juha van Ingen offers insight into his work »AS Long As Possible« (2015), which is intended to run forever—or at least as long as possible: A white number appears on a black screen, changing approximately every 11 minutes. This is based on an animated GIF loop containing more than 48 million frames. The loop has been running continuously since March 28, 2017. Its total duration is 1,000 years. Synchronized playback units are held in the collections of the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

The work raises fundamental questions about the relationship between time and digital media. The latter are often considered fleeting, ephemeral, and interchangeable. »AS Long As Possible« makes time perceptible in an unusual way while simultaneously highlighting the limits of human experience. We will discuss this with the artist, along with the challenges that such a media artwork poses for art institutions and collections that want to preserve it for eternity.