COST Action CA24129 European Cooperation in Science & Technology Funded by the European Union · 2025–2029
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EMBARK is a pan-European network for the conservation of media & born-digital art.

Since the 1960s, artists in Europe have made art from the technology of their time: film, video, sound, slides, software and networked environments. We connect the researchers, conservators, curators, archivists, artists and technologists working to keep that art alive.
Why it matters

Europe's media art heritage. Who cares? We do.

A network of 187 specialists across 35 countries: conservators, curators, researchers, artists and technologists, pooling the expertise these fragile works depend on.
Nov 2025 – Oct 2029
4-year EU networking grant
187
Members, across 5 Working Groups
~€600,000
For meetings & grants
The problem

Why is media art facing a preservation crisis?

Media art is vivid: moving image, light, sound, code and networks, made with the technology of its time. When that technology changes, collection stewards work to carry the work forward; the challenge is that those changes come faster, and on more fronts, than for any other art form.
Refik Anadol, Inner Portrait, 2024
A series of dynamic AI Data Paintings · a person stands within the immersive work, for scale

Dwindling hardware & skills

Analog and legacy works depend on machines, and on the people who can run them; both are disappearing.

Obsolescence

Software, file formats and operating systems fall out of use, and works built on them stop running.

Networked & born-digital

Web-based and born-digital works rely on live platforms and links that vanish, often without warning.

Knowledge at risk

Much of what a work needs lives only with its first-generation artists and technicians.
The mission

From scattered expertise to shared practice.

Over the last 15 years, Europe's heritage field has built specialised media-conservation expertise: new university curricula, dedicated collection staff. But it remains scarce and scattered across disconnected institutions, its knowledge and tools siloed, with no shared understanding of practice across Europe. EMBARK exists to bridge these gaps and to forge one cohesive scientific field and community of practice across European borders.
Our goals
What we set out to do
  1. Strengthen Europe's collections to safeguard our media art heritage.
  2. Create a cohesive scientific field and community of practice.
  3. Bridge the divide between academia and heritage practice.
  4. Cultivate a network of careers and develop lobbying power.
Our deliverables
What the Action will produce
Concrete outputs over the four-year grant, from public convenings to open resources and a policy statement.
4
Public conferences
Events
12
Online cafés
Events
5
Scientific publications
Research
15
Blog posts
Communications
1
Website with guidelines, recommendations, best practices & resources
Digital resource
1
Joint statement on media art preservation, for policy makers
Advocacy
The COST programme

What is funded?

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is an EU-funded initiative that helps researchers establish and expand interdisciplinary research networks, known as COST Actions. It funds networking activities — conferences, training schools and short-term scientific missions — that enable the exchange of knowledge between researchers across Europe and beyond.
COST does not fund basic research itself (salaries or honoraria). The networks are open and intended to grow over the 4-year duration of an Action. Members may receive funding for travel and accommodation to attend EMBARK meetings, conferences and training schools, based on the rules and decisions of the EMBARK Management Committee.
Leadership

Who runs the Action.

A Management Committee, a Grant Holder, a Core Group of EMBARK leaders, and five Working Groups. Every role, with names and contacts, lives on the People page.