LISA ACKERL and DANIEL SCHÖNGRUBER in their own words about their project from the website urban-glitch.art that accompanies it:
“URBAN GLITCH (from Latin »urbanus« – »belonging to the city«, »urban« - to »urbs« – »city« and the Yiddish »gletshn«, »to slip or slide«) refers to the PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION of an IRREGULARITY in the PROGRAMMING of URBAN SPACE.
The DEFINITION of an urban glitch PRESUPPOSES the ASSUMPTION of CONSCIOUS PROGRAMMING of an URBAN FABRIC and its SPATIAL, ECOLOGICAL and SOCIAL EFFECTS. IRREGULARITIES in this programming, which are REFLECTED in the INSTRUMENTS of SPATIAL PLANNING, BUILDING REGULATIONS and as a REACTION to HISTORICAL EVENTS, become VISIBLE in the FORM of urban glitches. Urban glitches EMBODY PROCESSES of a PLANNING CULTURE that have lost VALDITY over TIME, have been COMPROMISED by PRARALLEL SYSTEMS, or CONTAIN an INHERENT FLAW in the PROGRAMMING CODE that APPEARS due to the RANDOM OCCURENCE of DIFFERENT, UNANTICIPATED CONDITIONS.
[…] For one semester, we […] RESEARCHED a wide VARIETY of OBJECTS, BUILDINGS and SYSTEM PROCESSES in the CITY OF LINZ. This WORK is based on CURIOSITY about HUMAN PERCEPTION and the resulting COMMUNICATION and TRANSMISSION of INFORMATION. In the course of our research we ENCOUNTERED urban glitches, the ORIGINS of which SHAPE the most DIVERSE areas of SOCIETY and the ENVIRONMENT. By delving into areas such as PERECPTION THEORY, SOCIAL THEORY, URBAN HISTORY, URBAN PLANNING and SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES, we have ATTEMPTED to REIFY the IMMATERIAL, not PHYSICALLY TANGIBLE PHENOMENON of the glitch by means of EXAMPLES and ANALOGIES and to LOCATE it in objects of the BUILT ENVIRONMENT of Linz.
If we think further about the MATERIALIZATION of the glitch in terms of software development processes, NEW POSSIBILITIES for ARCHITECTURAL and SYSTEMIC OBSERVATION arise. The process opens up a THINKING SPACE in which we DESCRIBE how various TOOLS such as FLOWCHARTS, ERROR MESSAGES and SOFTWARE UPDATES or IMPROVEMENTS can be APPLIED to DISCOVERED urban glitches. The approach INVITES us to QUESTION HISTORICAL BUILDINGS, RELICS from days gone by, PLANNED BUILDINGS PROJECTS, TECHNOLOGIES for ENERGY PRODUCTION and various URBAN DEVELOPMENTS, but also HUMAN BEHAVIOUR and the resulting INFLUENCE on our built environment. The resulting INTERSECTIONS with TECHNICAL DISCIPLINES are not to be understood as CORRESPONDENCES but as ANALOGIES. These OVERLAPS ENABLE a SYSTEMIC and SIMPLIFIED view of COMPLEX PROCESSES without having to forego NON-LINEARITY, CRITICISM and HUMOUR.”
Further information on "urban:/GLITCH" can be found on the above-mentioned website - an online version of the magazine created in the course of the project and dealing in detail with the Linz glitches can also be found there at the following web address: urban-glitch.art/magazin.
This project is a result of the studio “Interregnum I: Urban Agencies & Dei Ex Machina”.
Concept and teaching: c/o now - Andrijana Ivanda & Tobias Hönig + Markus Rampl, Paul Reinhardt, Duy An Tran, Ksenija Zdešar