Web Archaeology exhibition – saving vintage web design for future generations

1286oldinternet.jpg

If you thought archaeology just involved hairy old men pulling bones out of mud, you may be surprised to discover that vintage 90s LiveJournals count as archaeology too – web archaeology.

Those beautiful flowerings of creativity on MySpace, LiveJournal – the GIFs and the text art are being collected to be preserved for future generations.

Speaker Jim Boulton gets all poetic talking about it..

“Developments were so fast that the hardware, software and groundbreaking creative work that sat on once new platforms disappeared almost as soon as they appeared, like Mayflies in spring doomed to die as the sunlight fades.”

“Mayflies” – beautiful…

The curator explains the purpose of the exhibition: “During and following the event, we will seek to identify the websites that inspired a generation of web designers and archive them for posterity. If we understand the past, we can make the future better.”

See more about the exhibition which will be in Shoreditch, London, next week on Digital Archaelogy

Anna Leach