Informing readers about the location of the artwork in the caption emphasizes the artworks’ physicality; its existence beyond the printed image somewhere in the world. From the readers’ point of view, identifying a name of a place in proximity to the image and the date of production is perceiving the visual evidence as part of a cultural momentum, whether the artwork was produced in the place it is preserved or not. This lingering cultural momentum is the time during which the artwork has survived, from its creation to the moment in which the author writes about it. The body of the artwork that is always located at a certain place connects the artist, their audience and the historian. It is the medium from which historical knowledge about a time span can be extracted. In addition, noting the location of the artwork implicitly invites readers to visit both the artwork and its place, and consequently it encourages further development of a discourse that uses visual evidence.
Noa Yaari, Self-portrait getting into a SUZUKI GRAND VITARA XL.7, 2002, Tel Aviv
But what happens when the artwork cannot survive, in the narrow sense of the word, since it has no body; when it is a digital code without a specific physical format? What place, if at all, could describe the work at the time of writing about it? In this case, I’d consider indicating any location that contributes to the meaning of the work.