Once, when I was living in Moscow before 2011, I was informed about monochrom by recommendation of my friend: the activist initiatives of this art group from Vienna seemed fascinating due to its art-tech philosophy and it put a smile on my face due to its pop attitude. Later on in Linz Günther Friesinger, one of the creators of monochrom, gave a lecture to Media Art Histories students of the Donau Universität, which inspired me to arrange an interview with him. The first question I asked was about establishing monochrom. Günther explained that “monochrom came into being in 1993 as a fanzine for cyberculture, science, theory, cultural studies and the archeology of pop culture in every-day life. Its collage format is reminiscent of both the early DIY fanzines of the punk and new wave underground and the art books of figures such as Dieter Roth, Martin Kippenberger and others.” For a while now, monochrom have been venturing further than publishing alone, and have been responsibly influencing people’s minds via film production, performances and festivals — taking on subjects that range from hacker culture and cryptocurrency to online casinos and the strange aesthetics of digital labour, always with the same dry humour. If you are in Vienna in autumn by chance, have a look at the paraflows festival – one of the main projects run by monochrom.
