The ZKM | Karlsruhe has been producing work now for 20 years. The Institute for Music and Acoustics in particular has commissioned, produced or co-produced approximately 400 works in this time. The Institute’s work takes place within a very active but also very complex environment in Germany, one which often repudiates the use of technology and its accompanying shift in the aesthetic paradigm. The following text will shed light on the work of the ZKM | Karlsruhe in general and the various activities of the Institute for Music and Acoustics (IMA) in particular. These activities encompass the areas of production, presentation, publication and research. To this end, the article will touch upon the IMA’s primary research projects, in particular the archiving project Mediaartbase (Brümmer, Heidenreich, Haecker et al. 2009), the development of software and hardware in the context of spatial music, and a number of interface developments. Reasons will be discussed that substantiate the significance of spatial music with regard to the reception of music in the future, and the role of new interfaces in future musical activities will be described.