Personal Digital Archiving 2018

There is a corner of the web that tells us stories — non-fiction stories, specifically—which let us in on each other’s realities, ask us to slow down and contemplate. These works have many names: immersives, interactive documentaries (aka i-docs) or transmedia productions. Their makers draw from a large tool set: from playful game interactions, to networked, participatory, or data storytelling. Regardless of their underlying media or methods, however, these works share a common challenge: The average life span of a web page is 100 days.

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision has been exploring web archiving options since 2011 and over the past year has put a special emphasis on preserving non-fiction interactives, an intricate mode of online storytelling that is celebrated at the annual documentary festival IDFA. Together with the festival's DocLab section, Sound and Vision has talked to producers as well as individual creators and compiled an overview of potential solutions for safeguarding content created at the cusp of advancing technologies.