The catalog was published on the occasion of the exhibition Save the Data! at Kunstpalais from September 27 until November 22, 2015.

In Erlangen, the city where the development of the MP3-format took a significant step forward, the group exhibition SAVE THE DATA! focuses on the interference of fine art and various forms of memory storage. In what ways do artists use—current and obsolete—digital storage media for their artistic expression und how are the different levels of meaning entangled? What influence does the digitization have on the creation of pictures in photography, film, and sculpture? How are the changes, which happened to storage media within the last years and decades, questioned through artistic processing?
On the one hand, records, Compact Discs and CD-ROMs, but especially music cassettes, diskettes and VHS-tapes disappeared from daily use—on the other hand, this sort of hardware increasingly pops up in museums and galleries. As raw material, they are more and more appealing for artists and the spectator is also excited about a reencounter with this partly very familiar subject and these objects. The once dreaded jammed cassette tape, the rumble of the film projector, the mixtape for the sweetheart, or the image of shelves full of video tapes belong to the past. However, the feelings that are attached to those things, ranging from nostalgia to euphoria, grow and are used deliberately by artists. The hidden content, which is stored in these works of art, but invisible at the same time, adds to the appeal of the presented works.

This catalog is, for the first time, produced in the format of a magazine. It includes an interview with the inventors of the MP3-format, the best movies about data storage devices, and an extensive series of images about the artists and their works.