Artist Portrait Michaela Putz | Photo: Theresa Wey, 2023

Michaela Putz is an Austrian photo-based artist whose work explores the intersections between memory, technology, and the natural world. She holds an MA of Arts&Science from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, as well as a degree from communication science that she gained at the University of Vienna and that sharpened her interest in tools of visual communication and the the impact of digital technology on memory and nature.

Putz's multidisciplinary exploration of memory, technology, and the environment combines digital and analog techniques to create installations, objects, photographic montages, and post-processed images.
Michaela Putz's artistic contributions have been featured in numerous exhibitions both in Austria and abroad, including presentations in museums, galleries, and other institutional settings. Her work has garnered recognition and support from various grants and awards, including the Burgenland Annual Award for Fine Art in 2018, the START-grant for photography in 2019, and the studio grant for overseas work (Shanghai) from the Austrian Chancellery in 2023. She has also shared her insights and perspectives on contemporary photography and digitalization through public lectures and contributions to various magazines and catalogues. 


“What we see, however, are not the remembered moments; rather, we are looking at the process of remembering itself. In Putz’s pictures the transparent screen is rendered an almost opaque surface that—carved out by the camera flash and the extreme magnification—reveals a choreography composed by the use of these images: the traces of the interaction with the touchscreen, fingerprints, sebum residue, the smears from swiping across the display.”

                                                                                                                                                            - Fabian Knierim, translated by Georg Bauer






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Michaela Putz (c) Bildrecht, 2023