Multimedia Classics & Transmedia Storytelling - a digital archive with case studies of multimedia applications to inspire and train students for the planning and production of future interactive transmedia applications

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, Multimedia has become the leading strategy for education and knowledge transfer in museums and cultural institutions. For more than 25 years, online and offline hypermedia applications like CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-i have combined text, image, video, animation, and sound into a total work of art. But it is only a matter of time before the advances in the next generation of computers, the aging of storage media and data formats, the demagnetization and dematerialization of the data, missing strategies in long-term archiving of museums and archives will render the digital data of the pioneering age unusable. This concerns offline and online applications equally, as the websites of the first and second generations are no longer online. So it is a major loss that later generations of students will have no access to these Multimedia classics any more. Especially for those who will be studying Creative Media, Media Art and Design, as well as Media Arts Cultures and Media Art Histories, the applications of the pioneers are inspiring for our students as they provide unconventional solutions for interactive storytelling, navigation, media dramaturgies, interface and sound design. Since the students will have access to the Multimedia Classics, several courses in SCM will result in numerous synergetic effects. This TDG has helped to create a teaching-related digital archive with a selection of best-case examples of Multimedia online and offline classics for our students. It is not intended to create a library with physical items. By analyzing the diversity of old multimedia applications, the students have understood the diversity of these Multimedia Classics but also the needs, rules and technology of long-term archiving to preserve our digital heritage. Furthermore the students have got an insight how to analyze, plan and produce interactive Multimedia applications.