Projects of the Department Wissen

ISEA2024 is organising the Fourth Summit on New Media Art Archiving in partnership with the ISEA Symposium Archives, the Archive of Digital Art (ADA), the archive for the Histories of Media Art, the ZKM archive, the SIGGRAPH History Archive, the Electronic Language International Festival (FILE) archives, the MEMODUCT posthuman archive and ISEA International. The Summit will be an integral section of ISEA2024, the 29th International Symposium on Electronic Art.

In Art History, photography without a camera is associated primarily with artists of the 1920s avant-garde like Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy and Christian Schad. The history of this process of producing images by placing objects onto a light-sensitive surface which is then exposed to light, however, predates the beginnings of photography as such. In the early 1980s, Floris Neusüss and Renate Heyne began to intensively research the history of the medium and the object-sensitive possibilities of presenting photograms in an art context. They reprographed all the unique works of historical and contemporary artists working in the medium of the photogram that could be found and compiled a large collection of specialist literature.

The »Fotogramm-Archiv HeyneNeusüss« at the ZKM | Karlsruhe, which grew in the context of this collecting and publishing activity, forms the basis for a seminar on the history of the photogram. Within the framework of the seminar at KIT, the students will index and describe the works of selected artists on the basis of art historical sources. In addition to archival practice, basic techniques in photography-specific preservation will be taught.

The »Fotogramm-Archiv HeyneNeusüss« at the ZKM | Karlsruhe, which grew in the context of this collecting and publishing activity, forms the basis for a seminar on the history of the photogram. Within the framework of the seminar at KIT, the students will index and describe the works of selected artists on the basis of art historical sources. In addition to archival practice, basic techniques in photography-specific preservation will be taught.

The ISEA Symposium Archives are organizing the Third Summit on New Media Art Archiving in partnership with ISEA2023, the Archive of Digital Art (ADA), the archive for the Histories of Media Art, the Ars Electronica archive, the ZKM archives, the SIGGRAPH History Archive, the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community, the Electronic Language International Festival (FILE) archives, and the MEMODUCT posthuman archive. The Summit will be held during ISEA2023, the 28th International Symposium on Electronic Art.

In Art History, photography without a camera is associated primarily with artists of the 1920s avant-garde like Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy and Christian Schad. The history of this process of producing images by placing objects onto a light-sensitive surface which is then exposed to light, however, predates the beginnings of photography as such. In the early 1980s, Floris Neusüss and Renate Heyne began to intensively research the history of the medium and the object-sensitive possibilities of presenting photograms in an art context. They reprographed all the unique works of historical and contemporary artists working in the medium of the photogram that could be found and compiled a large collection of specialist literature.

The »Fotogramm-Archiv HeyneNeusüss« at the ZKM | Karlsruhe, which grew in the context of this collecting and publishing activity, forms the basis for a seminar on the history of the photogram. Within the framework of the seminar at KIT, the students will index and describe the works of selected artists on the basis of art historical sources. In addition to archival practice, basic techniques in photography-specific preservation will be taught.

The ZKM | Karlsruhe is in possession of the complete estate of Harald Bode (1909-1987), one of the most important engineers for electronic music, sound and audio devices of the 20th century.

Together with the company SYNTH-WERK, various inventions by Harald Bode are to be reconstructed. The comprehensive estate, the existing construction plans, design drawings, concepts, correspondence and other documents form the basis of the reconstructions. SYNTH-WERK, as technical partner of the ZKM for the Harald Bode Archive, will bring the work of the ingenious physicist and musician Harald Bode back to life. The reconstructions of Harald Bode's now mostly inaccessible or unpublished devices will become part of the ZKM archive and the SYNTH-WERK product portfolio. The SYNTH-WERK analog synthesizers and modules are built by hand according to original schematics from the first "Moog Factory" in Trumansburg, New York. The manufacturing methods are identical to the manufacturing methods used more than 50 years ago. All boards are hand assembled and hand wired. NOS parts and current components are used and selected according to strict criteria.

As a scientific partner, the Institute for Music Informatics and Musicology (IMWI) at the Karlsruhe University of Music supports the project and the implementation of the reconstruction. The aim of the project is to provide access to the fascinating and revolutionary ideas and visions of an instrument maker who thought far ahead of his time for researchers, musicians, producers and all interested persons.

The series of talks offers insights into the collection, archives, and research of the ZKM in exchange with artists, theorists, curators, and restorers.

The ZKM | Center for Art and Media is joining the four-year international research-project Émergence de l'art vidéo en Europe: historiographie, théorie, sources et archives  (2021-2025). Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the French National Research Agency (ANR) and conducted by Grégoire Quenault at University of Paris 8 Vincennes - Saint-Denis and François Bovier at ECAL/University of Art and Design and the University of Lausanne, in partnership with the National Library of France (BnF), the research seeks to assess not only the very rich and varied video production in Europe but also the development of this medium internationally, as an additional history to the Northern American one.

Art historical field research in the archives of the ZKM | Karlsruhe
A Cooperation between the KIT | Institute of Art and Architectural History and the ZKM | Karlsruhe

Starting point is the project »Stubnitz Kunst-Raum-Schiff«: From 1991 to 1994 an international group of artists worked in Rostock on the conversion of a former deep-sea fishing vessel of 80 meters length into a mobile multimedia laboratory and an event platform.

Artistic Media Research in the early Video Art
A Cooperation between the KIT | Institute of Art and Architectural History and the ZKM | Karlsruhe

At the beginning of the 1970s, demands were made by video makers for a new way of producing and conveying knowledge that would be appropriate to the media age that had just dawned.

Creative work and learning

Karlsruhe's libraries form an inter-institutional learning landscape that together meet the great demand for information services and jobs. The »Learning Libraries« project aims to network the learning landscape more closely, promote collaborative and active learning methods and increase the visibility of rooms and services.

Society in digital Change

Digitization is fundamentally changing the way society lives together. The aim of the interdisciplinary research project "digilog@bw" is to identify and analyze the impact of digitization on people and the resulting societal changes in order to lay the foundations for shaping digital change for the benefit of mankind.

Cultural knowledge Transfer through Chatbots

To which technical and cultural changes do institutions - be it public administration or museums - have to react today if they want to not only preserve knowledge, but also communicate it?

Can a machine think? Can a machine be creative?
The planned events offer scientists, engineers and artists the opportunity to exchange ideas on the state of research and the perspective of the arts.

by Akademie Schloss Solitude & ZKM

In the years 2017-2020, the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe have jointly published nine calls for »Web Residencies« with different topics, conceived by invited curators.

The ZKM is establishing a strategic partnership with the Chinese New Media Art Foundation with the aim of artistic and scientific exchange and the establishment of a joint collection of international media art.

Panel discussion and workshop with Cornelia Sollfrank, Winnie Soon, Morgane Stricot and Matthieu Vlaminck

The »net.art generator« does not only reveal technical problems that are also relevant for other digital works. It also reveals problems related to data politics and its hegemonies.

A project of the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

The program »Archivists in Residence« is aimed at researchers who scientifically and/or artistically engage with practices and theories of the archive in a broader sense.