About
Michaela Putz (*1984) studied Art&Science at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and works across photographic processes, video, object and algorithmic image generation. International exhibitions, talks and screenings; recent exhibitions include Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures (KunstHausWien / Klima Biennale Wien, 2026) and presentations at Künstlerhaus Sootbörn Hamburg, Tricky Women Festival Vienna, Ars Electronica Festival, Museum Villa Rot, Vienna Collectors Club and Imago Lisboa. She has participated in international residencies and received studio grants for Europe and Asia, most recently in Shanghai (BMKÖS studio grant, 2024). Her work has been awarded several times and was presented in numerous artist talks and panels, among them the Klima Biennale Wien, Museum Niederösterreich, Imago Gallery Lisbon and the CPN Art&Science Center Belgrade, and published in Camera Austria International, catalogue publications and artist books. Her works are held in the collection of the Province of Burgenland, the ING-DiBa art collection and private collections. Michaela Putz lives and works in Vienna.
CV & STATEMENT
EDUCATION
Art & Science with Virgil Widrich, University of Applied Arts, finished June 2017
Communication and Political Science, University of Vienna, finished June 2007
GRANTS, AWARDS & ACQUISITIONS
2025, Art acquisition, Province of Burgenland
2024, Studio grant Shanghai (CN), Federal Chancellery of Austria
2024, Shortlist Marianne.von.Willemer – Award for digital media, Upper Austria
2022, Studio grant Paliano (IT), Province of Burgenland
2019, START-Scholarship, Federal Chancellery of Austria
2019, Art acquisition, Province of Burgenland
2018, Award for Fine Arts, Province of Burgenland
2018, Art acquisition, ING-DiBa
2017, Grant, Internationale Sommerakademie for Fine Arts Salzburg (AT)
SOLO & DUO EXHIBITIONS
2025, METAMORPHOSEN, Duo w/Jasmin Schaschl, studio offbeats, FOTO WIEN (AT)
2025, Ephemere Landschaften, Duo w/Elena Kristofor, STEIN*STEIN Krems (AT)
2023, FRAGMENTARIUM, Solo, Vienna Collector’s Club/Galerie Rudolf Leeb (AT)
2023, Plants, Sand, Sea, Duo w/Laura Sperl, a ilha/xyz Lissabon (PT)
2023, Between Light & Shadow, Duo w/Hessam Samavatian, LOOM, FOTO WIEN (AT)
2021, Hypercene/Hipercen, Duo w/Mato Lagator, Mikrogalerija CPN, Belgrade (SRB)
2021, PALINOPSIA, Solo, OHO Oberwart (AT)
2020, SCREEN ROMANCE, Solo, Red Carpet Showroom, Vienna (AT)
2020, PALINOPSIA, Solo, a ilha, Lisbon (PRT)
2019, Gloom of Mnemosyne, Solo, Bildraum 01, Vienna (AT)
SCREENINGS
2026, PHANTOM OF A GARDEN, cinemAUSTRIA, Austrian Cultural Forum Rome (IT)
2025, PHANTOM OF A GARDEN, Tricky Women Tricky Realities 2025, METRO Kino
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026, Sichtweisen Festival, upcoming (AT)
2026, HYBRID PRESENCES, Kunstraum Sootbörn, Hamburg (DE)
2026, Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures, KunstHausWien (AT)
2025, ALCHEMICAL IM/POSSIBILITIES, Frappant, Hamburg (DE)
2025, GET OUT THERE, Austrian Cultural Forum/Mountain Sea Art Museum Beijing (CN)
2025, Uncanny Gardens, Medienwerkstatt Wien (AT)
2024, ALCHEMICAL IM/POSSIBLITIES, sehsaal, Vienna (AT)
2024, 9 Artists, 9 Days, Vienna Collector’s Club at Otto Wagner Areal (AT)
2023, Too much of a good thing, a ilha/xyz Lissabon (PT)
2023, ANGST, Feelings are Facts, Kunstverein Eisenstadt (AT)
2022, Memory Matter, Museum Villa Rot (DE)
2022, DIGITAL I – ARTEFAKTE/, Fotogalerie Wien/OstLicht.Galerie für Fotografie, Vienna (AT)
2022, FLORA IRANICA, Yassi Foundation, Teheran (IRN), Aknoon Gallery, Isfahan/Iran and Safavi Historical House Isfahran (IRN)
