Postfactual Seeds
2026 Pigment prints from rendered photography, 3d-prints
Postfactual Seeds, 2026
“In Postfactual Seeds (2026), a work developed specifically for this exhibition (Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures) , Michaela Putz considers seeds as a store of past and future, exploring how they are translated from a biological carrier into a digital object. The starting point is a series of photographs from the visual archive of a species conservation project at the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna.
This archive serves the artist as a reservoir of raw material for a speculative process: with the help of AI-supported 3D modelling, Putz translates the photographs into virtual models. Borrowing from current research methods, where digital twins are used to simulate growth, resilience, or germination capacity, she subjects the digital seed objects to an algorithmic analysis: the machine’s ordering logics determine the information that is relevant for the AI modelling. Resulting from this evaluation are images of fictive seed hybrids, which are then presented as pigment prints and 3D prints —as copies of copies which recall museal archival objects and simultaneously refer to the principles of agricultural hybrid breeding that is geared towards increasing yields and producing uniformity.
The artist thus creates a parallel reality, one in which biological facts are replaced by machine-readable data, while also inquiring into the possibilities and contradictions of AI-supported systems and digital spaces for preserving biodiversity. What remains verifiable when knowledge is increasingly based on algorithmic interpretations? While AI is being deployed more and more in species protection projects, its enormous use of resources simultaneously contributes to further destabilizing ecological systems. By connecting archival documentation and algorithmic speculation, Postfactual Seeds poses a key question: What are the consequences when the future of ecosystems is conceived in the data room while its very physical foundations are becoming increasingly instable?”
Sophie Haslinger, 2026
Exhibition view Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures, KunstHausWien 2026, photos: Iris Ranzinger
EXHIBITIONS & TALKS
SEEDS. RECLAIMING ROOTS, SOWING FUTURES.
Seeds are the very foundation of our life. The exhibition Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures explores the multilayered meanings of seeds as a mirror of our relationship to the earth and one another. Works by fourteen international artists tell of disappearance and preservation, of loss and regeneration, of the poetic as well as political potential intrinsic to mutual concern and shared growing. The exhibition forges links between art, ecology and activism, inviting us to reflect on possible futures.
Artists
Ackroyd & Harvey, Maria Thereza Alves, Alexandra Baumgartner, Tue Greenfort, Kapwani Kiwanga, Dominique Koch, Jumana Manna, Christian Kosmas Mayer, Marzia Migliora, Lucia Pizzani, Michaela Putz, Cecilia Vicuña, Munem Wasif
Curator
Sophie Haslinger
Future Talk: Climate X Change
The diversity of our cultivated and wild plants is shrinking dramatically: of the millions of seed varieties that once existed, only a few hundred are commercially cultivated today. This erosion of biological diversity has far-reaching consequences for our food security, for resilient ecosystems, and for sustainable agriculture.
The interdisciplinary series “Future Talks: Climate X Change” explores relevant topics related to the climate crisis through interdisciplinary discussions.
Panelists: David Bröderbauer, author and head of science communication at the University of Vienna Botanical Garden
Katherine Dolan, head of seed policy at ARCHE NOAH
Ulli Klein, organic farmer David Bröderbauer
Michaela Putz, artist
Klimagipfel
13. und 14. April 2026, Funkhaus Wien