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Johannes Grenzfurthner about sex and tech in 'de:bug'

Gstettensaga featured on Laughing Squid

Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl is a feature length sci fi comedy set in a post apocalyptic future in which the world has been devastated by the "Google Wars." The film is the first feature length production from Austrian art and technology group Monochrom. It was directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner.

Arse Elektronika nibble in Playboy

Die Gstettensaga: Review on PlanetNeukoln.tv

I recently had the great satisfaction to watch a preview of a very fresh postapocalyptic feature film + a directorial debut, that premiered on Austria’s ORF in March this year. What I was asking myself this time was to try and appreciate an entirely different kind of algorithmic force that was once again set loose by Johannes Grenzfurthner (of monochrom fame) upon unsuspecting survivors of the last 35 years of road-warrior, post-nuke, after-the-bomb films.

As a friend just tweeted, now every Hollywood blockbuster seems to be written by some underlying algorithm. The end credits are just the cinematic equivalent to a CAPTCHA response – trying to identify the film crew as human, even if this last human verification test is untenable and obsolete.
Well, I kinda have this incredible (and maybe you do too!) and perverse desire to get to the bottom of actual directorial algorithms – trying very hard to enter the loop and be able to forget how Hollywood movie after movie manages to push an exact quota of car explosions, 3D makeover, eye-popping HD footage, hero worship, body count, family values, rescue missions ad infinitum into box office paradise.

Let’s be clear, I’m overenthusiastic about Gstettensaga – because it is such a genre bender, a satiric H bomb, a horror movie and ex-auction house vaudeville  going for the unexpected dialectical turns of current history, and leading us into the untrodden and definitely outrageous wastelands that could be populated by the likes of Surf Nazis Must Die, Escape from NY, Steel Dawn or America 3000.
[...]

Crowdratting works: "Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl"

"Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl" contains a text insert similar to watermarks used in festival viewing copies: "This viewing copy is provided for awards consideration only." The text insert asks the viewer to report the film as copyright infringement by calling a premium-rate phone number (1.09 EUR/minute). The film aired on Austrian national television in March 2014. Art group 'monochrom' co-financed the film with proceeds from the premium-rate number. They call this new strategy 'crowdratting.'

More trivia: here.

"Are You Ready to Fuck Like a Nerd?" -- Arse Elektronika shout-out on Vice blog

Sure, classic nerds might be into MythBusters, Magic: the Gathering, and Minecraft. But they’re also into sex. In fact, the crossover between sex and the more traditional realms of nerd interest is longstanding; science fiction, for example, is frequently pointed at as a source of progressive and even transgressive sexual theory.

In devising alternate universes, authors, filmmakers, and fans imagine new ways of living, loving, and fucking. Sci-fi and comics are full of latex and leather and futuristic orgy planets where anything goes. Everyone loves it. Conventions like Arse Elektronika exist exclusively to provide an intersection for the worlds of sex and tech.

monochrom: Context Hacking Workshop in Linz

monochrom featured in reader "Truth is Concrete"

Context Hacking: Some Examples of How to Mess with Art, the Media System, Law and the Market @ Shenkar Design School

Arse Elektronika on mako.co.il

Arse Elektronika: Sex, Tech and the Future of Screw-It-Yourself @ Ha-Midrasha, Tel Aviv

We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species.
From the depiction of a vulva in a cave painting to the newest internet porno, technology and sexuality have always been closely linked. New technologies are quick to appeal to pornography consumers, and thus these customers represent a profitable market segment for the suppliers of new products and services.
Currently, all factors show that high-tech developments owe a great deal of their success to the need for further sexual stimulation. One could cite the example provided by the science-fiction concept of a full-body interface designed to produce sexual stimulation. But it isn't science fiction anymore. It's DIY.
As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and plethora of gender have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this year will see us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer. Our world is already way more bizarre than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But it may not be bizarre enough. "Bizarre enough for what?" -- you might ask. Bizarre enough to subvert the heterosexist matrix that is underlying our world and that we should hack and overcome for some quite pressing reasons within the next century. Don't you think, replicants?

monochrom features: "SAFECAST: Citizen Science after Fukushima Makes an Impact"

Safecast is a non-ideological, non-profit, volunteer-based organization created in the days immediately following the the Fukushima NPP disaster, which began three years ago on March 11, 2011. The release of radioactive material was accompanied by a disturbing lack of clear public information concerning radiation levels in the affected areas, and a series of missteps and misstatements by the Japanese government and by TEPCO damaged their credibility in the eyes of large segments of the population. Credible and independent data concerning the growing radiation risk was sought by many to fill the acute information vacuum.
SAFECAST quickly began to field mobile detectors of its own design, which leveraged open-source software and hardware and new-generation DIY tools such as laser cutters and custom PCB fabrication to dramatically accelerate development and deployment time. The group simultaneously developed an information management system that allows GPS-tagged radiation data points to be uploaded into a central database and displayed on an interactive web-based map. SAFECAST's radiation information system has seen the rapid deployment no fewer than seven increasingly refined GPS-enabled mobile radiation detector designs, called "bGeigies," the web-based "GeoSense" map, a free iOS-based map application, and other devices and software, all developed by volunteers and made freely available through Creative Commons licenses.

The radiation data gathered by SAFECAST volunteers in Japan and abroad currently exceeds 15 million data points, arguably the most extensive public data set of its kind. It was soon hailed as a technically competent, credible, and objective source of radiation information for Japan by specialists on both sides of the nuclear power debate. SAFECAST has been invited to present it's methodology and criticisms at the IAEA "International Experts’ Meeting on Radiation Protection after the Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Promoting Confidence and Understanding," being held in Vienna from Feb. 17-21.

At Raum D, SAFECAST Volunteers Joe Moross and Azby Brown will show the group's latest mobile radiation detector designs, talk about iterative design and the challenges of building a technically adept global volunteer organization, and discuss what the future holds in store.

monochrom's PROPOOL

monochrom press overview 2013

Johannes Grenzfurthner (monochrom) @ Cybersalon

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