Project ‘DDS Herleeft’

re:DDS, case study for Web Archaeologythe REconstruction of De Digitale Stad

Amsterdam Museum, Tjarda de Haan, guest e-curator & web archaeologist

Digital Horizons, Virtual Selves: Rethinking Cultural Heritage in the Museum21 January 2016

Our goal: REconstruct and safeguard Amsterdam digital cultural heritage.

Our challenge: Will we be able -together- to transform De Digitale Stad (The Digital City; DDS) from a virtual Atlantis into a virtual Pompeii?

Project re:DDS

Project re:DDSAmsterdam Museum:• The story of Amsterdam – your entry to the city!• Formerly known as the Amsterdam Historical Museum.

Digital collections:• Web: Corporate site, co-creation platform.• Social: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Pinterest, Spotify. • Mobile: Publieke Werken, Collection App, MuseumApp.• Semantic & Open Data: Online collection, Europeana, Apps for Amsterdam, Wikipedia.

Wayback in Amsterdam in 1994…

In the wild, wild cyberspace arose a virtual city from network cables, computers and modems…

… De Digitale Stad - DDS - The Digital City

Project re:DDS

Project re:DDS1. Help! Our digital heritage is getting lost! 2. Case-study re:DDS3. What’s next?

Help! Our digital heritage is getting lost!

• "The world’s digital heritage is at risk of being lost” and "It’s preservation is an urgent issue of worldwide concern”, UNESCO in ‘Charter on the preservation of the digital heritage’ (2003).

• "In the past, important parts of our cultural heritage have been lost because they were not archived -in part because past generations did not, or could not, recognize their historic value“, Peter Lyman in his blog 'Archiving the World Wide Web’.

• "The Web was not designed to be preserved. The average life of a Web page is about 100 days“, Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive.

• “Humanity’s first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians. We face a "forgotten generation, or even a forgotten century”, Vint Cerf.

Project re:DDS

Challenges of born-digital heritage:

• Material: information is complex & transitive by nature. Rapid obsolescence of technology: missing hardware and software, lost documents and link rot. Dynamic character: doesn’t always reach final status, often not clear what belongs to the object. Ethical issues: regarding to privacy, copyright and licensing.

• Methodes: there is a difference between web harvesting and web archaeology. Web harvesting is the equivalent of taking a photographic snapshot of an object, while we aim to recreate the object itself by digital excavating.

• Division of tasks: who will take which responsibilities to reconstruct, preserve and retrieve born-digital heritage and make it accessible to the public? What we badly need is:

o Web archaeological tools. o Central repository for tools: for example to read obsolete media. o Software library: who is archiving old software like Solaris, Windows, MacOs.o Sustainable e-depot and infrastructure.o Approach: no standards: given the urgency we can not wait. So just do it ... and trial and

error!

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Out of the box: collection 2.0

• The museum has to cross boundaries, and get out of its comfort-zone to break new ground in dealing with digital heritage. To seek out new technologies, and new disciplines.

• New areas: Different demands in acquiring and preservation of digitally created expressions of culture or physical objects. How to preserve digital objects that are interactive, networked, process-oriented and context-dependent?

• Ingest: How to read DDS data into an archive?• Archival Storage: Which archives are reliable for the DDS data?• Access: How can interested people get to the DDS data?• Data management: How should DDS data be managed?• Preservation planning: How remains DDS data accessible in the future?• Administration: Who takes care of the maintenance, and what does that look like?

Project re:DDS

Project re:DDS1. Help! Our digital heritage is getting lost! 2. Case-study re:DDS3. What’s next?

What is De Digitale Stad - The Digital City (1994-2001)?

• 1st (free) public domain virtual city in the world.• 1st Dutch online community.• 1st time internet (free) accessible to general public in the Netherlands.• Grounded by a fluid group: independent media, hackers and the municipality of Amsterdam.• Attracted international interest for the design: metaphor of a city to structure cyberspace.• DDS tells the story of Amsterdam:

• Francisco van Jole (1994): “Vanavond opent de Digitale Stad haar elektronische poorten. Dat lijkt wel de eerste zin van een sprookje en eigenlijk is het dat ook een beetje. Door een monsterverbond van anarchistische hackers en autoriteiten is in Amsterdam binnen drie maanden een openbaar elektronisch communicatiesysteem uit de grond gestampt dat zijn weerga op het Europese vasteland niet kent.”

• Good for the cyberreputation of the city of Amsterdam:• CNN (1997): "For hundreds of years the city of Amsterdam has been a center of commercial trade, art and education.

