In late 1924, just over a century ago, the then-Academy of Music and Performing Arts was joined by a Fachhochschule of Music and Performing Arts—a further predecessor of today’s mdw that was intended to operate in parallel with the Academy. Just a few years later, however, the Fachhochschule was dissolved—plunging its sister institution into a deep crisis.

We live in an age of information. Never before has so much information been produced, and never before has obtaining quick access to it been so easy. Information is everywhere—and it’s often said that we’re dealing with a flood of it. At the same time, untold quantities of information are lost on a daily basis, with much content being ephemeral and/or generated only for the sake of a brief moment. Thereafter, it disappears into the infinite depths of the Internet.