Understood as a digital repository system, YouTube is used in the <collaborative documenting / archiving of netart.activities> project as a collaborative means of safeguarding ephemeral works of net art. By re-appropriating the existing structure of the video portal, a databank of net art is established, which goes beyond YouTube's own explicitly intended use.

The archiving process as a whole involves three steps: first, the works are specified in their original, historical hardware and software contexts, with the performance context – understood as the mode of reception – being filmically documented. This video documentation is then uploaded onto the YouTube portal, where it is, in the third and final step, “meta-dated”.

The subjective perspectives of the video documentation and the various individual, often highly specialised, modes of reception are deliberate features of the project. Ultimately the filming of the context, i.e. the mode of reception, the atmosphere created by the historical hardware – the humming of power supplies, the chattering of hard disks, the cracking of monitors, the groans of irritated impatience often heard during waiting times, the fetching of coffee etc. – are just as important to the project as the archiving of source codes and the creation of meta-data.

Initiated by constantdullaart.com & curatingyoutube.net

The installation and workshop at transmediale 2012 is realised with the support of Google.