Now it’s helping point the way in the information revolution too ". • Manuel Castells (The Internet Galaxy, 2001): "The most famous citizen computer network. (…) A new form of public

sphere combining local institutions, grassroots organisations, and computer networks in the development of cultural expression and civic participation".

• Inhabitants (the users): 1994: 12.000 - 1997: 60.000 - 1998: 80.000 - 2000: 140.000.

Project re:DDS

The evolution of the web:

In 2016:• 47 years ago (1969): Birth of Internet. • 27 years ago (1989): Invention of World Wide Web. • 22 years ago (1994): Launch of virtual city DDS.

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Treasury with born-digital heritage

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• DDS is an important historical source about the early years of the Web in the Netherlands.

• Culture: DDS is a digital environment, a virtual city with inhabitants, which brought forth objects, ideas and traditions.

• Technique: DDS is a complex information system with different applications, through time. DDS is interactive, networked process-based and context-dependent:– 1994-1995: DDS 1.0 - telnet interface– 1994-1995: DDS 2.0 - website: static HTML– 1995-2001: DDS 3.0 - web system: static HTML and interactive web pages

DDS 1.0 - 15 January 1994 DDS 3.0 - 10 June 1995

DDS 2.0 - 1 October 1994

Goals of the project re:DDS:

• Preserve the internet-historical monument DDS.• Map the history of the DDS, internet and e-culture in Amsterdam.• Safeguard our local digital heritage and include the DDS in the collections of the heritage

institutions.• Pilot for net-archaeology and share knowledge on how to excavate, reconstruct, preserve

and sustainably store the virtual city DDS (DDS is born-digital) and make it accessible for future generations on a scientific and social level.

Project re:DDS

Goals of the project DDS Herleeft:

• Reconstruct and preserve DDS;• Provide insight into the (existing and new) processes, techniques and methods for born-

digital material and the context in which they are found, to excavate and reconstruct;• Ask attention to the danger of ‘digital amnesia’;• To provide museums and organizations with specialized knowledge about the reconstruction

of born-digital heritage and lower the threshold for future web archaeological projects. Disseminating knowledge about new standards for archives on the storage of digital-born heritage.

• Future: making digital cultural heritage DDS:• Visible (content): promoting (re)use of DDS• Usable (connection): improving (re)use of DDS collection by making it available by linking and enriching data.• Preservable (services): maintain DDS sustainable and keep it accessible.

Project re:DDS

Project re:DDSWhat do we do & where are we now?

1. Start:• Launch of Open History Lab and virtueel museum.

2. Excavate:• Crowdsourcing (The Grave Diggers Party).• Collect stories and memories.

3. Process and make data accessible:• Development of web archaeologische tools (digital forensics and

versioning control). • Apply the ‘Open Archival Information System’ and connect to

national Digitale Infrastructuur.• Archive DDS data in e-depots.

4. Reconstruction and presentation:• Reconstruct original software and hardware. • Let the Bytes Free!

5. Finish: • Conclusions, evaluation, documentation, knowledge sharing.

What are we looking for?

Archaeological remains of the city::• Software - Interfaces (DDS 1,2,3 and 3.5), Freezes (1996 and DDS3).• Hardware - Shaman, Alibaba, Aladdin, etc.• Special projects - web: DDS Webmix, Metro, cafés, etc.• Special projects - hybrid: SMART TV, IjburgTV, Transparant Amsterdam, live.dds.nl, etc.• Individual houses and squares - Thisbe, Plein van de Dood, etc.

Project re:DDS

Crowdsourcing the community ‘Grave Diggers Party’

1. Working space The Archaeological Site re:DDS• Workstations:

• Bring and upload your code.• Digg in the Wayback Machine and store excavations in Historical (e-)Depot.• Share your stories and memories in the Open History Lab re:DDS.nl.

• Tools: • Computers: excavators.• Storage: buckets.• UNIX commands, mice: pades, pick-axe, trowels.• Scripts : metal detectors.• USB: find bags.• Metadata: find cards.

2. Museum space Tourist Tours• /Lost+found: ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’:

• Hardware: servers, terminals, modembanks, taperobots etc.• Screenshots of DDS.

• Billboard’s: • What is DDS? Where are you? What is this site? Why this site?

Project re:DDS

/lost+found:

Digital artefacts:• 54 gigabytes of raw data (software and

backups including squares, houses, projects).• The 'freeze' of 1996 (three tapes: alibaba,

dds and shaman).

Physical artefacts:• 2 public terminals.• 4 servers.• 1 modem bank.• Manuals, publications, photographs, radio

play, videotapes, DDS original mouse pad, etc.

Project re:DDS

/lost+found: 4 TV broadcasts by Smart TV (each: 6 hours!)

