Digital Passage: The Rhizomatic Frontiers of the ZKM

Abstract

Now filling the cavernous space of a renovated, turn-of-the-century munitions factory, the ZKM (Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany, www.zkm.de), has quickly established itself as Europe’s premier digital design and exhibition space. Launched in 1989 as the European center of new media research and production, the ZKM moved into its permanent home, in October, 1997, as a nationally sanctioned site for the production and exhibition of digital and electronic arts. The ZKM houses an extensive media library, a media theatre, the Institute for Visual Media, the Institute for Music and Acoustics, as well as two expansive exhibition spaces, the Media Museum and the Museum for Contemporary Art. These various institutes and spaces collaborate to bring together artists, performers, designers, programmers, scientists, and media specialists for the development of new interactive art projects. The ZKM has produced a wide array of complex, interactive installations by international artists-in-residence, an exciting series of artistic CD-Roms and critical commentaries, an innovative series of intermedia acoustic performances, and cutting-edge exhibitions that combine the most recent developments in digital art with historical corollaries from the collection of the Museum for Contemporary Art.