Neural Magazine veröffentlicht eine Rezension unseres “Context Hacking”-Buch. Fein ist das!
In 1993 Johannes Grenzfurthner posted on Fidonet about his intention to
start a fanzine on politics, network and pop culture, and Franz Ablinger
answered almost immediately. That was how the Viennese “monochrom”
collective started. This thick hardcover publication seems to be the
perfect container for twenty years of activity, restating their history
in a different form. But although the publications have been constant
over time, they have confronted and engaged with a large number of
different cultural and artistic contexts. This reflects the
heterogeneity of the founding members, who share what used to be called a “communication guerrilla” background, but who embody different
attitudes towards communication in unexpected, sometimes quite extreme
fields. They have been and are dystopic but maintain an ironic and
cyberpunk attitude, talking about the future through performances,
festivals, installations, sitcoms, theatre, video games, among other
media. The text makes clears their roots in their home country and their
awareness of the academic discourse in which they are situated. But the
book also includes a catalogue of very symbolic exhibitions, which
represents their main projects in a very playful and unifying way. They
effectively generate aesthetic consistency over diverse projects,
preserving and reinforcing with striking representational contrast the
pure subversiveness of their work.