"The increasing engagement of artists with film, video, computers and the internet, has enabled the emergence of an unprecedented variety of ‘media-art’ forms, such as video-art, audio-visual installations, multimedia art, digital-art or net-art. However, the dependence of these media-art works on rapidly evolving technologies makes these works one of the most fragile parts of our contemporary artistic heritage. This research proposes a pioneering sociological investigation on media-art conservation practices. Its main objective is to identify the networks of technologies, practices, discourses and actors involved in the preservation of media-art works These objectives will be met by undertaking advanced training at New York University’s Sociology Department (USA) and by conducting an ethnographic study of media-art conservation practices at the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA). This investigation will be transferred to the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at The Open University (UK), where it will contribute to establish a new line of research on the material dimensions of culture. The results of the study will be of great significance for both museum professionals in charge of the conservation of media-art collections and for cultural sociologists dealing with the processes of cultural preservation. This project will be instrumental to forge an international and interdisciplinary research network of academics, museum and cultural-policy professionals working on the intellectual and policy-related challenges facing contemporary art conservation and, more widely, culture in a digital age."