BRIAN CASTRIOTA
archaeological & time-based media art conservator
TALKS
2025
“In name only? Collecting and caring for non-delegated performance artworks.” Presented at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Conservation, Minneapolis, MN, 29 May 2025.
Abstract: Using the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s recent acquisition of several performance artworks by Northern Irish artist Sandra Johnston as a case study, this talk critically examines what it means to both collect and care for a category of art that has been excluded from museum collections and consideration by conservation discourses: that of non-delegated live performance. Eschewing an anti-institutional critique that there is no place for these works in museum collections (beyond in the form of their documentary traces), this talk considers the value and importance of institutional collecting of non-delegated performance artworks. It examines how “external dependency” can and should be released from its negative framing, and reimagines the role of the conservator in caring for artworks whose “means of production” (Lawson et. al 2023) cannot be acquired by the museum. Significantly, this talk considers how a methodology of attunement—in this case, responsive to the logics, principles, and specificities of Johnston's artistic practice—revealed how an institutional care for these works depends not only on what conservators and collection staff do but also on what we stop ourselves from habitually and mindlessly forcing or repeating.
Abstract: Using the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s recent acquisition of several performance artworks by Northern Irish artist Sandra Johnston as a case study, this talk critically examines what it means to both collect and care for a category of art that has been excluded from museum collections and consideration by conservation discourses: that of non-delegated live performance. Eschewing an anti-institutional critique that there is no place for these works in museum collections (beyond in the form of their documentary traces), this talk considers the value and importance of institutional collecting of non-delegated performance artworks. It examines how “external dependency” can and should be released from its negative framing, and reimagines the role of the conservator in caring for artworks whose “means of production” (Lawson et. al 2023) cannot be acquired by the museum. Significantly, this talk considers how a methodology of attunement—in this case, responsive to the logics, principles, and specificities of Johnston's artistic practice—revealed how an institutional care for these works depends not only on what conservators and collection staff do but also on what we stop ourselves from habitually and mindlessly forcing or repeating.
2024
“On the Ethics of Retreat-ability, for and with the World.” Co-authored with Hélia Marçal, presented at Colonial Natures: The Challenge of Conservation, University of Cambridge, 11-12 June 2024.
Abstract: In this paper we affirm that a duty of care for cultural expressions is predicated on intra-dependence and must therefore also be directed toward people and nature, and recognise the inherent entanglement between them. Binary oppositions—such as human/non-human, nature/culture, or subject/object—are not inherent or intrinsic but distinctions that have been historically enacted and continue to be re-entrenched through the hegemony of Eurocentric, settler colonialist world views and knowledge systems. People, the cultural manifestations we invest with meaning, and the environment are intra-related, mutually dependent, and co-constitutive. Retreat-ability can therefore be understood as an ethical principle that elevates the legitimacy of practices of refusal and reframes them as practices of caretaking, for and with the world of which we are all entangled, intra-dependent parts. In recognising this inherent entanglement, retreat-ability should be understood not as a retreat from the world, but rather as an ethical invitation to actively and generatively refuse or boycott the status quo of existing power differentials upheld by colonialist logics and structures, and instead imagine and bring about alternate, more equitable futures for the world.
Abstract: In this paper we affirm that a duty of care for cultural expressions is predicated on intra-dependence and must therefore also be directed toward people and nature, and recognise the inherent entanglement between them. Binary oppositions—such as human/non-human, nature/culture, or subject/object—are not inherent or intrinsic but distinctions that have been historically enacted and continue to be re-entrenched through the hegemony of Eurocentric, settler colonialist world views and knowledge systems. People, the cultural manifestations we invest with meaning, and the environment are intra-related, mutually dependent, and co-constitutive. Retreat-ability can therefore be understood as an ethical principle that elevates the legitimacy of practices of refusal and reframes them as practices of caretaking, for and with the world of which we are all entangled, intra-dependent parts. In recognising this inherent entanglement, retreat-ability should be understood not as a retreat from the world, but rather as an ethical invitation to actively and generatively refuse or boycott the status quo of existing power differentials upheld by colonialist logics and structures, and instead imagine and bring about alternate, more equitable futures for the world.
