During Ars Electronica 2026, timespace set up an editorial base in central Linz. We walked the city, photographed what caught our attention, used AI to read what we found, edited the material ourselves, and published six issues of LINZ/ZINE.
991 photographs. 6,543 pieces of AI-generated editorial material. 1,150 printed copies.
What we discovered was that generating articles with AI was not the hardest part. The much more difficult—and much more interesting—question was how humans should read that material, edit it, and return it to the city.
From September 9 to 13, we were based at Hauptplatz 23 in Linz.
It was during Ars Electronica Festival 2026. But LINZ/ZINE was not an official Ars Electronica program. We simply entered the city and started the project ourselves.
What we did was simple.
Walk the city.
Photograph whatever caught our attention.
Let AI read the image and its location.
Look through everything we collected together.
Edit that day's ZINE.
Print it.
Take it back into the city and hand it out.
The next day, we started again from the beginning.
We did this for five days.
Every Day, the City Gave Us an Enormous Amount of Material
We did not begin with a detailed list of subjects we wanted to cover.
Architecture, trams, old signs, shops, factories, churches, public spaces, universities, museums, galleries, Ars Electronica venues—if something caught our attention while walking, we photographed it.
When a photograph and its location data are uploaded to timespace ZINE, AI investigates the place and generates potential material for an article.
By 1:40 PM on September 13, we had taken 991 photographs and generated 6,543 pieces of editorial material from them.
Of course, we were never going to use all 6,543.
In fact, that was where the real work began.
Editing Began by Looking at Everything Together
Every day, when we returned from walking the city, the team sat down and looked through what we had collected.
"This is interesting."
"Maybe this connects to that."
"We could build today's issue around this."
"This information is accurate, but it doesn't belong in this issue."
We are not experts on Linz.
And yet, from hundreds of fragments we had discovered that day, we had to decide: How do we read Linz today?
What do we keep?
What do we connect?
Which story deserves more space?
What should remain with someone after they finish reading the issue?
That tension stayed with us throughout the five days.
Still, Every Day, We Put It on Paper
From the preview edition, vol.00, through vol.05, we ultimately produced six issues.
We printed 1,150 copies in total. We began with 750 copies and printed another 400 locally during the project.
If this had been digital-only, we could have simply pressed "publish."
But we chose paper.
Once something is printed, there is nowhere to hide.
The editing becomes a physical object sitting in front of you. The order of the pages, the photographs you selected, the relative weight given to each article—every decision you made that day remains visible.
And then, holding that object in our hands, we went back into the city.
The Moment We Handed Someone a ZINE, Editing Was No Longer the End
We distributed the finished ZINEs not only at Hauptplatz 23, but also directly at places such as the Ars Electronica Center, Lentos Kunstmuseum, and OK Platz.
We handed them to local residents, artists, students, researchers, university faculty and staff, and people visiting Ars Electronica.
You hand someone the booklet.
They open it in front of you.
"I know this place."
"Why did you choose this?"
"If you're interested in this, you should go there next."
"If you want to understand this part of the city, you should talk to this person."
And another conversation begins.
During the project, we recorded more than 50 points of dialogue and contact with people we met.
For me, this was the most powerful part of the entire experiment.
When we handed that day's freshly printed ZINE directly to someone in the city and a conversation began, all the tension of the editing process suddenly disappeared.
Something we had picked up from the city had become a magazine. Someone from the city read it, then gave us another story about the city in return.
At that moment, the magazine stopped being a finished product.
It became the entrance to the next piece of reporting.
From "50" to Linz in 1898
One small encounter captured the entire project for me.
While walking through Hauptplatz, I noticed a sign next to the tram information for lines 1–4.
It simply said:
"50"
I had no idea what it meant.
Normally, I would probably have walked straight past it.
Instead, I photographed it and put it into ZINE.
From there, we discovered that the number was connected to the Pöstlingbergbahn, the mountain railway linking central Linz with Pöstlingberg.
Looking further, we learned that the railway began operating on May 29, 1898.
A tiny sign directly in front of me—something whose name and meaning I did not even know—suddenly connected me to Linz more than a century ago.
This happened again and again during the project.
It is the reverse of searching for a famous tourist attraction and then going to see it.
First, something is simply there in front of you.
You do not know what it is.
So you photograph it.
And from there, you begin to understand the city.
That was one of the moments when the experience we want to create with timespace became much more concrete.
Linz Cannot Easily Be Reduced to a Single Theme
After five days of walking, what struck me was how many layers of Linz overlap in ways that cannot be explained through a single image or theme.
The Danube. The old city. Linz's history as an industrial city centered on steel. Ars Electronica. Lentos. Universities and research institutions. Pöstlingberg at the end of the tram line.
Tourism, art, technology, industry, and everyday life do not exist as isolated categories.
When you walk through the city, they connect in unexpected places.
That is why we did not try to reduce Linz to a single conclusion after five days.
Instead, we cut a different cross-section every day and made a different magazine every day.
I think LINZ/ZINE was more honest to the city that way.
What Mattered Was Not That AI Could Write Articles, but That We Could Keep the Cycle Moving
What we wanted to test was not whether AI could write an article.
It already can.
The question was what happens after that.
Could this entire process actually operate every day inside a real city?
In Linz, it did.
But for me personally, what mattered even more was that we were able to sustain the cycle for five days:
read the city, make a magazine, take it back into the city, talk to people, and begin again.
Ars Electronica brings together works, technologies, and people from around the world.
This time, we did not arrive carrying a finished work.
We used the city of Linz itself as our material and made something new there every day.
For us, that repetition—the process itself—became our Ars Electronica.
LINZ/ZINE was not an official program.
But in the end, it became an Ars Electronica experience that nobody else could have made.
It was ours.
LINZ/ZINE / 2026.09.09–13
Photographs taken — 991
AI-generated editorial materials — 6,543
Issues published — 6 (vol.00–05)
Copies printed — 1,150
Recorded conversations / points of contact — 50+
Digital views — 116
The photograph and AI-generation figures are cumulative totals since September 5, 2026, based on preliminary data as of 1:40 PM CEST on September 13.
