 Internet archaeology - exploring beginnings and birth of Internet Culture
Most of the files in our archive are in either JPG or GIF format and are categorized by either still or moving image, they are then arranged in various thematic subcategories. Currently, a major focus of Internet Archaeology is on the archiving and indexing of images found on Geocities websites, as their existence has been terminated by parent company Yahoo; who discontinued GeoCities operation on October 26, 2009.
WebTV's Holloween Queens
Internet Archaeology is an ongoing effort which puts preservation paramount.
1996 - Babistar's Fun Page http://www.internetarchaeology.org
1999 - MOLE
Interview
source .... http://www.netmag.co.uk
|
Internet Archaeology seeks to explore, recover, archive and showcase the graphic artifacts found within earlier Internet Culture. Established in 2009, the chief purpose of Internet Archaeology is to preserve these artifacts and acknowledge their importance in understanding the beginnings and birth of an Internet Culture. We focus on graphic artifacts only, with the belief that images are most culturally revealing and immediate.
1997 - Born Again Bikers
In early June 2009 I heard about GeoCities closing. Thisleft quite an impression on me. I started using the internet at theheight of GeoCities’ popularity, and ever since, the internet has becomean ever more integral part of my life. At the time, there was verylittle news or concern about the closing; an event which I saw as amajor milestone in the internet’s history. I was deeply irked by this,and took it upon myself to do something about it. Coming from anartistic background, I created Internet Archaeology with the belief thatthe preservation of digital artifacts is not only important tohistorians, but also artists, designers and their enthusiasts. If youlook at the history of art and design you’ll notice that movements andstyles speak to and are inspired by the past. This is one of the mainreasons why museums are vital institutions to society; they offer aglimpse into our past and in return, they inspire. In today’s Web 2.0era, digital information moves at warp speed around the world, with anemphasis on what’s most current or new. This characteristic is whatmakes a blog post from just a month ago passé. I wanted to make a spacethat lives within the current Web 2.0 model while presenting artifactsfound within earlier internet culture. The internet changes everysecond, and its quickly become the most pervasive media; at the pith ofInternet Archaeology’s mission is the idea that digital content hasvalue and should be saved, shared and presented.
The Internet Archive is a wonderful institution that’s gonethrough great efforts to save and archive digital content for over adecade. It has an extensive GeoCities collection amassed, which can beaccessed using its Wayback Machine. The problem with the Wayback Machineis that you need to know the URL of the page you would like to view,and realistically, who can remember a GeoCities URL? Internet Archivecan be thought of as a storage facility that saves as much of theinternet as possible, while Internet Archaeology can be viewed more as amuseum, which, along with preserving and saving content, also seeks tocurate and showcase it in a comprehensive manner
We archive as much as we can, but showcase artifacts that wefind culturally significant, graphically unique or humorous. 
There are over 5,000 images showcased on the site atpresent. Everyday images are posted to the blog by its contributors fromaround the world. The Netscraps section allows anyone to post images tobe considered as additions to the collection; this section growseveryday as well. 
I managed to download about 260GB, and let’s say the averageGeoCities site is about 5MB, so that would make roughly 53,000 sites.Note that the bulk of these sites were not downloaded blindly. Thedownloads were aggregated from specific targeted searches and areas ofinterest within GeoCities. As opposed to other archivists, who wentafter anything and everything. 
Internet Archaeology will continue digging through theGeoCities archive and adding to the collection. Other areas we’ll soonventure into include: artifacts from the defunct, bankrupt and forgottenstartups of the Nasdaq 5000 era; graphics found within early internetpornography websites; and of course, it wouldn’t be right to dig throughGeoCities without also digging through Angelfire and Tripod, both ofwhich are still up! Other plans for Internet Archaeology include a bookand an exhibition – just looking for the right space, please contact ifyou think you can help!| Similary articles: |
|---|
|
