Slotmachine
At first glance, the installation Slotmachine resembles a conventional departure board found in airport halls. Whether passengers or pilots, airlines or airports, they all have to follow the flight schedule. The work of media artist Ulrich Formann automatically retrieves the official departure schedules from European airports. These get compared with radar information from tracking websites, which list all flights that have actually taken off. The comparison of these two data sets results in a difference that shows all flights that do not appear on the display board in the departure hall. This reveals one of the downsides of global air traffic: ghost flights. After the railway and the car, the aeroplane has extended our range of travel and thus formed the basis of our flexible and mobile professional and private lives. At the same time, competing (budget-) airlines are dependent on the right to use airports. Slots grant airlines the right to use the airport infrastructure at a specific time. The use-it-or-lose-it principle is key here. If a slot is used less than 80 percent of the time, it is lost and a competing company receives the valuable time slot. In order to meet this quota and not have to give up the slot, flights are simply flown empty. The rational calculation result of the Slotmachine exposes the invisible but consequential structure behind market competition and permanent availability.
Loan of Generali Foundation / Museum der Moderne Salzburg
The University Library of the TU Chemnitz shows the work Mondays to Saturdays from 2 pm to 7 pm.