Editing Monochrom (section)

== History and philosophy ==

[[File:Monochrom 8-10--1998.jpg|left|thumb|Cover of Monochrom #8-10 (1998)]]

In the early 1990s, Johannes Grenzfurthner was an active member of several [[Bulletin Board System|BBS]] message boards.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kaestle |first=Thomas |date=14 April 2016 |title=The story of Traceroute, about a Leitnerd's quest |url=https://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/the-story-of-traceroute-about.html |website=Boing Boing}}</ref> He used his online connections to create a [[zine]] or alternative magazine that dealt with art, technology and subversive cultures, and was influenced by US magazines like ''[[Mondo 2000]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 February 2013 |title=monochrom: &quot;Das Hacken treibt uns an&quot; |url=https://futurezone.at/digital-life/monochrom-das-hacken-treibt-uns-an/%5Bnode:path |website=futurezone.at }}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Husslein |first1=Uwe |title=Fandom Research (Reader und Index zu deutschsprachigen Fanzines |last2=Bornowski |first2=Ralf |date=1995 |publisher=Ventil-Verlag |page=70}}</ref> Grenzfurthner's motivations were to react to the [[The Californian Ideology|emerging conservatism]] in cyber-cultures of the early 1990s<ref>"[http://chaosradio.ccc.de/cre062.html CRE062 by Tim Pritlove: "Monochrom: Das etwas andere Künstlerkollektiv aus Wien", January 2, 2008]</ref> and to combine his political background in the Austrian punk and [[Anti-fascism|antifa]] movement with discussion of new technologies and the cultures they create.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Johannes Grenzfurthner |url=http://dkritik.de/interview/johannes-grenzfurthner/ |website=dkritik.de}}</ref><ref name="furtherfield.org">Marc Da Costa, "[http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/interview-johannes-grenzfurthner-monochrom-part-3 Interview with Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom, Part 3] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120317210019/http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/interview-johannes-grenzfurthner-monochrom-part-3 |date=17 March 2012 }}", Furtherfield.</ref> Franz Ablinger joined Grenzfurthner and they became the publication's core team.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Das Schockmoment ist nur noch Selbstmarketing" |url=https://jungle.world/artikel/2014/38/das-schockmoment-ist-nur-noch-selbstmarketing |website=jungle.world}}</ref><br>The first issue was released in 1993. Over the years the publication featured many interviews and essays, for example by [[Bruce Sterling]], [[HR Giger]], [[Richard Kadrey]], [[Arthur Kroker]], [[Negativland]], [[Kathy Acker]], [[Michael Marrak]], [[DJ Spooky]], [[Geert Lovink]], [[Lars Gustafsson]], [[Tony Serra]], [[Friedrich Kittler]], [[Jörg Buttgereit]], [[Eric Drexler]], [[Terry Pratchett]], [[Jack Sargeant (writer)|Jack Sargeant]] and [[The Abolition of Work|Bob Black]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=monochrom print |url=http://monochrom.at/mono/ |access-date=11 June 2016}}</ref> in its specific experimental layout style.<ref>"[http://www.neural.it/art/2010/06/various_editors_monochrom_2634.phtml monochrom #26-34 Ye Olde Self-Referentiality] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120505115628/http://www.neural.it/art/2010/06/various_editors_monochrom_2634.phtml |date=5 May 2012 }}", Neural, 15 June 2010.</ref>

In 1995 the group decided to cover new artistic practices<ref>{{Cite web |title=Simulacrum Fisticuffs (interview with Johannes Grenzfurthner), Rhysophocles, March 16, 2011 |url=http://rhysophocles.tumblr.com/post/3887941534/simulacrum-fisticuffs |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203063925/http://rhysophocles.tumblr.com/post/3887941534/simulacrum-fisticuffs |archivedate=3 December 2013}}</ref><ref>Erin Kobayashi, "[https://www.thestar.com/article/178430--how-to-be-buried-alive How to be buried alive]", ''Toronto Star'', 6 February 2007</ref><ref>Marie Lechner, "[http://www.ecrans.fr/Pop-Guerilla,3513.html]", Libération, 4 March 2008.</ref> and started experimenting with different media: performances, computer games, robots, puppet theater, musical, short films, pranks, conferences, online activism.

[[File:Monochrom--Johannes Grenzfurthner-and-Franz Ablinger---Pension-MIDI.jpg|thumb|Monochrom's Johannes Grenzfurthner and Franz Ablinger (at Monochrom's "Pension MIDI", Klangturm St. Pölten, 2001)]]

<blockquote>In 1995 we decided that we didn't want to constrain ourselves to just one media format (the "fanzine"). We knew that we wanted to create statements, create viral information. So a quest for the best "Weapon of Mass Distribution" started, a search for the best transportation mode for a certain politics of philosophical ideas. This was the [[Cambrian Explosion]] of monochrom. We wanted to experiment, try stuff, find new forms of telling our stories. But, to be clear, it was (and still is) not about keeping the pace, of staying up-to-date, or (even worse) staying "fresh". The emergence of new media (and therefore artistic) formats is certainly interesting. But etching information into copper plates is just as exciting. We think that the perpetual return of 'the new', to cite [[Walter Benjamin]], is nothing to write home about – except perhaps for the slave-drivers in the fashion industry. We've never been interested in the new just in itself, but in the accidental occurrence. In the moment where things don't tally, where productive confusion arises.<ref name="furtherfield.org" /></blockquote>

All the other core team members joined between 1995 and 2006.

Grenzfurthner is the group's artistic director. He defines Monochrom's artistic and activist approach as 'Context hacking'<ref>[http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/2138 ''Context Hacking: Some Examples of How to Mess with Art, the Media System, Law and the Market'', at O'Reilly ETech 2008, San Diego] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314093838/http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/2138 |date=14 March 2012 }}</ref> or 'Urban Hacking'.<ref>[http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=26&article_id=145 ''Urban Hacking: Culture Jamming in the Risky Spaces of Modernity'', book review by Molly Hankwitz in OtherCinema, September 24, 2011]</ref>

<blockquote>The group monochrom refers to its working method as "Context Hacking", thus referencing the hacker culture, which propagates a creative and emancipatory approach to the technologies of the digital age, and in this way turns against the continuation into the digital age of centuries-old technological enslavement perpetrated through knowledge and hierarchies of experts. ... Context hacking transfers the hackers' objectives and methods to the network of social relationships in which artistic production occurs, and upon which it is dependent. ... One of context hackers' central ambitions is to bring the factions of counterculture, which have veered off along widely diverging trajectories, back together again.<ref name="context-hacking-essay" /></blockquote>