The collection and preservation of digital cultural heritage

The ZKM has the world's largest collection of computer-based art and reflects the technological changes of the past decades – from the first attempts to realize »interactive« works with great technical effort to the current examination of the effects of social media.

The collection contains not only works of fine art, but also music and acoustics: with IDEAMA, the international digital electroacoustic music archive, the ZKM preserves the most important early works of electroacoustic music.

Against this background, the ZKM focuses its special expertise on the preservation of digital artistic heritage. An interdisciplinary team of restorers, computer scientists, electrical engineers and art historians is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of electronic art. Historical works of video art and computer art are saved, made accessible again and preserved for posterity. The processes developed at the ZKM are groundbreaking for dealing with the sensitive and rapidly decaying electronic and digital culture of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.