The ZKM is an institution of all media and genres, a house of both spatial arts such as painting, photography and sculpture and time-based arts such as film, video, media art, music, dance, theater and performance. Founded in 1989 with the mission of continuing the classical arts into the digital age, the ZKM is also called the digital Bauhaus.

By combining research and production, exhibition and performance, collection and archive, the ZKM is able to adequately depict the development of 20th and 21st century art, not least because the collection, exhibition and research activities of the ZKM are accompanied by symposia and other platforms of theoretical discourse between philosophy, science, art, politics and business. From the very beginning, the ZKM has taken on the task of creating innovative conditions for the emergence of art. To this end, in the ZKM’s Hertz Lab guest artists, scholars, and scientists from all over the world research, develop, and produce works on artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, and many other themes.

The ZKM | Hertz-Lab offers artists working in all genres - from the visual arts to music - to try out a diversity of technologies in collaboration with scientists and developers. In addition to the production of art, the ZKM has been working for decades on developing technologies for digital art education. The main focuses of the Hertz Lab are art production and research on media technology. Contemporary concepts in the arts and sciences, for example, artificial intelligence, immersion, sensor-enabled environments, and exploring artistic possibilities in electromagnetic fields, are carefully reflected on, reviewed for artistic usability, and implemented in productions. Scholars, scientists, and artists from all over the world find ideal conditions at the ZKM to realize their theoretical and practical projects. Through its international collaboration with other museums, universities, and publishers, the ZKM is in contact with the latest developments in the arts and sciences, but also defines its own new priority topics, which are often taken up by others all over the world. With its Hertz-Lab the ZKM is also a research center that connects science, technology, and art in a new alliance for the digital age.