500 year documentation

Abstract

Museum visitors today can regularly view 500 year old art by Renaissance masters. Will visitors to museums 500 years in the future be able to see the work of digital artists from the early 21st century? This paper considers the real problem of conserving interactive digital artwork for museum installation in the far distant future by exploring the requirements for creating documentation that will support an artwork's adaptation to future technology. In effect, this documentation must survive as long as the artwork itself -- effectively, in perpetuity. A proposal is made for the use of software engineering methodologies as solutions for designing this documentation.