The acceptance of ephemerality and the idea of deterioration.

In an era of technology-based life, we might understand the language but not pay attention to the message. Conservators, historians, curators, collectors have been focusing their efforts on finding strategies to preserve, document, exhibit, sell and maintain the idea of authenticity. It is essential to discuss and re-define our limits, the ethics that concern these “new” languages. Languages have been around for almost half a century, but we still think they are new technologies. From the Performance Art, art-related professionals learned that sometimes art is like a smell; it is there, you can feel it, you can store it in your inner brain, describe it, and remake it, but it is not there. We accept strategies that help the market, the history, the institutions, the collectors. We all play the same game with different hats. However, what when the artist explicitly says no. In a previous Ph.D. research, a study on the use of the artist’s interview; the aim of this research was not to show how good the artist’s interview was, as it had been long proved, but to collect and compare the results, the mistakes, the human part of the creative process and the conservation field. Making questions is one of the essential parts of the research, and most of the time, not an answer can be found, not even the shadow of an academically accepted answer, but some other smells were found. This abstract wants to expose the case study of a piece made to stay for the period that technology and life permitted; an image made with an old technology telephone, one printed copy, on a low-quality paper, framed with an Ikea frame. No replacement is allowed, no treatments, no migration or storage of the file. The interview helped to understand the idea of deterioration. An idea linked to the durability and acceptance of its death.  Are we ready to accept the real ephemerality? Do we understand the preservation of the idea of deterioration? Is the collector, the institution, ready to enjoy while it lasts? This presentation can be delivered as a talk or as a conversation with the artist involved in the study case.