monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993.
Roboexotica is the annual festival where scientists, researchers, computer experts and artists from all over the world build cocktail robots and discuss technological innovation, futurology and science fiction.Until recently, no attempts had been made to publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, … Read more
Folks! In the first couple of years as a group we were pretty bad in documenting our crap. We found some (rather hilarious) stuff, but there must be more. Please help us with the collection and psycho-historiographization of photographs of monochrom’s early phase of work — mid-til-late-1990s. Please scroll through your archives! Please scan the … Read more
For years Johannes Grenzfurthner’s monochrom business card read “Johannes Grenzfurthner / Anthropophag” — and that’s still in some databases. Example: cultural department of the city of Munich.
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
“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. Link
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! Link
Our favorite sock puppets Kiki and Bubu have some feelings, so they sign up for an online dating site. When the People of China want to become their friend, they are excited. However, sending the People of China a video of themselves proves to be difficult: Their content gets flagged as inappropriate and taken down … Read more
Nice review of our research paper shooter “Portraying The Terran Condition: An Approach To Simulate A Civilization”… “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 … Read more
An interview with monochrom’s Günther Friesinger on the Russian website Cyland. Link (Russian)