Monochrom purports to be what hydrogen atoms are capable of when you give them 15 billion years to evolve, but what does this mean? For one thing, we know that this means an arts collective where all members work together to create multi-media projects that are often presented as absurdist attacks. From Marxist puppet shows to Nazi petting zoos, a virtual soviet village called Soviet Untersoegersdorf to bar-bots and Arse Elektronica. Projects abound at monochrom, but monochrom is also a blog about the political and the pop, the absurd and the outlandish, e.g. Indiginous leaders brought to Quito to watch “Avatar”.
Considered Austria’s “art-pranksters”, they call themselves an “art-technology-philosophy group of basket weaving enthusiasts and theory do-it-yourselfers,” but who are they really, or are they even really at all? In 2002 they were invited to represent Austria at the São Paulo Art Biennial, and decided to manufacture a non-existent artist to represent them for the event. “People would ask, ‘So where is Georg Paul Thomann? I’d like to meet him again; I think I met him twenty years ago at an art fair in Dusseldorf,’ or whatever. We would reply, ‘He’s just sitting in his hotel room. We’re rather happy that he doesn’t show up, because he’s quite an asshole.'”
Like a child reaching out in every direction, monochrom seems willing to try everything, but always with an underlying agenda, to connect the unconnected, and illuminate underlying prejudices and stereotypes. This isn’t new, but that doesn’t make their projects any less fresh. Perhaps Zdenka Badovinac of Moderna Galerija Ljubljana desribed it best, when she said, “Since 1993, the monochrom members have devoted themselves to the grey zones where systems intersect.” They take the aesthetic and politics of Adbusters but within a larger all-encompassing ideology, with a serious hacker temperament, and joined with over-arching artistic tomfoolery.
The group’s members are: Johannes Grenzfurthner, Evelyn Fürlinger, Harald List, Anika Kronberger, Franz Ablinger, Frank Apunkt Schneider, Daniel Fabry, Günther Friesinger. (See below photograph.)
Monochrom members: (back) Johannes Grenzfurthner, Evelyn Fürlinger, Roland Gratzer; (front) Günther Friesinger, Franz Ablinger.
What else can we say but that you should see for yourself what these Austrian mavericks are up to, have been up to, and plan to be up to in the future. At this very moment there’s a show up in Hong Kong on the erotic and technology. (See 2, Arse Electronica.) As for the other ten projects presented in no particular order below? Look, learn, and lobotomize!
1. That aforementioned virtual soviet village
2. Arse Electronica, a conference dealing with sex, technology, and the future with accompanying exhibit up through the 27th of this month
3. International Year of Polytheism. “The number of the beast is one”
Gabriel Boyer has been making up stories about himself for as long as he can remember. There was never a time he was not fully seated in his various delusions. He continues to delude himself daily. His latest release is below. You can read more about him here.
