Exhibition and preservation of non-fiction interactive and transmedia forms of expression

Abstract

PurposeThe constant updating and unstoppable advance of technologies, mixing of platforms, programs and codes and the new trends in funding, among other factors, have led us to a present-future full of interactive, collaborative, participatory and co-creative digital artefacts and works. Games, experimental projects, short films and interactive video clips, in relation to fictional and non-fictional narrative, like documentary and journalism mainly, generate a complex body of works that depend on a series of compatibilities between technologies and languages to work properly and keep up with the times. The main purpose of this article is to analyse how the expression forms of interactive nonfiction narrative can be exhibited and preserved, looking at four main genres: documentary, journalism, museums and education.Design/methodology/approachAt the methodological level, a study of analogue and digital forms in the proposed areas was performed, and a series of projects as case studies were analysed. In addition, a series of initiatives and institutions developing preservation methods are listed and ten effective strategies have been proposed to preserve interactive and transmedia nonfiction works.FindingsThe results make it possible to propose new ways of exhibiting and preserving valuable digital non-fiction works that need to be catalogued and safeguarded for the future.Originality/valueFor non-digital artistic forms of expression, copies were the main way of ensuring their preservation, but how does this process work for digital art forms? This area is a virgin field that urgently needs to be studied to determine and generate structures for preserving these types of works.