• Live from De Balie of the Amsterdam cable on January 15, 1994 the opening of DDS• With: Internet pioneers Rop Gonggrijp, Felipe Rodriquez and Marleen Stikker• Official opening by the deputy mayor of Amsterdam Frank de Grave.

Project re:DDS

/lost+found: two public terminals, 1994

Project re:DDS

/lost+found: Cityscapes (interfaces) of De Digitale Stad

• DDS first graphical interface designed by Walter van der Cruijsen in 1994. Never used online for DDS.• And first city logo.

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/lost+found: excavations in the museum

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/lost+found: De Digitale Stad newspaper, 1994

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/lost+found: Flyer De Digitale Stad 3.0, 1995

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/lost+found: Handbook Digital Cities, 1995

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/lost+found: De Digitale Stedeling, 1996

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/lost+found: Postcards DDS, 1998

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/lost+found: mouse mat

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/lost+found: Blueprints of the Squares

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/lost+found: Death announcement Katja Hakkert (Stormkind) De Metro, 1998

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/lost+found: excavations

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/lost+found: hardware

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/lost+found: FREEZE!Project re:DDS

BREAKING NEWS I:

Project re:DDS

Celebration with our community!

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Who likes a challenge? Webarchaeology: a multidisciplinary science

Project re:DDS

BREAKING NEWS II:

LOST & FOUND, working software:• Avatar generator, by students History of digital cultures, University of Amsterdam 2015.

Project re:DDS

Concept in 1995:•"We wanted to introduce the concept of a personalized avatar for “who is live”. No digital cameras or drawing programs.•"We needed something graphic to give people a kind of a unique identity on an impersonal Internet."•"We tried to create a form of 'place' and 'present' which was lost in transition in the new interface (from Bulletin Board to web version DDS3.0).

BREAKING NEWS III:

LOST & FOUND, (almost) working software:• DDS1.0 by Michaël van Eeden.

Project re:DDS

BREAKING NEWS IV:

LOST & FOUND, working software:• DDS3.0, by students History of digital cultures, University of Amsterdam 2016. • Chess software, by students History of digital cultures, University of Amsterdam 2016. • Metro, by students History of digital cultures, University of Amsterdam 2016.

Project re:DDS

Project re:DDS1. Help! Our digital heritage is getting lost! 2. Case-study re:DDS3. What’s next?

Will we succeed?

• Preserve the internet-historical monument DDS? • Reconstruct a representative variant of DDS in the permanent collection of the Museum

Amsterdam?• Impression: Journey through the DDS interfaces (movie).• Interaction: Components DDS, for example DDS1.0 and DDS3.0, newsgroups, are emulated so that

software behaves just like then and visitors can interact (compare with film set).• Restoration: Truthful emulation of the entire system (project Lascaux II).

• Preserve (sustainable) DDS in e-depots of heritage institutions?• Share knowledge in DIY Handbook: how to excavate, reconstruct, preserve and store born

digital heritage and make it accessible to the public?

Project re:DDS

DDS1.0 - Jan, 15th of 1994DDS3.0 - June, 10th of 1995

DDS2.0 - Oct, 1st of 1994

Thanks to:Our partners (till now): • Amsterdam City Archives• Digital Heritage Netherlands• Dutch Cultural Coalition for Digital Durability• Karin Spaink, independent researcher• Dutch Computer Heritage Foundation• International Institute of Social History• LIMA• National Library of the Netherlands• Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision• Old inhabitants, (ex) DDS employees and DDS affiliated web-archaeologists• UvA Faculty of Science: dr. G. Alberts • UvA Faculty of Humanities: prof dr J.J. Noordegraaf• Waag Society

And:• Guidelines for the Preservating of Digital Heritage (March 2003).

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001300/130071e.pdf. • IIPC: Web Archives: The Future(s), by Eric T. Meyer, Arthur Thomas, Ralph Schroeder (2011, University of Oxford)

http://netpreserve.org/events/Hague/Presentations/OII-IIPC.pdf. • Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage: UNESCO http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-

URL_ID=17721&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. • WIR SIND HIER – Opening TOTAL RECALL – The Evolution of Memory http://www.aec.at/aeblog/en/2013/07/22/wir-

sind-hier-opening-total-recall-the-evolution-of-memory/. • The excavation of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii Photo: Bridgeman Art Library

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/pompeii/9852299/Pompeii-exhibition-a-timeline-of-Pompeii-and-Herculaneum.html.

• Talk to the hand by Swamibu - http://www.flickr.com/photos/swamibu/3052879559/ .• And more: http://www.delicious.com/re_dds/.

Project re:DDS