Variability and Intermediality as Challenges to Preservation Issues: Reflections about the Design and Implementation of Digital Archives

In this presentation our intention is to present the project “PO.EX'70-80 - Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature” (Ref. PTDC/CLE-LLI/098270/2008). The corpus of works to be included in this Digital Archive include magazines, catalogs and publications in the area of concrete, visual, and sound poetry, as well as video-poetry and cybernetic literature of the 1970's and 80's. The process of digitizing the Portuguese experimental literature does not apply to some of the texts we will work with – texts that are dynamic, interactive and/or generative. Therefore, it is necessary to use processes of software emulation, accompanying them with the recovery and historical study of programming software (cybernetic literature) which is unavailable at the moment. Apart from this emulation, which corresponds to a literal archive, we will also invest in processes of digital transformation and re-creation of some of these works, with the use of multimedia and interactivity. The goal of the present project is thus to contribute towards the preservation, classification and presentation of these works, as well as to provide a reflexive and a pedagogical perspective.