In this paper, I describe my thesis research, which is concerned with digital preservation of new media art. This paper is divided into three sections: the first places technical digital preservation approaches within the context of artistic concerns; the second places digital variable media art within the context of other, more traditional variable art forms; and the third section describes my thesis project and methodology, which is an attempt to define the important characteristics of an existing art form (namely, music) through the exploration of users' annotations; and from that data, make some conjectures regarding the important elements of a new media art object.