MONOCOLOR - REFRACTIVE INDEX

Refractive Index is an entirely generative audiovisual performance in a state of constant flux. Swarms of points form unstable shapes that oscillate between intricate, architectural formations and natural, organic patterns. Existing at the threshold between the synthetic and the natural—both visually and sonically—the work explores themes of transience and fragility.

MONOCOLOR: Immersion Without Immersionism
Vienna-based MONOCOLOR filled the TES main stage with a fully immersive audiovisual set built on generative processes. His work — award-winning, meticulously coded, algorithmically evolving — had all the hallmarks of what media art often tries (and sometimes fails) to be: hypnotic, precise, spatially expansive.

But MONOCOLOR’s genius lies in his restraint. His visuals didn’t overwhelm. They unfolded. His sound design — modular, spatial, paced — respected cognitive space. The immersive quality of his performance came not from scale, but from calibration. In a venue with no fixed stage, no seating, and fluctuating crowd density, his piece became a kind of environmental software — shaping the conditions of perception rather than dominating them. This is what media theorist Matthew Fuller calls media ecologies — environments shaped not by content but by process.

— Review of Refractive Index at TKESHI Festival 2025, written by Ivan Nechaev

— Part of the article When Sound Resists: TKESHI 2025 and the Poetics of Media in Exile

DATES

JUL 18 2025: TKESHI Festival – TES – Tbilisi GEO

MAY 31 2025: Mapping Festival – Spoutnik – Geneva CH

MAR 21 2025: Sirup – Linz AT

OCT 11 2024: MA/IN Festival – KORA – Lecce IT

MAY 11 2024: Water Light Festival – Astra – Brixen IT

MAY 10 2024: Water Light Festival – Astra – Brixen IT

DEC 9 2023: PRECTXE Sound Entelechy – SFactory – Seoul KR

DEC 6 2023: PRECTXE Sound Entelechy – Former Freezer Warehouse – Pohang KR

OCT 20 2023 – DA Z Festival – Wasserkirche – Zurich CH