OPEN CODES @ ZKM | Karlsruhe

Open Codes
Living in Digital Worlds

Peter Weibel (Curator)Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás (Co-Curator)Yasemin Keskintepe (Co-Curator)Blanca Giménez (Co-Curator)

To understand the world we inhabit.
To understand the world we live in.
To understand the world that sustains us.

Today we live in a globalized world that is controlled and created by digital codes. From communication to transportation (of people, goods, and messages), everything is guided by codes. Mathematics and mechanics have created a new tool-based world, erected by engineers, physicists, and programmers.

From the binary code (Leibniz) to Morse code, from cosmic code to the genetic code, we live in a world of codes. This exhibition, a collection of artworks and scientific works gives you the opportunity to understand this world. It will be a code-curated exhibition and demand new behavior from the visitors. The exhibition will be a mix of a laboratory and a lounge, a learning environment and a »Club Mediterranée«. Together with our visitors, we would like to try out new and perhaps unusual formats of education and learning, creating new approaches to knowledge in a relaxed and learning-stimulating atmosphere.

Programming, learning with bots and other new technologies should no longer pose a limit to education, but should give everyone the opportunity to understand the background to our digital world of today. Whether with free entry to the exhibition, snacks and drinks at the museum or natural work in the museum field – the exhibition will change the approach to museum installations as an educational policy experiment in the area of »Audience Development«. The museum will be worthwhile for its visitors in the truest sense of the word.

Artworks and scientific works based on digital as well as on analog codes are presented in the exhibition. The works visualize and explain the complex dynamics of codes, and the way in which they are increasingly shaping the way we live and perceive the world. The exhibition analyzes the ingress of codes into our lives, and the structures of knowledge they generate.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive supporting program including lectures, film screenings and symposia.

More info and list of artists (123) at the ZKM website

Publication date: 18 Oct '17