Boing Boing is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won the Bloggies for Weblog of the Year, in 2004 and 2005. The editors are Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, Carla Sinclair, and Rob Beschizza, and the publisher is Jason Weisberger.
Monochrom is an international art-technology-philosophy group, publishing house and film production company. It was founded in 1993, and defines itself as "an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism". Its main office is located at Museumsquartier/Vienna.
Johannes Grenzfurthner is an Austrian artist, filmmaker, writer, actor, curator, theatre director, performer and lecturer. Grenzfurthner is the founder, conceiver and artistic director of monochrom, an international art and theory group and film production company. Most of his artworks are labeled monochrom.
Annalee Newitz is an American journalist, editor, and author of both fiction and nonfiction. From 1999 to 2008, Newitz wrote a syndicated weekly column called Techsploitation, and from 2000 to 2004 was the culture editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2004, Newitz became a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. With Charlie Jane Anders, they also co-founded Other magazine, a periodical that ran from 2002 to 2007. From 2008 to 2015, Newitz was editor-in-chief of Gawker-owned media venture io9, and subsequently its direct descendant Gizmodo, Gawker's design and technology blog. They have written for the periodicals Popular Science, Film Quarterly and Wired. As of 2019, Newitz is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times.
Fucking Machines is a pornographic website founded in 2000 that features video and photographs of women engaged in autoerotic sexual stimulation with penetrative sex-machines and sex toys. Based in San Francisco, California, the site is operated by Kink.com. Web entrepreneur Peter Acworth launched Fucking Machines on September 25, 2000, as his company's second website after Kink.com. Devices shown on the site were created with the intent to bring women authentic orgasms. Performers were instructed to allow themselves to be recorded experiencing pleasure.
Buried Alive is an art and lecture performance series by art-tech group monochrom. The basic concept is to offer willing participants the opportunity of being buried alive in a real coffin underground for fifteen to twenty minutes. As a framework program, monochrom offers lectures about the history of the science of determining death and the medical cultural history of premature burial. To date, they have buried around 600 people. The series has created controversy in some places it has been staged.
Roboexotica is an annual festival and conference where scientists, researchers, computer experts and artists from all over the world build cocktail robots and discuss technological innovation, futurology and science fiction. Roboexotica is also an ironic attempt to criticize techno-triumphalism and to dissect technological hypes.
Soviet Unterzoegersdorf is a fictitious country created by the art/technology/theory group monochrom. It is the "last existing appanage republic of the USSR", located inside the Republic of Austria. Unterzögersdorf is partially based on an existing village well known to Johannes Grenzfurthner, the creator of the concept. As a kid and teenager, Grenzfurthner spent a lot of time at his grandparents' farm in the small village of Unterzögersdorf. His grandparents' stories about the Nazism, WWII and the Soviet occupation in allied-occupied Austria (1945–1955) form the inspirational basis of the long-term project Soviet Unterzoegersdorf.
Michael Marrak is a German science fiction and horror writer. He is also an illustrator and from 1993 to 1996 he edited the magazine Zimmerit. His first novel Stadt der Klage was published by the Austrian art group and publishing collective monochrom.
OhMiBod is an American company that manufactures sex toys, based in New Hampshire, United States.
A sex machine is a mechanical device used to simulate human sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.
Mechanophilia is a paraphilia involving a sexual attraction to machines such as bicycles, cars, helicopters, and airplanes.
Metafetish is a blog about teledildonics and similar use of technology for erotic purposes.
Heather Kelley is a media artist, writer and video game designer. She is a co-founder of the Kokoromi experimental game collective, with whom she produces and curates the annual Gamma game event promoting experimental games as creative expression in a social context. She regularly appears as a jury member for several computer gaming festivals. She is also a frequent public speaker at technology events.
Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl is a 2014 Austrian science fiction and fantasy film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and starring Sophia Grabner, Lukas Tagwerker and Jeff Ricketts.
The absurdist comedy deals with the politics and hype behind media technology and nerd culture. Grenzfurthner calls his film a contemporary way to talk about the critique of the spectacle and commodity fetishism. The film was co-produced by art group monochrom and the media collective Traum & Wahnsinn, and created for the Austrian television channel ORF III. It features music by Kasson Crooker, Starpause, and many others.
Traceroute is a 2016 Austrian-American documentary film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The autobiographical documentary and road movie deals with the history, politics and impact of nerd culture. Grenzfurthner calls his film a "personal journey into the uncharted depths of nerd culture, a realm full of dangers, creatures and more or less precarious working conditions", an attempt to "chase the ghosts of nerddom's past, present and future." The film was co-produced by art group monochrom and Reisenbauer Film. It features music by Kasson Crooker, Hans Nieswandt, and many others.
Glossary of Broken Dreams is a 2018 Austrian/American documentary film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The essayistic feature film tries to present an overview of political concepts such as freedom, privacy, identity, resistance, etc.
Je Suis Auto is a 2024 Austrian social science fiction indie comedy film directed by Juliana Neuhuber and written by Johannes Grenzfurthner. Chase Masterson is voicing the title character "Auto", a self-driving taxi,. Johannes Grenzfurthner plays Herbie Fuchsel, an unemployed nerd critical of artificial intelligence. The film is a farcical comedy that deals with issues such as artificial intelligence, politics of labor, and tech culture.
Eignblunzn is a 2003 performance by Austrian art theory group monochrom and is considered an important work in the group's history and Austrian art history in the 2000s. The group's members Johannes Grenzfurthner, Evelyn Fürlinger and Harald Homolka-List staged a classic Austrian Heuriger in a room at Museumsquartier Vienna, and consumed Austrian-style blood sausage made out of their own blood. Volunteers were invited to take part. German author Johannes Ullmaier and Austrian journalist Gerlinde Lang of radio station FM4 joined the procedure and reported about it. The performance was accompanied by political essays about the 'auto-cannibalistic' tendencies of the global economy. The event also can be interpreted as a critical statement about art, art history, the art market, and martialism in performance art.
Wir kaufen Seelen is a 1998 performance by Austrian art theory group monochrom and is considered a significant work in the group's history and Austrian art history in the 1990s.
