Johannes Grenzfurthner

As a filmmaker, Grenzfurthner has worked in political documentary, essay film and experimental horror.

Career

Early life and monochrom Grenzfurthner was born in Vienna and grew up in Stockerau, Lower Austria. As a child, he read books about science and science fiction, played computer games and made films with his father's video camera. At thirteen, he acquired his first modem and joined FidoNet and other bulletin board systems, through which he met science-fiction enthusiasts outside Stockerau. One of them was Franz Ablinger, with whom he founded monochrom in 1993 as a fanzine devoted to cyberculture, politics, art and science fiction.

The magazine grew out of Grenzfurthner's interest in the political dimension of cyberpunk and his involvement in punk and anti-fascist politics. He conceived it as a left-wing European counterpoint to the market-liberal technological utopianism he associated with parts of American cyberculture and with what Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron termed the Californian Ideology. The publication mixed political and theoretical writing with science fiction, underground culture and experimental visual design.

In 1995, monochrom began moving beyond print. Rather than remaining tied to a single medium, the group chose the form that best suited each project; its work came to include performances, theatre, films, computer games, installations, conferences, public interventions and political activism. Grenzfurthner described the search for the appropriate format as finding the best "weapon of mass distribution" for an idea.

Artistic and curatorial work Much of Grenzfurthner's artistic work has been produced with monochrom. The collective has presented work at the Vienna Secession, the São Paulo Art Biennial, Transmediale, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, the Werkleitz Biennale and MUSA in Vienna.

Grenzfurthner subsequently presented context hacking in lectures and workshops. In 2013, he co-edited the volume Context Hacking: How to Mess with Art, Media, Law and the Market. The festival is devoted to cocktail robots.

Film Grenzfurthner made his feature-film debut with the fantasy comedy Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl (2014). Glossary of Broken Dreams (2018) is an essay film about political concepts including capitalism, identity and freedom of expression.

Masking Threshold, an experimental horror film, screened at Fantastic Fest in 2021. The Los Angeles Times included it in a 2022 Halloween guide to ten new horror films. Razzennest screened in Fantastic Fest's Burnt Ends programme in 2022.

The documentary Hacking at Leaves premiered at the Diagonale in 2024. After the film did not receive commercial distribution, he released it through the Internet Archive in August 2025.

Solvent premiered at the Slash Filmfestival in Vienna on 26 September 2024 and screened at the Diagonale in 2025.

Writing for ORF, Pia Reiser grouped Masking Threshold, Razzennest and Solvent as a trilogy connected by their use of horror and sound. In 2025, ORF film critic Christian Fuchs included Grenzfurthner in what he called the "Austrian New Wave", a loosely defined group of filmmakers working across arthouse, documentary, experimental and genre cinema.

Writing and teaching Grenzfurthner has edited books on media art, political theory, cultural jamming, sexuality and technology. They include Urban Hacking: Cultural Jamming Strategies in the Risky Spaces of Modernity (2010), Context Hacking: How to Mess with Art, Media, Law and the Market (2013), and Arse Elektronika: Sexponential! (2025).

He teaches transmedia art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and communication theory at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He has also taught at FH Joanneum and the University of Arts Linz.

He is a regular contributor to an Austrian news magazine Profil.

Selected filmography Solvent (2024) Warten auf Goto (Volkstheater Hundsturm, Vienna, 2006) – writer and director. monochrom's ISS (Garage X, Vienna, and Ballhaus Ost, Berlin, 2011) – performer as Bodo Holtzmann. Steppenrot (Theater Spektakel, Vienna, 2017) – actor. Die Hansi-Halleluja-Show (Theater Spektakel, Vienna, 2019) – director and performer.

Selected exhibitions Junge Szene Wien '98, Vienna Secession, Vienna (1998) – media installation. 2006 – Grenzfurthner and monochrom were among the three winners of the Coke Light Art Edition competition. 2021 – Masking Threshold received the Film From Hell award at the Nightmares Film Festival. 2021 – Masking Threshold won best film in the Being Different section of the Molins Horror Film Festival.

Selected publications Johannes Grenzfurthner, Thomas Edlinger and Fritz Ostermayer (eds.) (2002). Wer erschoss Immanenz? Zur Dynamik von Aneignung und Intervention bei Georg Paul Thomann. Vienna: Edition Selene. ISBN 3-85266-183-8. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Stephan Grigat and Günther Friesinger (eds.) (2006). Spektakel – Kunst – Gesellschaft: Guy Debord und die Situationistische Internationale. Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag. ISBN 3-935843-61-5. Johannes Grenzfurthner and Günther Friesinger (eds.) (2006). Quo Vadis, Logo?!. Vienna: edition mono/monochrom. ISBN 3-9500731-5-9. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger and Daniel Fabry (eds.) (2008). Pr0nnovation? Pornography and Technological Innovation. San Francisco: RE/Search Publications. ISBN 978-1-889307-20-6. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, Daniel Fabry and Thomas Ballhausen (eds.) (2009). Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep? Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction. San Francisco: RE/Search Publications. ISBN 978-1-889307-23-7. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger and Thomas Ballhausen (eds.) (2010). Urban Hacking: Cultural Jamming Strategies in the Risky Spaces of Modernity. Bielefeld: transcript. ISBN 978-3-8376-1536-4. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, Thomas Ballhausen and Verena Bauer (eds.) (2010). Geist in der Maschine: Medien, Prozesse und Räume in der Kybernetik. Vienna: Turia + Kant. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger and Daniel Fabry (eds.) (2011). Of Intercourse and Intracourse: Sexuality, Biomodification and the Techno-Social Sphere. Vienna: edition mono/monochrom. ISBN 978-3-902796-02-8. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger and Frank Apunkt Schneider (eds.) (2013). Context Hacking: How to Mess with Art, Media, Law and the Market. Vienna: Edition Mono. Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger and Jasmin Hagendorfer (eds.) (2025). Arse Elektronika: Sexponential!. Vienna: monochrom. ISBN 978-3-903549-01-2.