Contemporary Art Object Conservation
Time Based Media

electronic art restoration

Julian Walking in T-shirt and Shorts

The artwork consists of a short animation film designed to play on a custom-fabricated LED monolith. The monolith is comprised of two back-to-back LED panels encased in metal siding and glass fronts; it is used to display a custom-made animation using a grid of small, round orange lights. The animation is transferred to the monolith using a DB9 cable (USB to 9 pin serial port) attached to the piece inside of the base. A PC with a Windows operating system and custom-designed program is required to upload the 33 animation frames to the monolith, as well as control the playback rate.

The artwork is part of a public corporate collection at South Florida’s Aventura Mall. RLA was called in to repair the work when one side of the monolith began to exhibit constant irregularities, playing at a rate much slower than was intended, or not at all.

RLA undertook this treatment in conjunction with an electronics engineer and the artist’s London-based fabricator. The work involved testing and eventually replacing the motherboard. The work requires regular maintenance which RLA performs in conjunction with our electronics engineer.