How can an online archive go beyond being a digital replica of its physical counterpart? How can it become a platform or tool that makes its content publicly accessible, while fostering new connections between various art works and references? The brief was to design a digital platform that is buzzingly alive and invites users to roam through its rich contents in an organic, non-linear fashion. And so we turned to beehives.

Visitors to the platform can explore the ArcHive in two navigational modes: Explore mode lets you roam freely, flying over five distinct combs, viewing individual items as if peeking into honey cells. Each comb is a wild cross-section of all that MU has experienced, while item shapes hint at the type of media behind (audio, image, video, text). Together, the items form an almost architectural arrangement.

Tracks on the other hand, are tours or narrative journeys created by guest curators that take visitors through the archive based on specific themes, e.g. street art and public discourse. Both explore and track mode can be accessed via the experimental hive interface design or a more cleanly categorized list overview.

MU Hybrid Art House is all about art in the broadest sense of the word. Unlike traditional art museums, MU doesn’t have a permanent art collection. Therefore the ArcHive consists of all the traces, memories, encounters of 25 years of exhibitions, collaborations and public programming. This can range from media art files, audio essays, a network of international artists, letters and the documentation of unique performances. 

Since the ArcHive's launch, new content has been added to hive.mu.nl on a regular basis. With the redesign of the main page mu.nl, the ArcHive becomes even more directly linked and is now used as the exclusive portal to previous events and exhibitions.