ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the roles of the curators and collectors vary greatly from commissioners and patrons to collaborative curating models. It identifies that important node for new media art sitting on the intersections between documentation, archive, and collection. The book features the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, one of the institutions with a substantial collection of media art, and regular exhibitions from this collection. It explores the object hood of new media art in relation to exhibiting and collecting, and the key art notions of authenticity and authorship, including the example of Rafal Rozendaal's strategy of selling websites with unique URL names. The book puts audiences and artists at the center of her research and, in doing so, provides the kind of documentation that would be of significant use to curators seeking to exhibit any kind of art from a collection.
