The subject of archiving Media Art is increasingly gaining in importance amongst international experts. Although a large number of artistically valuable works have been created in recent decades, they are rarely captured in existing art archives. For this reason, the German Federal Cultural Foundation decided to fund the mediaartbase.de project, for which the European Media Art Festival (EMAF), the documenta Archive Kassel with the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival and ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe have joined forces.

Mediaartbase.de is a database for Media Art that is making collections from the three project partners’ archives available to a wide audience.

Over 7,000 titles from past festivals have already been compiled in the EMAF database. More than 800 films/videos have been digitised, making the EMAF archive one of the most outstanding sources on the history of experimental film and video work since the beginning of the 1980s.