To begin thinking about conserving moving image based installations is to make explicit the real issues behind preserving artist's film and video.

If we understand a moving image based installation to be a three-dimension object or structure that incorporates moving images, then its very physicality and the manner in which it is experienced becomes very important.  It makes the status of the artist film or video, as an individual object, explicit.  The technical elements of moving image set-ups may then go beyond their primary function and take on other aesthetic and contextual meanings or importance.  This is true of many artists' moving images but here it is truly drawn to the surface.

In regard to preserving your installation, the greatly emphasised importance of set-up and structure can cause difficulties.  For example, what happens if a machine breaks and no others are available?  Your planning and decision-making should take this into account.  The act of storing an installation with its different structural elements is another potentially problematic venture.  The different elements, for example, may require quite different environments to hinder their deterioration.  The issues of decisions and documentation and storage are both explored within this installation section.

The head of Time-based Media Conservation at the Tate, Pip Laurenson, discusses the problems of equipment obsolescence and the preservation of installations.  She uses the example of a Gary Hill work to illustrate this topic and to stress the value of considering the importance of each individual constituting element.