Exctinction Ballads
2021-2022
Digital collages based on found footage material
Extinction Ballads is an ongoing visual investigation into whether the lost can persist digitally – and if so, in what form and quality. Drawing from found-footage images of extinct and endangered plant species, Michaela Putz composes layered digital collages that bring together disappearance, memory, and interface residues.
The plants themselves appear only as fragments in a void saturated with digital traces, transformed by endless scrolling, photographic flashes, and the limitless potential of reproduction and recomposition. Putz includes visible markers of screen-based viewing: dust, scratches, embedded keyboard imprints, or fingerprints. Even the overlooked tools of navigation – like the magnifying glass or browser tabs – become compositional elements.
Rather than attempting to restore or preserve, Extinction Ballads critically examines the role of digital archives as a mode of conservation in an age of ecological collapse. The works reflect on the complex relationship between image, loss, and perception – capturing the aesthetics of a world in flux.
“Putz translates the testimonies of former biodiversity into a transfiguring baroque aesthetic, interrupted only by the smudgy traces of often inconsequential scrolling we find on our tablets and smartphones.”
— Esther Hladik
Works from the series are available as fine art prints on Hahnemühle in various dimensions and as UV-prints on vinyl as room interventions.
