Feeling Data & Qianhui Meng
This motion-activated piece explores how the topics of Scotland’s web content have shifted over time, from when each site was added to the Scotland on the Internet collection to whether it remains online or has vanished into dead links.
Here, you step into the mind of the archivist, influenced by current events, trends, curiosity, and personal judgement. The visualization is not only about data patterns but also about perspective. What gets saved, and what doesn’t, depends on who is looking.
As you move in front of the piece, you move through time, watching how the archivist’s focus changed day by day and how those choices shaped the archive. At certain points, one topic dominated: religious sites between March 2018 and January 2019, sports from mid-2020 to mid-2021, arts from August 2021 to October 2022, and lifestyle from November 2022 to November 2023.
Look closely and you may notice rhythms in the data. As you explore, notice what stands out to you. Ask yourself: If you were the archivist, what would your web archive look like? What stories would you choose to save?