Museums of Web design – a look at the past for a contribution to the future

Museums of Web design – a look at the past for a contribution to the future

Antunes, Sandra; Branco, Vasco; Barbosa, Helena

Article:

With the birth of the World Wide Web in the early nineties of the twentieth century a new artefact arose, the website, an object digital in nature, immaterial, code-based and code-dependent, accessed and experienced through hardware and software with short life spans, which render the website rapidly obsolete and easily replaced. An object nearly always short lived and that when it disappears leaves hardly any trace. This nature poses serious difficulties to the exhibition and preservation of a collection comprised of such artefacts, subject that only recently started to be addressed from a Museology design standpoint. Our research identified only two cases of web-based museums exhibiting artefacts of Web design they are digitalcraft.org and webmuseum.dk. A qualitative research based analysis aimed at observing and describing allowed the identification of issues and possible answers, essential in giving direction towards a future proposal for a Web design museum in the Portuguese context.

With the birth of the World Wide Web in the early nineties of the twentieth century a new artefact arose, the website, an object digital in nature, immaterial, code-based and code-dependent, accessed and experienced through hardware and software with short life spans, which render the website rapidly obsolete and easily replaced. An object nearly always short lived and that when it disappears leaves hardly any trace. This nature poses serious difficulties to the exhibition and preservation of a collection comprised of such artefacts, subject that only recently started to be addressed from a Museology design standpoint. Our research identified only two cases of web-based museums exhibiting artefacts of Web design they are digitalcraft.org and webmuseum.dk. A qualitative research based analysis aimed at observing and describing allowed the identification of issues and possible answers, essential in giving direction towards a future proposal for a Web design museum in the Portuguese context.

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DOI: 10.5151/despro-icdhs2014-0040

Referências bibliográficas

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Como citar:

Antunes, Sandra; Branco, Vasco; Barbosa, Helena; "Museums of Web design – a look at the past for a contribution to the future", p-303-308. In: Tradition, Transition, Tragectories: major or minor influences? [=ICDHS 2014 - 9th Conference of the International Committee for Design History and Design Studies]. São Paulo: Blucher, 2014.
ISSN 23186968, DOI 10.5151/despro-icdhs2014-0040