Juan A. Esteban

Contemporary artist and independent researcher.

Illustration of Juan Esteban’s runic monogram rendered in a three-dimensional architectural style within a frame, set against a light background.

How to preserve a web-based artwork or net art project

A web-based artwork is not only what appears in the browser. It may depend on a domain, DNS, a server, code, a database, accounts, external services, the browser and public participation. A screenshot preserves the appearance. A web capture may preserve the navigation. Neither guarantees, on its own, that the system will work again.

This guide covers only what is specific to web-based artworks. For digital preservation in general, see Preserving a digital artwork.

Which part is the artwork

Clarify whether the artwork is the live site, a dated version, a participatory process, a network service, a community, the domain or a specific historical presentation. State what may change and what loss would alter its identity. That decision determines what deserves to be preserved and how faithfully.

Domain, DNS and certificates

Record the registrant, registrar, dates, contacts, renewal, lock, name servers, subdomains, certificates and linked services.

Generic top-level domains (gTLD). The ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) applies to generic top-level domains. It requires the registrar to send at least two notices before expiry, roughly one month and one week before. If the domain is neither renewed nor deleted, it requires a further notice within the following five days. It also sets a thirty-day redemption period after deletion for the registrations covered. It does not set every commercial condition of each registrar, which may vary. The policy version is dated 21 February 2024.

.es domains. Do not carry those rules over to .es domains. .es domains are managed under the rules and procedures of Dominios.es and Red.es. You can renew them through a registrar agent or directly, at any time and for up to ten years of validity. Dominios.es notifies the administrative contact five days before expiry if the agent has not requested renewal, and ten days before expiry if the domain is managed directly. This guide has not located a redemption period equivalent to ICANN's, nor a verified deadline after expiry. Dominios.es has its own recovery page: check its current procedure before relying on it.

Recommended practice:

  • automatic renewal;
  • a secondary email address outside the domain itself;
  • registrant and contact details kept up to date;
  • documented access to the registrar account;
  • expiry calendar;
  • a copy of the DNS zone;
  • transfer procedure;
  • instructions in case of incapacity or death. On that point, Artist archive and legacy deals with accounts and domains from the standpoint of succession.

Code and versions

Keep the repository, the approved deployed version, the history, the client and server code, the build process, dependencies, licences, static files and configuration. For preparing the environment and reinstalling, the guide on creative code sets out the method. Add a closed package held outside the development platform.

Server and deployment

Document the provider, region, operating system, versions, web server, runtime environment, environment variables, scheduled tasks, permissions, certificates, backups and deployment procedure. Export the configuration and, when operation depends on the environment, a container or virtual machine, remembering that those layers age too.

Database and storage

Keep the schema, a dump, the encoding, users, uploaded files and the relationship between records and resources. Keep personal data and secrets separate. Test restoration, not just the creation of the backup.

External services

List the application programming interfaces, networks, maps, analytics, fonts, video, payments, authentication and storage you use. Record the version, terms, account, cost and behaviour when a service goes down. The guide How to exhibit an artwork that depends on the internet or an API covers the degraded mode.

Public interaction

Document the paths, states, inputs, responses, moderation and roles of the public. Decide whether public contributions are part of the artwork, whether they can be archived, whether they can be published and which must stay restricted.

Personal data and rights over contributions

If contributions contain personal data, define the purpose, legal basis, information given to the people concerned, retention, access and any eventual archiving. Archiving an artwork does not remove data protection obligations. Article 26 of the LOPDGDD refers to processing for archiving purposes in the public interest by public administrations; it does not generally cover the private archive of an individual artist. For the rest, see If your artwork collects data from the public.

A contribution may include rights belonging to the person who made it. The participation conditions must make clear which uses are authorised. Preserving a contribution technically does not automatically give permission to publish, transform or reuse it. There is no universal rule on the rights in all public contributions: it depends on what each one contains and what has been agreed.

Screenshot, video, WARC and WACZ

Each format preserves something different:

  • Screenshot: an appearance at a specific moment.
  • Navigation video: a specific route and its timing.
  • WARC: a web archive format defined by ISO 28500:2017, the full text of which is available for a fee.
  • WACZ: a draft specification from Webrecorder (version 1.2.0, dated 28 September 2026, with Ilya Kreymer of Webrecorder and Ed Summers of Stanford University as editors). It packages WARC data, indexes, a page list and metadata in a compressed file. The document itself states that it has no official recognition as a standard and does not represent the consensus of any standards body. It is a distribution and replay mechanism, not a guarantee of future preservation.

None of them replaces the code, the database, the server configuration or the documentation.

Capture tools

ArchiveWeb.page is a Webrecorder tool for capturing web archives interactively as you browse. It is available as a browser extension and as a desktop application. It can capture resources and interactions visited during capture, and export sessions as WARC or WACZ. It includes ReplayWeb.page for replay and can upload sessions to Browsertrix, which is used for automated crawls.

Because the capture follows your browsing, an interaction you do not visit may not be captured. Authentication, browser restrictions and third-party services may prevent or degrade the capture. Do not assume that the tool preserves every interaction or the whole system.

Replay testing

Replay each capture offline or in a controlled environment and check what it requests from the network. Compare it with a reference video and the documented route. Validate each file and record the player version.

Keep the portable files (WARC or WACZ) and a player, not just an account on a capture service.

When a service disappears

Conifer, Rhizome's capture service, is a case of retirement. On 18 December 2025, Rhizome announced the phased retirement of the service. It said that in June 2026 Conifer would stop accepting new captures, that existing collections would remain accessible, hosted by Rhizome, and that there would be options to export or move them. Webrecorder said that Rhizome would migrate the collections to WACZ, with no specific date. This guide has not checked that this migration has been completed.

Do not use Conifer for new captures. The case shows that a service and its files can be separated: export and keep whatever you can replay outside the platform.

Preservation record

Gather the following, distinguishing what can be published from what must stay restricted:

  • domain, registrar, registrant and contacts;
  • DNS and certificates;
  • source code, repository, version and dependencies;
  • configuration, server and operating system;
  • containers or virtual machines;
  • database and file storage;
  • programming interfaces and external services;
  • scheduled tasks;
  • secrets and recovery procedure, held outside the record;
  • data contributed by the public;
  • documentation of the interaction;
  • captures, WARC or WACZ and reference video;
  • runtime logs;
  • analytics, only when they are part of the artwork and keeping them is lawful;
  • licences;
  • reinstallation instructions and a functional test;
  • shutdown or migration plan.

Checklist

  • What constitutes the artwork has been defined.
  • Domain, DNS, certificates and renewal are under control.
  • Code, version, dependencies and licences are archived.
  • The server, database and deployment can be rebuilt.
  • External services have been inventoried.
  • Interaction and public contributions are documented.
  • Personal data and rights in contributions have been reviewed.
  • The capture was replayed and validated offline.
  • WARC or WACZ files and a player exist outside the capture service.
  • There is a shutdown or migration plan.

Further reading

Sources

Status: Verified. Review: 11 October 2026. General information on preservation practices, not legal advice on domains, personal data or rights. If you find an error, write to me.

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