On Archiving Interactive Materials (AKA what I write in the middle of the night)

There are many problems that occur when trying to archive materials that need to be played to remain. The vinyl record still exists, due to the new flair-up of hipsters (including me) who want the scratching of the needle on a record. However, what happens when the system that plays the archived material is no longer readily available? And what about materials that disintegrate over time?

For film, celluloid was the gold standard for most of it's lifetime. This meant long reals of clear plastic, sensitive to light. But storing celluloid has always been difficult. It's highly flammable, and falls apart over time. The only way to keep it from breaking apart is by keeping it in very specific circumstances. The British Film Institute (BFI) highlights this in their campaign Film is Fragile.

In the documentary Side by Side (2012), the use of film in Hollywood is explored, as well as how difficult it is to archive the materials to watch films. You can watch Side by Side below.

Side by Side, Chris Kenneally

Almost every creative medium has trouble keeping it's historic materials from being unplayable. In the case of film is physical degeneration, for videogames (a digital medium) it's the constant development of the gaming consoles and the systems they use. The constant development of these systems has lead to the creation of virtual systems online, often created by fans, to keep the game playable. Eric Kaltman gives a talk about this issue in the video below.

Knowledge Cafe - Games in Sound and Vision

The problem that currently exist across all mediums (Film, Games, Tv, Music) is that we have no idea what the future might bring when it comes to storing our shared past. The internet is a very useful tool to save digital files, but a hardcopy of some sort is a far more solid as a way of archiving than using only digital files. The world is no longer cut out to stay technologically the same for a long time. We've gone from the use of MP3's to streaming in a span of less than 10 years. The fact that celluloid and vinyl are still being used only helps preserve them, no matter how pretentious individuals who have these kinds of collections might seem. In the case of video games it's slightly different, as there are no new games being developed for the older consoles such as the Nintendo 64.

In the end archiving is an art, and something that will only continue to become more difficult as time passes and technologies advance. No way of keeping our files and materials is the right way. Every way of archiving has consequences. But the fact that we archive our past at all gives us more insight into who we are than any technological advance ever can. 



Bibliography:

Side by Side (2012) Directed by Chris Kenneally [Film] UK: Axiom Films Accessed on 22 February 2016

Knowledge Cafe - Games in Sound and Vision (with Eric Kaltman) (2016) Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. Accessed on 22 February 2016.

BFI (2015) 'Film is Fragile', https://www.bfi.org.uk/filmisfragile/ Accessed on 23 February 2016.