What might it mean to regenerate the archive of an autonomous artist resistant to institutionalisation through open-source infrastructure? How can 're-archiving' an artist's practice in this way bring new insight and perspectives to their life's work? Which artistic and curatorial methods can help us 'repurpose' rather than solely 'revive' vintage media artworks (Cramer, 2014) to reinvestigate their contemporary relevance for new audiences? What challenges exist in developing an inter-institutional ' 'network of care' (Dekker, 2022) as a custodial infrastructure to secure the integrity and autonomy of an artist's lifework? Since 2021, the authors have been investigating how to curate the 'self-historification' [sic] project of the Attic Archive (1980-2020), established by artist Pete Horobin at 37 Union Street, Dundee, Scotland, and produced under four different identities, namely Pete Horobin (1980-89), Marshall Anderson (1990-99), Peter Haining (2000-09), and aitch (2010-19). Responding to the archive's formation through pre-internet correspondence art and its present dispersal across national collections in Scotland, Ireland and Hungary, the project seeks to establish an open-source web platform built and maintained by an inclusive and interdisciplinary network of artists, archivists, curators, policy strategists, and technologists internationally through sharing and generating material related to the archive. The research has identified barriers, tensions, and contradictions in securing a sustainable legacy for this and potentially other autonomous, networked art archives through sharing and generating material related to the archive. The authors will conclude that open-source methods and infrastructure alone do not safeguard networked art as a form of autonomous artistic practice against the data colonialism and extraction of platform capitalism. In recognising that the 'ideal' of the internet as a space for universal and frictionless access has become a utopia for control and recuperation, the project is as likely to explore hybrid and offline approaches alongside solely digital infrastructures if the work is to respect the autonomy and integrity of The Attic Archive.

Publication of a conference paper delivered at XXIV International Image Festival / 2025 International Conference on Media Art History RE:GENERATIVE, 2-9 May 2025.

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