ARCHIV DER UNTERHALTUNG UND DES WISSENS

Archive of Amusement and Knowledge

retuschierte Photographie  aus "Die zappelnde Leinwand" / Max Mack 1916


The Archive of Amusement and Knowledge is a long-term project to research and communicate forgotten inventions, fads, scientific findings, methods, historical derivations (also already disproved), anecdotes and entertainment media. The focus is primarily on finding connections between records on different media and from different circles, to relate the findings to each other, and to get an idea of what questions were asked, what delighted people, frightened them, and shaped everyday life.

Bilder aus Beiträgen der Bibliothek der Unterhaltung und des Wissens / Jahrgang 1926 / Band 11 +12


 An important source of information is the "Bibliothek der Unterhaltung und des Wissens" (Library of Amusement and Knowledge), a monthly magazine published from 1876 to 1962, which was bound in embossed and printed linen and based on the bourgeois almanacs, paperbacks and certain popular calendars. Aspiring and established writers could publish short stories, the latest scientific discoveries, innovative inventions, products and also gossip and numerous illustrations found a place. The books were affordable even for the not well-heeled. Various historical non-fiction books, magazines, advertisements, analog image and sound carriers and devices are also part of the collection and thus also of the research work.

 

The aim of the project is not to interpret history, but to save original sources of the former "now", to arrange them, to archive them and to make them accessible to interested people; in the form of exhibitions, seminars, practical workshops with analog materials and art projects.

An essential role is also played by the early history of amateur and private film and the home cinema format.

 

The collections are located in Vienna (Austria) and Timisoara (Romania).