2024
“‘Coming to Know’: Attunement as an Embodied Methodology for Conservation Practices.” Presented at University College London, 2 May 2024; online at Topics in Time Based Media Art Conservation, the Institute of Fine Arts - New York University, 17 April 2024; and online at Best Available Copy 4, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 10 April 2024.
Abstract: In conservation theory and practice considerable attention (and anxiety) has been directed towards strictly delimited notions of authenticity in the context of contemporary artworks and the ways conservators intervene in their materialization(s). This talk considers how a methodology of attunement—figured in the context of conservation—helps bring attention to the ethics, politics, principles, and affective potentials inscribed within a work of art that might otherwise go un-sensed or be disregarded, as well as the varied ways in which conservation practices might attend to and promote them. Thinking with agential realism and Indigenous scholarship, this talk considers how the objective referents of our ‘coming-to-know’ are the phenomena produced through our intra-actions. By recognising how properties and boundaries are emergent and enacted rather than a given, this talk figures attunement as a responsive deep listening, and methodological counter to the epistemic violences of habituated, extractivist, settler colonial logics that undergird dominant museological and conservation practices. In so doing, this talk considers how tuning into and becoming attuned to a work’s under-heard specificities aligns with an expanded notion of care.
Abstract: In conservation theory and practice considerable attention (and anxiety) has been directed towards strictly delimited notions of authenticity in the context of contemporary artworks and the ways conservators intervene in their materialization(s). This talk considers how a methodology of attunement—figured in the context of conservation—helps bring attention to the ethics, politics, principles, and affective potentials inscribed within a work of art that might otherwise go un-sensed or be disregarded, as well as the varied ways in which conservation practices might attend to and promote them. Thinking with agential realism and Indigenous scholarship, this talk considers how the objective referents of our ‘coming-to-know’ are the phenomena produced through our intra-actions. By recognising how properties and boundaries are emergent and enacted rather than a given, this talk figures attunement as a responsive deep listening, and methodological counter to the epistemic violences of habituated, extractivist, settler colonial logics that undergird dominant museological and conservation practices. In so doing, this talk considers how tuning into and becoming attuned to a work’s under-heard specificities aligns with an expanded notion of care.
2022
2021
2020
“Archives LIVE: Conservation In Motion.” Presentation and public artist interview with Jaki Irvine, aemi & Irish Museum of Modern Art, 21 October 2020. https://soundcloud.com/imma-ireland/imma-and-aemi-archives-live-conservation-in-motion-with-jaki-irvine-brian-castriota#t=11:54
2020
“Object Trouble: Constructing and Performing Artwork Identity in the Museum.” Online audio essay programmed in conjunction with the exhibition IMMA Archive: 1990s, From the Edge to the Centre, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 4 September 2020. https://imma.ie/whats-on/talks-online-brian-castriota-object-trouble/
2019
“In Conversation: Katie Paterson, Brian Castriota, and Lucy Askew.” Artist talk held at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 26 October 2019.
2017
“Towards a Collection of Artists’ Moving Image in Scotland: Collection Care, Maintenance, and
Preservation.” Lecture delivered at LUX Scotland symposium, The Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 25 July 2017.
2015
“Examination and Code Analysis of Siebren Versteeg’s Untitled Film II (2004).” Presented at TechFocus III: Caring for Software-Based Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 24 September 2015.
2013
“Time-Based Media and the Mediation of Time: Equipment Significance and Obsolescence in Diana Thater’s The Bad Infinite.” Presented at the Mellon Research Initiative Colloquium Archaeology, Heritage, and the Mediation of Time, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York, 13 April 2013.
