Best Before…?

Could you imagine our world without photographs, video tapes or digital written records? What, if future historians would have to reconstruct our history without their authentic tradition?

This scenario is more likely to happen than many want to believe, since modern cultural heritage’s survival is endangered. With photographs, it is the creeping disintegration of imaging materials and supports and with electronic media; the rapid obsolescence of playback technology is posing an additional problem. Almost all museums, archives and collections worldwide lack reliable strategies how to fight this threatening loss of enormous amounts of media heritage. Where are the specialists that preserve our visual memory to posterity und where do they get their professional training?

The State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany, which has a long tradition in the academic training of conservators, now reacted to this deficit. Supported by special funding from the German Federal State of Baden-Wuerttemberg, it can now extend its range of programs by a unique training opportunity. From October 2006 on, students can learn the possibilities of long term preservation of analogue and digital photographs, video recordings and digital archival cultural heritage in a two-year, graduate (M. A.) program. Through coordination of the Academy’s own resources, international visiting experts and cooperation with leading international institutions, the Academy will create a knowledge pool. Here the future “Conservators for New Media and Digital Information (M. A.)” will not only acquire technological insight, but they will also use real-world projects at partner institutions in Germany and elsewhere, in order to prepare for their highbrow field of activity. Already during their studies, students will practice interdisciplinarity, internationality and communication to specialists—something we consider a prerequisite for successful problem solving strategies and a crucial skill required for the tight job market in the preservation field.

The information collected here partly may be provisional and will be specified continuously. If you have questions regarding the curriculum, the Academy or student life in Stuttgart, please don’t hesitate to contact the program coordinator or the admissions office directly.

We look forward to meeting you in Stuttgart!

Prof. Dr. Hans Dieter Huber (Head of the Program)
Wiebke Ratzeburg (Program Coordinator)

Am Weissenhof 1
70191 Stuttgart
Phone: 0711-28440-322
Fax: 0711-28440-225
E-Mail: info(at)mediaconservation.org