2021, INVICTUS, Alserkal Avenue / Behnoode Foundation, Dubai (UAE)
2021, w/ Simon Lehner and Flavia Mazzanti, Salzamt, Linz (Bildrecht, Ars Electronica Festival) (AT)
2021, “(K)EIN MENSCH IST EINE INSEL“, Künstlerhaus Wien (AT)
2020, HORTUS CONCLUSUS Skulpturenpark, Museum of Now, Vienna (AT)
2020, light specific, minuszwei, Domgasse Vienna (AT)
2020, STAND BY, Galerie Rudolf Leeb, Vienna (AT)
2020, CEREBRO CON HUEVO, OFFSHOREd, New Jörg and Biquini Wax EPS, Mexico City (MEX)
2020, KALEIDOSKOP, NÖ DOK Dokumentationszentrum für moderne Kunst St. Pölten (AT)
2019, CHURCH OF EGO, U10 Art Space, Belgrade (SRB)
2019, NEVERMORE, VENT GALLERY, Parallel Vienna 2019 (AT)
2019, NANO//REVOLUTIONS, Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, Montevidéo (URY)
2019, Drowning land – breathing water, TAF The Art Foundation, Athens/Greece, Athens Photo Festival (GRC)
2019, EVERLASTING LIGHT, TIM NOLAS, Vienna (AT)
2019, VERRAT DER FOTOGRAFIE, Kunstraum Nestroyhof, FOTO WIEN (AT)
2019, VACANT DREAM STATE, EIKON Schaufenster, FOTO WIEN (AT)
2018, Schriftbilder, Projektraum Burgenland, Eisenstadt (AT)
2018, VARIO, Unseen Amsterdam (NLD)
2018, Connection, Oliwski Ratusz Kultury, WL4 Mleczny Piotr, Gdanks (POL)
2018, Bildrecht Gallery Space at Ars Electronica Festival, Linz (AT)
2018, The Infernal Machine, BETON7 (Athens Photo Festival), Athen (GRC)
2017, LIQUID LANDSCAPES, Showroom Ruby Marie, Vienna (AT)
2017, Diploma Exhibition, The Essence, Alte Post, Vienna (AT) & Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (AT)
2016, [dis]placement, Information through Sound, Citygate, Vienna (AT)
2015, TERRITORY, Blütengasse 9, Vienna (AT)
2015, CONSEQUENTIAL CHOICES, Versions of Atlas Making, AIL (Angewandte Innovation Lab), Vienna (AT)
PUBLICATIONS
2026, Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures, KunstHausWien, Spector Books
2024, Forum | Camera Austria International Nr. 168
2024, DIGITAL, FOTOBUCH 67/2024, Fotogalerie Wien
2023, Rethinking Identity, imago Lisboa Photo Festival 2023
2022, Das Zeug zum Erinnern. Museum Villa Rot (GER)
2022, BILDER. DIGITAL I Artefakte. Fotogalerie Wien 332/2022 (AT)
2021, PALINOPSIA – Artist Book, published with XYZ Books, Lisbon (PRT)
2021, (K)EIN MENSCH IST EINE INSEL, Künstlerhaus Wien (AT)
2020, morgen magazine (AT)
ARTIST TALKS & PANELS
2026, Artist Talk – Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg (DE)
2026, Future Talk: Climate X Change, Kunsthaus Wien (AT)
2026, Klimagipfel zur Klima Biennale Wien – Funkhaus Wien (AT)
2023, Panel Talk „How we live without depriving ourselves of the basis of life“, OHO Oberwart (AT)
2023, Artist Talks at Imago Galerie Lisbon (PT), Loom, Foto Wien (AT) and Museum Villa Rot (DE)
2021, HIPERCEN/HYPERCENE, Panel talk, CPN Art&Science Center, Belgrade (SRB)
2020, Artist Talk Museum Niederösterreich (AT)
2019, Artist Talk at Bildraum01 (AT)
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2024, Federal Chancellary of Austria in Shanghai (CN)
2022, Studio of the Province of Burgenland in Paliano (IT)
2020, XYZ Books, Lisbon (PT)
2019, 280A, Azores (PT)
2018, Joya: AiR in Andalusia/Spain
2016, Hangar in Lisbon, Portugal
Michaela Putz works across media, incorporating photography, video, sculpture, and 3D modeling. Her starting point is the image not as a representation, but as a technical artifact—as a data set subject to compression, degradation, and loss. The focus is not on the subject matter, but on the materiality of its circulation: low-resolution archival images, technical artifacts, or traces of their use embedded in interfaces.
