Johannes Grenzfurthner

Johannes Grenzfurthner is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, author, and performer. He is the founder and artistic director of monochrom, an internationally active art and theory group and film production company. Boing Boing referred to him as a "leitnerd," which ironically hints at his role in nerd, hacker, and art culture.

In the realm of film, Johannes works on innovative political documentaries, with his 2024 documentary "Hacking at Leaves" serving as a prime example. He also creates experimental horror films, such as his 2021 production "Masking Threshold," which incorporate documentary aspects to challenge and engage audiences.

Johannes is a lecturer on transmedia arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, and on communication theory at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany. He leads Arse Elektronika, a sex and technology festival in San Francisco, and organizes Roboexotica, the festival for cocktail robotics in Vienna, showcasing his diverse interests and expertise in combining technology with artistic expression.

He has presented at events and venues such as SXSWi, Fantastic Fest, O'Reilly ETech, FooCamp, Maker Faire, HOPE, Chaos Communication Congress, Google Tech Talks, ROFLCon, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Influencers, Mozilla Drumbeat Barcelona, Neoteny Camp Singapore, Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, and more.

His work and projects have garnered attention in major publications and media outlets, including The New York Times, Liberation, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, Reuters, Slashdot, Playboy, Boing Boing, New Scientist, The Edge, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, ZDF, Gizmodo, io9, Wired, Süddeutsche Zeitung, TAZ, CNet, the Toronto Star, Mental Floss, Rue Morgue, and others.

Johannes' artistic and textual work spans a wide range of fields, including contemporary art, activism, performance, humor, philosophy, postmodernism, media theory, cultural studies, sex tech, popular culture studies, subversion, science fiction, and debates about copyright and intellectual property.