Once Upon a Time on the Web

“Web Genesis”: an educational escape room to rediscover the early years of the Web

Alongside the production of the audiofiction, the research team brings “Web Genesis” — an educational, completely free escape room — to two major events in the Ticino region: The experience immerses participants in a narrative in which the history of the Web risks being distorted by inaccurate information and oversimplifications. Through puzzles based on real historical sources and using technologies from the 1980s and 1990s, participants must reconstruct key events from the history of the Web in order to preserve an accurate version of its evolution.

This audiofiction comes out of a research project we turned into a story. Seven episodes to go back to where it all began: in the corridors of CERN, among cables, servers and ideas that changed the world.

This audiofiction series tells the story of the Web as you have never heard it before — a weave of inventions, names, mistakes and insights that, between 1989 and 1995, turned a laboratory project into a global phenomenon. Produced in collaboration with RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera, the series brings together real voices, archival documents and dramatic storytelling to rediscover the people, places and choices that gave birth to the World Wide Web.