@grenzfurthner
Johannes Grenzfurthner is filmmaker, artist, writer, performer. Founded art group monochrom. Films: Traceroute, Glossary of Broken Dreams, Masking Threshold, Razzennest, Hacking at Leaves, Solvent.
“A coal power station [is] a large single target that a single missile could take out,” says Jeff Oatham of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy company (...) “You would need around 40 missiles to do the equivalent amount of capacity damage at a wind farm.”
#EnergySecurity
e360.yale.edu/features/ukr...
What I learned today:
January 23, 1556, may have been the deadliest day in history: the Shaanxi earthquake in China is estimated to have killed around 830,000 people, at a time when the world’s population was only about 500 million, meaning roughly 0.166% of a
Yay!
Enjoy. Thanks to the conversion from 25 fps to 23.976 fps, it’s a few minutes longer! More for your buck!
The film ‘Solvent’ by Johannes Grenzfurthner on BlueRay from Film Movement, delivered to the UK as part of my Vinegar Syndrome shipment.
It’s here!
@grenzfurthner.bsky.social
Ahmed Erdogan of the 'Cascadia Advocate' published a beautiful review of HACKING AT LEAVES.
"Hacking at Leaves is not an easy watch. It is a documentary that refuses to let history remain comfortably in the past."
www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/...
NICE!!
What he says.
Feed: "Midwest Film Journal"
By: Johannes Grenzfurthner on Friday, February 20, 2026
Art was always epistemologically unfair. But cinema rested on an indexical contract: light touched something real. AI severs that. Especially where images claim to document reality.
Without replacing the trace with transparency, images drift free of accountability. That’s political, not aesthetic.
3/3
So when I write that films must indicate whether their images are physically referential/hybrid/synthetic, I'm making an ethical claim about disclosure. Meaning depends on ontology. If the trace disappears, transparency has to take its place. Otherwise the political legibility of imgs collapses.
2/3:
But my point is structural. In a post photographic condition, the burden cannot rest solely on spectators. If synthetic images seamlessly mimic physical traces, asking viewers to simply figure it out becomes epistemologically unfair.
1/3 Thank you! I would not frame it as either or. Viewers absolutely need to learn how to judge the ontological status of images. Media literacy is essential.
I'm very honored that the @midwestfilmjournal.bsky.social published my text "Manifesto of Reality: Cinema After the Physical Trace."
A reflection on cinema after AI, and what happens when images no longer require a physical origin.
Read, challenge, debate:
midwestfilmjournal.com/2026/02/20/m...
In a special guest essay, Austrian filmmaker, artist and theorist Johannes Grenzfurthner (grenzfurthner.bsky.social) outlines a charter for cinema's future in a world increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence.
midwestfilmjournal.com/2026/02/20/m...
The age of copyright hyperlawyers, whether human or AI, is dawning.
A bit harsh.
