Archives
Documents of art of the 20th and 21st century

The archives of the ZKM invite researchers and anyone interested in art and music to develop new perspectives on the art of the 20th and 21st centuries from books, journals, letters, photographs, drawings, videos, and audio recordings.
The ZKM archive comprises two large areas: the "institutional archive," which documents the work of the ZKM, and the archives that have been given to the ZKM by artists and theorists in order to preserve them and make them accessible to the public.
The archives of artists and theorists include the following archives: Het Apollohuis, Otto Beckmann, Gideon Bachmann, Christian Chruxin, Jürgen Claus, Vladimir Bonačić & bcd: CyberneticArt, Klaus Peter Dencker, Reinhard Döhl, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T), Herbert W. Franke, Hugo Gernsback, Walter Giers, Fotogramm-Archiv Heyne Neusüss, Herman Heiß, Stephan von Huene, Infermental, Hiroshi Kawano, Heinrich Klotz, Laboratorium, Gerhard Johann Lischka, Armin Medosch, Merve-Verlag, Manfred Mohr, Paul Panhuysen, Raindance Foundation, Paul Rayn, Ulrike Rosenbach, Bernhard Sandfort, Jeffrey Shaw, Ira Schneider, Ed Sommer, Aldo Tambellini and Elisabeth Walther-Bense.
Laboratory for Antiquated Video Systems
Works of video art produced on magnetic media since the mid-1960s are in acute danger of deteriorating due to material aging processes, and in a few years they will no longer be readable. By means of scientific conservation, restoration, and digitization this cultural good can now be temporarily secured and archived for the long-term.
