To migrate an artwork involves upgrading equipment and source material. To migrate the video monitors of Nam June Paik's TV Garden, for example, would be to replace them with up-to-date models as TV sets change with industry trends. The major disadvantage of migration is that the appearance of the original artwork may change substantially when the technology undergoes an evolutionary jump, as when cathode-ray tubes give way to flat screens.
Variable Media Initiative - Glossary, p. 130-137
Migration involves not only refreshing files but converting them to currently readable formats. Migration is time consuming, and it doesn't guarantee that the formatting from one software format is preserved in the next (for example, current browsers can read and display Jodi's page, but they ignore the blink formatting). Nevertheless, migration is critical for the content of files to remain readable.
Dietz, 2005, p. 97
