As an artist I do not make material ‘objects’; yet my digital works rely on a series of unfixed material and technical supports, the changing nature of which often necessitates the revision or re-making of existing artworks.

If a computer program can be defined as a set of instructions, then a large part of my artistic process is writing instructions. When a viewer encounters one of my artworks in a gallery, they see the result of those instructions visually rendered on a digital screen by computer.

But what happens when a computer cannot carry out these instructions? While the program itself might be considered immaterial, it relies on a specific configuration of hardware and software to run, meaning programs written on one computer do not always easily transfer to another; especially one that is older, newer, or uses a different operating system.

In such situations, showing the work on another computer can require a new program with a new set of instructions in order to produce the same result. In effect, the work has to be re-made: not only posing challenges for artists today, but foreshadowing potential barriers to exhibiting their artworks in the future.

Though what the viewer sees in the gallery appears identical, the underlying program is substantially different to the original; and so raises the question of what precisely constitutes the artwork. Can it be the program when the same result is achieved by two different means? Or does the work only come into being when the program is run, the instructions executed?

This paper attempts to answer these questions through a reflective survey of my own recent experiences as practice-based doctoral researcher, and an artist engaged in writing computer programs as artworks.