Art is a story that will never end. Yet, much like technology, we do not know what form it will take in the future. Throughout history, artists have been using the latest technologies of their time, continuously expanding the boundaries of art. In the 20th and 21st centuries, electrification and digitization have, above all, not only reshaped daily life but also profoundly transformed artistic creation. In the exhibition The Story That Never Ends. The ZKM Collection, the ZKM | Karlsruhe traces the evolution of media art from the 1950s to the present. Offering a comprehensive insight into ZKM’s collection—one of the largest and most significant media art collections in the world—it explores the interwoven stories of art and technology.
The Story That Never Ends presents a selection of more than 100 works covering a wide spectrum of “apparatus-based” arts. The presentation features photography, video art, light and sound installations, motor-driven kinetic objects, computer-based interactive installations, and works created with the help of artificial intelligence. A selection of key works highlights pivotal moments and milestones in media art, illustrating the diversity and influence of these technological developments. At the same time, the exhibition contextualizes the artworks within their broader social and socio-political context drawing connections to pressing contemporary issues: Feminist works by early media art pioneers—such as pezoldo (Friederike Pezold), Lynn Hershman Leeson, Kirsten Geisler or Rebecca Horn—stand alongside pieces that examine the effects of mass media such as television (Nam June Paik, Aldo Tambellini, Wolf Vostell). Other works explore the intersection between technology and the military, borders and surveillance, violence in digital spaces (Paul Garrin, Hanna Haaslahti, David Rokeby) or natural ecosystems (Justine Emard, Claudia González Godoy). Time and again, artists challenge the possibilities and consequences of new media, reimagine and reshape them, and thus construct new social and cultural narratives that enrich the discourse on our relationship to technology.