Web Genesis: the history of the Web becomes an escape room

From 9 to 26 July in Lugano and from 5 to 15 August in Locarno, the USI and SUPSI Agora project Once Upon a Time in the Web offers a free educational experience packed with puzzles, archives, and digital memory. On 13 July, a public event at the Long Lake Festival will officially launch the initiative.

An artificial intelligence has taken control of the Web and is rewriting its history, erasing all traces of its origins. To restore its memory, players must enter a secure archive, follow clues, decipher documents, and solve puzzles within thirty minutes.

This is the premise of Web Genesis, the educational escape room created by the SNSF Agora project Once Upon a Time in the Web: Exploring, Interacting and Dialoguing with the World Wide Web of the 1990s. The initiative is promoted by the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) at Università della Svizzera italiana and the Institute of Design (Ide) at SUPSI, with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

The escape room transforms the history of the Web into an immersive mission. Using analogue objects, archival traces, and digital tools, participants will be tasked with reconstructing key moments from the birth of the Web at CERN: from the distinction between the Internet and the World Wide Web, to the role of the documents, people, and choices that made its widespread adoption possible. Without giving too much away, the experience focuses on the idea that digital technologies possess a material memory made up of archives, objects, code, notes, and documents that must be preserved.

Web Genesis will be open to the public free of charge across two stages:

Lugano, Long Lake Festival
From 9 to 26 July 2026
Piazza Castello
Register at this link.

Locarno, Locarno Film Festival
From 5 to 15 August 2026
Largo Zorzi
Register at this link.

The experience is designed for groups of 2 to 4 people and has a maximum duration of 30 minutes. The team that completes the mission in the fastest time will have a chance to win a trip to CERN, the symbolic birthplace of the World Wide Web.

To complement the initiative, the project will host the event "Rewind: Perché giochiamo ancora?" on Monday, 13 July 2026, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at Parco Ciani, in front of the Darsena. The event will reflect on video games as a social practice, a cultural object, and a form of digital memory, with a particular focus on the 1980s and 1990s—eras currently experiencing a major cultural revival. Taking part in the discussion will be Stefania Calcagno, IT entrepreneur and President of the European Society for Computer Preservation; Francesco Gabaglio, RSI journalist; Sergio Minniti, Researcher in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at Università Mercatorum; and Simone Mulargia, Full Professor and Deputy Director of the Department of Human Sciences, Communication, Education and Psychology at Università Mercatorum. The conversation will be moderated by Deborah Barcella, Postdoc at the Institute of Media and Journalism at USI.

More information: https://www.storiadelweb.ch/