Works by the ZKM | Hertz-Lab for the Exhibition Open Codes

The Hertz-Lab operates as a transdisciplinary research and development platform at the interface of media arts, science and society. The newly established Hertz-Lab unites the Institute for Visual Media and the Institute for Music and Acoustics in order to expand the existing fields of action in close transcultural exchange with international institutes and research centers and to explore the artistic possibilities of expression and design in the age of rapidly accelerated technological progress and digitization.

The Hertz-Lab focuses on artistic production and media technology research. At the laboratory, contemporary artistic-scientific concepts – for example, extended reality in AR and VR applications, artificial intelligence, immersiveness, or sensor-supported environments as well as research into artistic options within the electromagnetic field – are reflected across media and genres, examined for artistic applicability and realized in productions.

The title of the Hertz-Lab is dedicated to the scientist Heinrich Hertz, who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves in his famous spark experiments at the University of Karlsruhe in 1886. He is regarded as the founder of radio technology, the wireless transmission of information – and is thus the model for the innovation center within the ZKM, the Hertz-Lab. For the first time, the activities of the Hertz-Lab are manifested in the exhibition Open Codes, for which artists and scientists of the ZKM have created new works which reflect the digital development critically.