In 2004 the Rotary Club Kassel funded a pilot project for the cataloging and digitization of extensive photographic materials of documenta exhibitions 1 to 3, which were taken by the Kasseler photographer Günther Becker (1920-2003) commissioned by Arnold Bode (1900-1977). The success of the project led to a second application for funding at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) for a two folded digitization project under the title „mediencluster- documenta and contemporary art“.

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) funded the initiative for over five years, allowing the digitization and cataloguing of the archiv’s press clippings of the documenta exhibitions 1 to 5, and transparencies and photographs of documenta exhibitions 1 to 12. The linking between the meta data of the individual images with the artists’ database of the library catalog created a media cluster and research platform that offered an extensive online research facility on the history of the documenta within a virtual space allowing to connect text based information, images and library resources of the documenta archiv. Within the project over 31.000 slides and photographs; and approximately 11.700 newspaper articles were transferred to the long-term digital archive.