Restoring these works required building period-accurate virtual machines using Oracle VirtualBox, a free, open-source virtualization application that allows you to run multiple operating systems (such as Windows, Linux, or macOS) simultaneously within a simulated computer. While the ELMA team successfully rendered the artworks functional, several challenges emerged around software licensing, missing assets, and legacy frameworks. The ELMA team held a series of artist-informed workshops in June and November 2025 to test each of the software solutions needed to revive each artwork. During the workshops, the team and the artist would come together to share research, create documentation of each artwork, troubleshoot any technical issues, and ensure that the artworks were functioning in their emulated environments as L’Hirondelle originally intended. These sessions were invaluable to understanding the artworks from the artist’s point of view and to adapting technical approaches to revive them. Overall, key lessons were learned that the ELMA team will bring over into the eventual emulator library’s resources to guide future digital preservation projects, such as:

• Plan for licensing early: Identify proprietary software requirements and secure legal access before committing to period-accurate solutions.
• Document technologies thoroughly: Create detailed technical documentation for both the emulation process and the original artwork’s technical architecture to avoid bottlenecks during modification.
• Prioritize original assets: Ensure recovery of databases, frameworks, and dependencies early in the process to prevent incomplete restorations.
• Explore alternative tools: Stay open to creative solutions—such as repurposing existing browsers or emulators—to overcome compatibility challenges.

A portion of each artist workshop was also open to the wider Queen’s and Kingston arts communities, where the ELMA team presented our work, sought advice on the trickier issues we faced during the emulation of each artwork, and gathered input on the direction of the ELMA project moving forwards.

Working with the ELMA team was an important experience for L’Hirondelle too. Due to lost domains, server migrations, and software obsolescence, she had been unable to access functioning versions of her own net.art for years. As she described it, “It’s like these works live on internet servers—and they are still there—but you can’t access them either because the code is outdated, or due to server issues… So, from my worlding, from an Indigenous worldview, these works are animate and they are alive, and they live on the other side of a veil. And so, this work with emulation has been really important, because it is like getting to visit ancestors and it has been really moving. Hiy hiy.”

The public can visit the newly revived treatycard.ca, Horizon Zero: Tell, and ndnspam.com as part of L’Hirondelle’s retrospective exhibition, Cheryl L’Hirondelle: where the voice touches (((acts, utterances, transmissions for freedom))) on view at the Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff, Alberta) from 13 February to 21 June 2026. This marks the first public use of ELMA’s emulators and the first time these works have been exhibited since being revived.

What is next for ELMA?

In 2026, the ELMA team will shift their focus toward developing the open‑source platform and building resources that artists, curators, and preparators can use to work with emulation. The project aims to:

• Provide practical tools for the arts community: An open-source emulator library that makes it easy to view and preserve computer-based art.
• Build digital confidence: Training artists and arts organizations to work with emulation and other digital tools.
• Establish long-term sustainability: Creating a network of care—from artists and tech experts to cultural organizations—who will keep the emulator library growing.

In building the emulator library, we will be training members of the arts sector in new forms of digital transformation, empowering them to develop, use, and learn new tools. Upon launch of the library, we will offer training resources for the arts sector on how to use the emulators and how to adapt them. As the library develops, ELMA will also offer training materials to help the arts sector learn, adapt, and build with the emulators.

For more information about the Emulator Library for Media Art and AGNES’s digital initiatives, please visit agnes.queensu.ca or contact danuta.sierhuis@queensu.ca.

Funded by the Cultivate component of the Canada Council for the Arts.