User Environments in the Interface City

There is the seductive fiction of a reality, in which all actions and events can be integrated into a digital system that enables maximum efficiency, sustainability, security, and satisfaction of needs and desires of every (selected) individual. It is a fiction of unity and frictionlessness built on the assumption of a set of perfectly working and seamlessly integrated machines. But the truth is, machines don´t always work that well.

Juxtaposing sober patent drawings of urban digital technologies with photographs depicting their problematic implementation, CHRISTIAN FRIESS and BENJAMIN GERDES’ project “User Environments in the Interface City” makes visible the problematic relationship of technology-driven imaginations and their broken real world doppelgangers.

“User Environments in the Interface City” is the outcome of a Fulbright Specialist project hosted by TU Wien’s VISUAL CULTURE Unit. It has been published on the occasion of the project halfway – Curating the Urban and in cooperation with the CENTRE FOR GLOBAL ARCHITECTURE, Vienna, 2019.