The founding of the Center for Art and Media goes back to the early 1980s. In the context of an ever-expanding media landscape and a changing art world, representatives from local government, the University of Karlsruhe, the University of Music Karlsruhe, the Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe for Nuclear Research Karlsruhe and other institutions, as well as organizations and representatives of the Karlsruhe art scene formed the ZKM Project Group in 1986. In February 1988 the ZKM Project Group presented the results of their work, titled Concept ‘88, which described the initiative to bring the arts and the new media together in both theory and practice.