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alt.backen: monochrom's early phase picture begging outreach interface

Anthropophag! A story about our monochrom business cards

Context Hacking @ A4 (Bratislava, Slovakia)

The term "context hacking" --like its older mimetic sibling "communication guerrilla" -- refers to unconventional forms of communication and/or intervention in more conventional processes of communication. Context hacking is a specific style of political action drawing from a watchful view of the paradoxes and absurdities of power, turning these into the starting point for interventions by playing with representations and identities, with alienation and over-identification.
Johannes Grenzfurthner will present some projects by monochrom, a worldwide operating collective from Vienna dealing with technology, art, and philosophy that was founded in 1993. The group specializes in an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, and political activism. Their mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost "in culture-archaeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment."

November 28, 2012, 6 pm -- at A4 (Space for Contemporary Culture), Karpatská 2, 811 05 Bratislava, Slovakia.

Hedonistika: Call for proposals

We are working on something new...

Hedonistika is a multi-modal event that brings together food scholars, artists, and roboticists to examine the innumerable (and often hidden) ways in which technology and food are related. By engaging with the hegemony-challenging ideology of hacking, participants will seek to interrogate and expose the mutually constructive bonds of food and tech, while proposing alternative, playful, and stimulating reconfigurations. The event proposes a hack: a hybrid of bricolage, play, criticality, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. The goal is to reflect and perhaps undo the assumptions and habits that frame our everyday interactions with both food and technology, while making evident their often-neglected entanglements. Hedonistika will be a one-­week festival that will begin with a 3 day symposium comprised of workshops, a panel discussion, and three session of invited and registered speakers. The goal is to merge research-creation with critical analysis, and community engagement with celebration. (Plus, it will taste and look really cool.)

Hedonistika is looking for robotic projects and performative works that explore the critical issues within these realms. The curators are accepting proposals for complete works (and works almost complete) for the exhibition in the festival portion of the event. Proposed projects should have a technological component. Artists should submit a pdf document comprised of...

· A short CV (2 pgs)
· Short description of the project (150 words max)
· Long description of the project (500 words max) including images if possible
· Short bio
· Description of support material
· Documentation of past work (no more than 10 items)
· URL to artist website

Hedonistika is scheduled for 2013 in Montreal and will be an Elektra sponsored event.
Please e-mail submissions to: hedonistika@monochrom.at
Deadline January 15th, 2013

monochrom's Kiki and Bubu: RATED R US @ Laughing Squid

"Kiki and Bubu: RATED R US" is a sock puppet adventure about Internet censorship and love directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner of Austrian art & tech group Monochrom. It is the sixth installment of the Kiki and Bubu series.

monochrom's Kiki and Bubu: RATED R US @ Boing Boing

Unbelievable, but Kiki and Bubu are back!
When we created the first couple of episodes for Boing Boing TV in 2008, who would have thought that the two wooly Neo-Marxist fellows would still be around in 2012?
Well, they are! Here is their newest and most epic (50 minutes!) puppet extravaganza!

monochrom's Kiki and Bubu: RATED R US! Puppet extravaganza video finally online!

Review of "Portraying The Terran Condition: An Approach To Simulate A Civilization" on Rock Paper Shotgun

"This 7D (backwards compatible to 2D) world simulation depicts six different key events in the history of Terra ('Earth'), a low-tech civilization that self-destructed several aeons ago. Based on the relatively few biological and cultural artifacts, a team of multi-AI minds was able to recreate a stunningly accurate depiction of this ancient civilization."

PTTC:AATSAC is downright bizarre. I'm not entirely sure what creators Damien Di Fede, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Eric Wenske, and Heather Kelley are hating on with it (so-called "realistic” games, maybe?), but it's beyond surreal. Allegedly, you're playing through a host of major events in human history, but the advanced civilization that's come across the bones of ours has pieced them together all wrong. Unsurprisingly, it's very silly. I was sold when it very matter-of-factly explained to me that humans were strange vacuum cleaner creatures with cube-firing guns for hands. Using my mighty digital digits, I then went on to exterminate an evil race of pink pinata… things, because that's definitely what happened during, say, Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Granted, PTTC:AATSAC has some serious issues. The healing mechanic is (maybe purposefully) tedious, and it's pretty easy for enemies to obnoxiously get the drop on you. As with Crystal Crashers, it's more amusing than it is an example of sound game design.

The Digital and Analogue Subversion of monochrom @ Cyland

An interview with monochrom's Günther Friesinger on the Russian website Cyland.

Link (Russian)

Portraying The Terran Condition: An Approach To Simulate A Civilization A First Person Research Shooter

This 7D (backwards compatible to 2D) world simulation depicts six different key events in the history of Terra ("Earth"), a low-tech civilization that self-destructed several aeons ago. Based on the relatively few biological and cultural artifacts, a team of multi-AI minds was able to recreate a stunningly accurate depiction of this ancient civilization.

Created by Damien Di Fede, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Eric Wenske and Heather Kelley, as part of Damien Di Fede's 2012 residency for monochrom at Museumsquartier Vienna.

Download here
(for Windows and Apple)

Damien Di Fede: New monochrom artist in residence @ Museumsquartier Vienna

Die Presse: Interview with Grenzfurthner about Sierra Zulu and Crowdfunding

monochrom's "Title Sequence" @ MULTImART Vienna

In this age of digital reproductivity, the aura of art is in bad shape.
Image sharing! Collapse of context! Randomness! Loss of significance!
monochrom, who have always had a fondness for written-off media, will put back into focus the contextualisation of artworks.  We guarantee that every piece of this edition will have its individual autonomous caption!  Each object of the replicated image motif is going to be thoroughly recontextualised and individually entitled! Profit of distinction for our hyperindividual clientele! Captions of the world, unite!

Earthmoving @ TEDxVienna 2012

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