Whenever we talk about this project, we are usually asked two questions.

"Why are Japanese people editing Linz?"

And, "Why is a team building an AI app also making and distributing a ZINE?"

Before we leave for Linz in September, I want to answer those two questions—and introduce the six people behind the project.

Not Knowing the City Is Not a Weakness

We know very little about Linz.

We have little local knowledge, limited familiarity with the language, and only a fragmentary understanding of its history.

But timespace itself began with a sense of discomfort toward Shibuya, the place I knew best.

The better you know a city, the harder it can become to escape the ways you have learned to see it. By contrast, entering a place you know almost nothing about can make certain details suddenly visible.

Locals and outsiders simply notice different things. Put those ways of seeing side by side, and another version of the city starts to appear.

We want to turn that lack of local knowledge into an editorial tool.

Why Would an AI Company Print on Paper?

We are building an application that begins with photographs and uses AI to uncover the history and context of a place, turning those fragments into stories.

The product itself is a Web ZINE. It is not a print product.

So why print 100 copies?

Because paper is an entrance. An invitation.

A limited run of 100 copies. Printed that same day. Passed from hand to hand.

These conditions create something that digital distribution alone cannot: the feeling that something has traveled from one person to another.

Instead of allowing an AI-generated interpretation to disappear into the endless stream of search results and feeds, we want it to move through human hands and reach the next person.

Precisely because we are building AI, we believe we also need to design how its interpretations circulate.

All Six of Us Observe the City

We do not separate the people who conduct fieldwork from the people who edit.

Takahito Iguchi (Publisher / CEO) shapes the editorial philosophy and the AI framework behind how we describe cities.

Ryu Suganuma (CPO) and Kansui Takahashi (Engineer) build the system linking human observation with AI analysis—and are the first to use it on the city themselves.

Naoki Urushibara (Marketing / Communication) talks with visitors and media on site and sends the ZINE out into the city.

Minami Fukaya (Designer) turns what we've gathered into a printed publication before the day ends. A daily ZINE means the design gets rediscovered daily too.

And I, Rui Takayama, look for the connections between artworks, people, and the city that haven't been named yet. At day's end, I bring together what the six of us found and shape it into one ZINE.

"Editor in Chief" simply means being the person who takes responsibility for where all of those fragments finally land.

Why All Six of Us Need to Be There

During the festival, all six of us will use Hp23 as our base and walk through Linz and the festival.

Six people enter the same city and notice six different things.

We bring those differences back, place them next to one another, and let them collide.

Out of those gaps, another Linz begins to emerge—one that none of us could have seen alone.

Being Japanese, being AI developers, and knowing almost nothing about Linz are not obstacles to this project.

This time, they are all part of the editorial condition.

In September, the six of us will begin reading Linz together—and publishing what we find while the city is still happening.