Open Codes

With the »Open Codes. Living in Digital Worlds« exhibition, the ZKM | Karlsruhe is once again addressing the subject of digitalization and the recording of the world through the binary code.

There are two developments to thank for the all-encompassing digitalization of the world, which has caused disruptive technologies that revolutionise the historical industries and ways of life: the advancements of mathematics and physics. Since Newton, mathematical formulae have been defining the approach of physicists to the world. Noble Prize winner Eugene Wigner formulated this trend in 1960 in his essay »The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences«. The mathematical theories compelled physicists to prove the theoretical specifications by means of experiments – from James Clerk Maxwell to Peter Higgs.

Starting with empirical evidence of electromagnetic waves by Heinrich Hertz in 1886, physics has facilitated the development of wireless communication technology, which has also produced the mass media of telephone, radio, television and internet, among other things. These new communication and storage technologies have changed social life and culture in an unexpected way. The historical perceptions of politics, society, transportation and manners are in a phase of fundamental upheavals. These disruptive innovations that are produced ever more quickly by the advancements of the convergence of mathematics and physics and which are rapidly and radically changing our ways of life will be widely and critically examined in the exhibition.

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