Her practice focuses on disappearance as a medial condition. Drawing from digital image databases (such as those of extinct plant and animal species), she develops works through digital interventions, fragmentations, and displacements. Two approaches lie at the heart of her practice. Reconstruction generates speculative 3D models from fragmentary material—glitchy, ghostly apparitions of lost biodiversity. Manipulation makes the loss itself visible through degradation, compression, and overwriting, until the image’s thresholds of legibility emerge.
Her works engage with what can be described as the dissolution of presence: the degree to which a body, a landscape, or an organism remains accessible once it is mediated exclusively through technical images. The resulting works—collages, pigment prints, objects, 3D prints, and spatial interventions—contrast the legibility of the archive with its systematic blind spots. In this way, Putz explores the interface between memory and format: the conditions under which something can be visible at all when it exists only as a data set.
Michaela Putz arbeitet medienübergreifend mit Fotografie, Video, Skulptur und 3D-Modellierung. Ihr Ausgangspunkt ist das Bild nicht als Repräsentation, sondern als technisches Artefakt – als Datenbestand, der Kompression, Degradation und Verlust unterliegt. Nicht das Motiv steht im Zentrum, sondern die Materialität seiner Zirkulation: niedrig aufgelöste Archivbilder, technische Artefakte oder in Interfaces eingebrachte Spuren ihrer Verwendung.
Ihre Praxis gilt dem Verschwinden als medialer Bedingung. Aus digitalen Bilddatenbanken (etwa zu ausgestorbenen Pflanzen- und Tierarten) entwickelt sie Arbeiten durch digitale Eingriffe, Fragmentierungen und Verschiebungen. Zwei Vorgehen stehen im Zentrum ihrer Praxis. Rekonstruktion erzeugt aus fragmentarischem Material spekulative 3D-Modelle – glitchige, geisterhafte Apparitionen verlorener Biodiversität. Manipulation macht den Verlust selbst sichtbar durch Degradation, Kompression und Überschreibung, bis die Lesbarkeitsschwellen des Bildes hervortreten.
Ihre Arbeiten befassen sich mit dem, was sich als Auflösung der Präsenz beschreiben lässt: dem Grad, in dem ein Körper, eine Landschaft oder ein Organismus zugänglich bleibt, sobald er ausschließlich durch technische Bilder vermittelt ist. Die daraus entstandenen Arbeiten – Collagen, Pigmentdrucke, Objekte, 3D-Drucke, Rauminterventionen – stellen die Lesbarkeit des Archivs seinen systematischen Blindstellen gegenüber. Damit lotet Putz die Schnittstelle von Gedächtnis und Format aus: die Bedingungen, unter denen etwas überhaupt sichtbar sein kann, wenn es nur noch als Datensatz existiert.