Digital Heritage Archaeology, from Virtual Worlds to Applied Games. Historicising and Representing

The research is part of the broad panorama of studies on the conservation of digital heritage (in its various declinations), against the risk of the dispersion of its many intangible works. In particular, the study addresses the topic with respect to the processes of historicization (research, knowledge) and representation (project, musealisation) of the various forms of virtual living that affect the poetics of the ephemeral in architecture and design, from virtual worlds to applied games. In the first case—historicization—it seems important to broaden and deepen the processes of historical reading of the digital heritage, in order to outline a path within the broader and more consolidated phenomenon of the poetics of the ephemeral; a history that takes into account the multiple creative dimensions (often of an interdisciplinary nature), and that also relates the works to the value and use of the techno-cultures of which they are an expression, thus recalling the independence of the idea of the virtual in creative processes. In the second case—representation—, at a more pro-genre level (musealisation), there is a need to expand ideas and technologies to represent digital heritage, both in the setting up of real spaces where the original devices can be ‘experienced’, and in the context of dedicated networked platforms. Obviously, when possible, the use of the same digital tools on which the original applications were run is preferred, in order to avoid that loss of quality of experience offered by current software emulators. This broad panorama of experiences has been summarised here in a few but significant examples of the musealisation of this digital heritage, divided into two thematic sections: representing virtual living (the beginnings of the new century); representing video games (from the origins to the present day).