Anne Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, this week presented at a Smithsonian American Art Museum symposium that addressed the conservation of media art.

The symposium focused on the exhibition “Nam June Paik: Global Visionary,” and the conservation and restoration of the the Korean-born artist’s work.

Goodyear is a founding member and former principal investigator of the Smithsonian’s Time-Based and Digital Media Art Working Group. Her talk examined the paradoxical dilemma of digital media art. While flexible and easily disseminated, art that is electronic, time-based and digital is also vulnerable to the threat of technical obsolescence. To support the long-term viability of new media art, Goodyear recommends that a broad range of technical, conservation and curatorial professionals coordinate to acquire, install and care for the art.