A new data cooperative launched during the Armory Show promises to address one of digital art's most persistent challenges: ensuring artworks survive for future generations. The Transfer Data Trust, founded by new media art dealer Kelani Nichole, aims to preserve digital artworks for 100 years through innovative storage and conservation methods.
The initiative represents a significant departure from traditional art preservation approaches. Unlike paintings or sculptures that can endure for centuries with proper care, digital artworks face constant threats of obsolescence as the systems they depend on become outdated. As art historian David Joselit describes in his 2023 book "Art's Properties," traditional art possesses an "infinite temporality" that extends beyond human lifespans, but digital works are vulnerable to stuttering, glitching, or complete deterioration within just a few years.
Nichole, who founded Transfer Art Gallery in 2013 to champion artists like Rosa Menkman, Lorna Mills, and Carla Gannis, has transformed her commercial gallery into a cooperative structure. The transition from a registered LLC to a co-op reflects her growing interest in decentralization as both a political project and technical solution. "New media just doesn't have the kind of longevity" of traditional art forms, Nichole explained after the launch event at Pier 57.
The Transfer Data Trust operates as a complex network of preservation tools, including network-attached storage drives, decentralized file storage software from IPFS and Filecoin, and a user-friendly browser interface. Through this system, artists, dealers, and conservators can monitor inventory, market status, and conservation needs. Proceeds from art sales are pooled into the cooperative, creating funds that members vote on how to allocate, including decisions about conserving fragile works.
Nichole's skepticism about NFTs, despite their recent boom, helped shape the Data Trust's approach. During the NFT surge in 2021, she viewed these tokens as "glorified receipts" that failed to address the fundamental challenge of digital preservation. "The permanence of mutable objects is possible if we make sure we can preserve the intent of the artist," she noted, emphasizing that simply updating storage systems doesn't guarantee that artistic qualities will survive.
The preservation challenge becomes particularly complex when considering future technological changes. If screens become obsolete or display methods fundamentally change within a century, digital artworks must retain their essential qualities through detailed documentation and careful archiving. This requires recording extensive information about the artist's intentions and the work's original technical specifications.
The Data Trust's approach blurs traditional distinctions between art and data, similar to how NFTs challenged conventional definitions of value during their peak popularity. As researcher Lisa Nakamura noted in her 2007 book "Digitizing Race," art historians initially struggled with computer-generated images because they seemed to lack "history, no mode of production, no distinct genres" - essentially appearing as an "undifferentiated soup of bits and bytes."
However, both the NFT phenomenon and the Data Trust represent efforts to differentiate data and assign distinct values to digital information. A July report from the Project Liberty Institute researchers identified fine art as one of the few markets outside finance capable of assigning value to data, particularly in Time-Based Media artworks that are essentially data-based creations.
The cooperative model addresses broader questions about data ownership and value extraction. "How do we take back the value of our data from Big Tech?" Nichole asked, proposing peer-to-peer data sales at what she calls "the scale of trust" rather than the current system where technology companies harvest user data for advertising revenue while exploiting consumers.
Gray Area gallery, the Knight Foundation, and other art and technology institutions have sponsored the Data Trust's development, though its success will ultimately depend on adoption rates and consistent sales. The technical solutions must translate into practical market acceptance from institutions and collectors who have traditionally been hesitant about acquiring "risky" new media art.
The initiative also highlights the intensive labor required for long-term cultural preservation. While many people learned in school that "the internet is forever," personal experience with lost photo albums and obsolete devices reveals the fragility of digital storage. Bringing artworks "into the deep future" requires deliberate separation from data that won't receive the same preservation investments.
This preservation imperative may explain why traditional art world "gatekeepers" - more accurately described as experts - continue to play essential roles despite blockchain promises of democratization. Not every artwork can realistically be preserved across generations, making curatorial decisions about what deserves long-term stewardship increasingly important.
The cryptocurrency space's characteristic boom-and-bust cycles may reflect its general lack of concern with preservation and long-term thinking. In contrast, initiatives like the Transfer Data Trust represent a shift toward viewing certain data as worthy of careful stewardship across generations, moving digital information beyond its previous status as an undifferentiated mass of binary code into an era of meaningful distinction and lasting value.
