The analysis tool of the vmctl family

Read a work before you run it

Born-digital artworks — pieces made of software and files rather than canvas or film — reach a collection as a zip, a burned CD, a folder copied off an old hard drive. Often nobody can say what exactly is inside, which file starts it, or whether it would still run. artwork-autopsy reads such a work end to end — without ever running it — and hands you a proposal for bringing it back: what it is, where it begins, the era of machine it needs, and the tools to point at it. It never touches the work, and never decides anything for you.

It is the first step of what the vmctl family calls agentic restoration: AI agents — programs that work through a task step by step, deciding for themselves what to look at next — do the reading here, and the reviving next door in the research workbench. Nothing an agent concludes is applied on its own; every finding arrives as a proposal, with the evidence it rests on.

A standalone, MIT-licensed open-source tool in the vmctl family by Marc Schütze, ZKM | Karlsruhe. Written for conservators, researchers, and art historians — the triage that saves a conservator’s first days, in front of the research workbench — but it stands alone.
published alpha running today, honestly mid-build — see where it stands.

Start reading Contribute an artwork →

Figure 1. What the tool does: read an unknown work end to end, and propose how to bring it back — as three documents a researcher can act on. A proposal, never an automatic change to the work.

The reading path — 6 short chapters

1What you get backThree documents and three audience views — a proposal, never an applied change. 2How it reads a workMechanical fact-finding first, then one AI analyst that judges the evidence. 3A worked autopsyA Director piece, taken blind — the whole argument in one run. 4It reads, it doesn’t runWhy the analysis never runs the artwork — and what happens next door. 5Under the hoodFor builders and contributors — how the machinery is put together. 6Where it standsHonest status, what is in progress, and how to help.