Dr Brian Castriota

Research

Brian’s research and scholarship have been largely focused on problematising and reimagining notions of artwork identity, authenticity, ontology, and representation for conservation purposes by situating theories and practices of contemporary art conservation in wider philosophical discourses and tracing their lineages. More recently he has been drawing upon agential realist thinking to dislodge the assumptions in conservation theory and practice that object boundaries and significances precede conservation research or inquiry, and that knowledge about heritage is acquired from a distance. By instead taking indeterminacy and entanglement as starting points his research examines the generative ways post-qualitative, post-humanist, and non-Western methodologies and epistemologies aerate sedimented practices of musealisation and conservation predicated on capture, domination, and control. 

At present he is exploring the potentials of attunement as an embodied methodology for both generating knowledge and building more equitable and sustainable practices of care. Attunement is positioned as a slowed down methodology of knowledge production and being, characterised by an openness to being intra-actively worked by that which we work with. In this way, attunement functions as a counter to more resource-depleting techniques and methods that can degrade our emotional and ecological resources under the banner of preservation, and which are often driven by and re-enact colonialist and capitalist impulses and logics. His research examines how such a methodology might create supplemental, more-than-representational, and more diverse forms of knowledge that contribute towards a futurity for human and more-than-human relations. 

Selected Publications

Book chapters

“The Enfolding Object of Conservation: Artwork Identity, Authenticity, and Documentation.” In Bridging the Gap: New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art, eds. R. van de Vall and V. van Saaze. Berlin: Springer, 2023 (forthcoming)

[Co-authored with Claire Walsh] “In the Shadow of the State: Collecting Performance at IMMA and Institutions of Care in the Irish Context.” In Performance: The Ethics and Politics of Care, eds. H. Hölling, J. P. Feldman and E. Magnin. London: Routledge, 2023 (forthcoming)

[Co-authored with Hélia Marçal, Stephanie Auffret, and Renata F. Peters] “Authenticity.” In Dictionary of Museology, ed. F. Mairesse. London: Routledge, 2023

[Co-authored with Hélia Marçal, Stephanie Auffret, and Renata F. Peters] “Conservation (Preventive).” In Dictionary of Museology, ed. F. Mairesse. London: Routledge, 2023.

[Co-authored with Hélia Marçal] “Always Already Fragment: Integrity, Deferral, and Possibility in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage.” In The Fragment in the Digital Age: Possibilities and risks of new conservation techniques. Proceedings of the interdisciplinary conference of the HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts in cooperation with ICOMOS and the VDR, 7–8 May 2021 in Hildesheim, eds. U. Schädler-Saub and A. Weyer, 63–78. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2021

[Co-authored with Neil Clements] “On Creation and Conservation: Neil Clements and Brian Castriota in Conversation.” In Fellow Traveller, edited by Dominic Paterson, np. Glasgow: Hunterian Art Gallery, 2021

“Ringing From the Darkness: On Lithophones.” In Dark Matter, eds. A. Sutcliffe & K. Timney. 72–81. Glasgow: Pala Press, 2021

“Authenticity, Identity, and Essentialism: Reframing Conservation Practice.” In What Is the Essence of Conservation? Papers from the ICOM-CC and ICOFOM Session at the 25th General Conference Held in Kyoto, 4 September 2019, edited by François Mairesse and Renata F. Peters, 39–48. Paris: ICOFOM, 2019

Journal articles

“Instantiation, Actualization, and Absence: The Continuation and Safeguarding of Katie Paterson’s Future Library (2014-2114).” Journal of the American Institute of Conservation, Volume 60, Issue 2–3 (2021), pp. 145–60.

“Variants of Concern: Authenticity, Conservation, and the Type-Token Distinction.” Studies in Conservation, Volume 67, Issue 1–2 (2021), pp. 72–83.

“Object Trouble: Constructing and Performing Artwork Identity in the Museum.” ArtMatters International Journal for Technical Art History, Special Issue 1 (2021), pp. 12-22

[Co-authored with Sophie Bunz and Flaminia Fortunato] “How Sustainable is File-Based Video Art? Exploring the Foundations for Best Practice Development.” Electronic Media Review, Vol. 4 (2016)

“Mediating Meanings: Conservation of the Staffordshire Hoard.” Postmedieval, Volume 7, Issue 3 (2016), pp. 369–77

Peer reviewed conference proceedings

[Co-authored with Emily B. Frank]. “Fifty-plus years of on-site metals conservation at Sardis: Correlating treatment efficacy and implementing new approaches.” In Transcending Boundaries: Integrated Approaches to Conservation. ICOM-CC 19th Triennial Conference Preprints, Beijing, 17–21 May 2021, ed. J. Bridgland. Paris: International Council of Museums, ICOM-CC, 2021

“Equipment Significance and Obsolescence in Diana Thater’s 'The Bad Infinite': A Case Study in the Cult of Unintentional Monuments.” Conservation: Cultures and Connections, Postprints of the Interim Meeting of the ICOM-CC History and Theory Working Group Meeting, CeROArt, 2013

Edited volumes

[Edited with Glenn Wharton and Rebecca Gordon] Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Contemporary Art. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2024 (expected)

Teaching and Supervision

Brian teaches modules as part of UCL’s MSc in Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media, including:
Examining and Analysing Artworks
Conserving Complexity: Conservation of Contemporary Artworks

Biography

Brian is Lecturer in Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media at University College London. Alongside his appointment at UCL, Brian is Time-Based Media Conservator at the National Galleries Scotland. Since 2018 he has worked as a freelance conservator for time-based media and contemporary art at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. He served as Supervising Conservator with Harvard Art Museums’ Archaeological Exploration of Sardis from 2018 to 2023 and has worked on various excavations in Turkey, Italy, and Egypt since 2011.

He completed graduate-level training in conservation at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University (2014), he was a Samuel H. Kress Fellow in Time-Based Media Conservation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2014–2016), and he received a PhD in History of Art from the University of Glasgow (2019).

He is Assistant Coordinator of ICOM-CC’s Theory, History, and Ethics of Conservation Working Group, he is a Steering Group Member of ICON’s Contemporary Art Network, and he served as Programme Chair/Asst. Programme Chair of AIC’s Electronic Media Group from 2020 to 2022. He was a contributor to the IFA-NYU’s Curriculum Development Committee for Time-Based Media Art Conservation Education, he has been an Adjunct Lecturer in Time-Based Media Conservation within the programme, and he continues to serve on their TBM Curriculum Advisory Board. 

Brian has published numerous articles and chapters on conservation theory and practice. He is currently co-editing a volume in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Readings in Conservation series on the Conservation of Contemporary Art. He has previously edited a special issue of ArtMatters International Journal of Technical Art History and has served as a peer reviewer for various journals.