I wonder why it took the best part of thirty years for someone to wonder if there was anything on those disks?
In theory one could have just fired up the machine, put the disks in and seen what was on them. This would have risked damage to the disks, hence the extreme measures here.
However, the task was not exactly huge. I wonder how big this ballooned out to, how many people were needed to work on the grant application to get the funding to approach the right people to get their permission to read the disks? Factor in the TV documentary crew and all the other hangers on, the experts in digital forensics, the art historians, the list could be endless!
I imagine that if the 'artworks' are genuine Mr Warhol was loathed to do anything creative with the new medium. Being a canny guy he probably thought he best stick to the Marilyn and soup themes making sure he put his name on everything so that in aeons hence there would be no doubt whatsoever that these were his definitive artworks.
Warhol began archiving material well before his death. There is a lot of it, and until there's a reason...such as a grant...to look in a box, nobody is likely to.
It has given me an idea - I think I will do the same, I sort of do now anyway. Put stuff in a box and send it to storage. Saves having to deliberate over clutter and its bin-worthiness.
I am sure that was what Mr. Warhol was doing rather than deliberately putting together some archive of his life for people with annoying art interests to fester over.
It is just as well all x billion of us don't leave 100s of boxes of clutter behind, to be archived.
Yes he was an extreme pack rat, like a lot of artists. I read he even archived his garbage. If you do mixed-media work or still-lifes, it makes sense too. I think Rembrandt and Picasso were pack rats too.
In theory one could have just fired up the machine, put the disks in and seen what was on them. This would have risked damage to the disks, hence the extreme measures here.
However, the task was not exactly huge. I wonder how big this ballooned out to, how many people were needed to work on the grant application to get the funding to approach the right people to get their permission to read the disks? Factor in the TV documentary crew and all the other hangers on, the experts in digital forensics, the art historians, the list could be endless!
I imagine that if the 'artworks' are genuine Mr Warhol was loathed to do anything creative with the new medium. Being a canny guy he probably thought he best stick to the Marilyn and soup themes making sure he put his name on everything so that in aeons hence there would be no doubt whatsoever that these were his definitive artworks.