Press Release June 10, 2008

TIEFENRAUSCH Art and Guided Tours in the Underworlds of Linz May 30 – July 13, 2008

A Project by the OK Center for Contemporary Art for Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture

OK | Museum of the Underworlds

Aktienkeller | Stream of Forgetting

Landstraße | Manhole Covers

Linz Underground | Crypts, Tunnels, Cisterns

OK Platz | 40,000 Liters of Attersee Lake Water

TIEFENRAUSCH (rapture of the deep) is a multi-part exhibition dispersed throughout the city, a complex, multi- layered undertaking, a blend of art projects and museum objects, narratives drawn from everyday life and investigations phrased in terms of cultural scholarship, out-of-the-ordinary venues and totally pragmatic guided tours.

The point of departure is the Museum of the Underworlds in the OK. In downtown Linz, TIEFENRAUSCH will be visible along Landstrasse, where red plastic pipes designed by Linz Art University students are replacing the conventional manhole covers. In the Aktienkeller, OK is staging a major international art exhibition on the subject of “Remembering – Forgetting.” Plus, TIEFENRAUSCH is offering an array of guided tours to underground sites that are usually off-limits to the general public: the system of tunnels built by the Nazis, drinking water reservoirs and the crypts of Old City churches.

A multipart catalog is being issued in conjunction with this project. In the first volume, which premiered at the exhibition’s opening, cultural philosopher Thomas Macho touches on a broad spectrum of conceptions, locations and conditions subsumed under the heading of underworld. Volume 2 will be released in late June, and #3 at the finissage.

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MUSEUM OF THE UNDERWORLDS IN THE OK The cultural-historical portion of the exhibition curated by Brigitte Felderer

A Museum of the Underworlds has been installed in the OK’s exhibition spaces in conjunction with Tiefenrausch. This portion of the exhibition dedicated to the history of culture has been curated by Brigitte Felderer. On display are rare and valuable documents, objects and works of art that illustrate the underworld’s long cultural history. Human conquest of Earth’s subterranean realm is still subject to technical limitations, and our conception of the world below us is only slightly determined by the possibilities technological progress affords. To this day, the deepest holes drilled by man penetrate hardly more than 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust. Rather, our familiarity with the underworld is the result of a long history of fascination. The exhibition includes representations of hells—both mythic and mundane—as well as images of Purgatory as perceived by a wide variety of artists. Damnation, the Last Judgment, the descent into Hell, the flight from the underworld and conveyance into Hades have been visually branded into the collective consciousness and remain inseparably linked with the depth psychology of the modern individual. A social substratum that has unfolded beneath the superficial veneers of convention and under the pressure of prevailing circumstances is displayed critically in early photographs. But these aren’t the only counter-worlds placed on public viewing; the depths of nature as romantic retreats are also set out for all to see. Representations of famous cave landscapes offered romantic backdrops to flights of the soul by men and women of the 18 th and 19 th centuries. In the 18 th century, mine engineering and scientific geology became exemplary projects of the Enlightenment, ones that went on to assume dimensions that had been unattained until them by any such secular approaches to the underworld. Even the early 20 th century witnessed the design of artistic projects such as the one that imagined a tower of knowledge insinuating itself into the Earth’s core. The conquest of the underworld and the undersea domain continued to be regarded as heroic undertakings in progressive visions driven by faith in technology. Objects from private and public collections, artistic projects as well as multimedia installations document the history of this culture of the underworld and the human fascination with it, and which is also being staged in rock-hard, real- life realms within the Linz city limits during the summer of 2008. Visitors will be able to experience these technical and romantic visions, horrifying images of social descent as well as the mythical power of subterranean worlds up- close-and-personal in the OK’s exhibition spaces.

Upon entering the Museum of the Underworlds, one is immediately confronted by a wall-mounted artwork by Markus Pillhofer, who is also responsible for the design of the museum’s other rooms. This crooked, tilted “countervailing object” closes off a long, narrow passageway and, at the same time, provides entree to the subterranean domains on exhibit. The Museum of the Underworlds undertakes a fundamental investigation of the significance of the spaces of the imagination that, although situated at such close proximity, are not so easily accessible as one might think. The various different finds discovered during the process of shedding light on this history of fascination document the significance of the underworld as a central point of orientation in our understanding of the world. Curator: Brigitte Felderer Exhibition Designer: Markus Pillhofer

TIEFENRAUSCH MONDAY READINGS with Brigitte Felderer

“Let us descend to the blind world.” The Imaginary Topography of the Underworld

Monday, June 30, 2008, 8 PM, OK

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Room 1 PURIFICATION

Pipilotti Rist: “Selfless In The Bath Of Lava” 1994 LCD monitor flush-mounted in the floor, playback device, sound system Director, film editor, camerawoman, cast: Pipilotti Rist; Sound: Peter Bräker Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth London

At first glance, one sees nothing, but then one hears a female voice loudly calling out: “I am a worm and you, you are a flower. You would have done everything better. Excuse me. Help me.” The monitor flush-mounted in the floor is quickly found; it shows the artist Pipilotti Rist. She desperately reaches out her arms to the audience like in old- fashioned depictions of sinners in purgatory. The arms outstretched above in these images signify that, once purification has been completed, there is still the prospect of attaining paradise.

Room 2 IMAGES OF HELL:

Christianity’s Hell has long since ceased to be the only underworld that confronts us. In the middle of this space, there’s a long, narrow display case containing historical Krampus cards. These demons that so impudently and lasciviously leap out at us also personify a Panopticon of unspoken desires, fantasies, fears and feelings of guilt that seem to be emanating directly from Hell. Since the advent of the Enlightenment, Hell is no longer just a terror-filled Christian fantasy; it has established itself in the mythological inner worlds of a rationalist here and there as well.

Room 3 DESCENT: Ore Strata and Aragonite Crystals:

Mine engineering, understanding the history of the Earth, new methods of extracting and processing ore are metaphors as well as the contents of a process of enlightenment. Nevertheless, amidst the development of rational approaches to the economic viability and efficient organization of the mining and smelting industry, magical and mythological forms of dealing with nature have lived on. The “miracle stratum” from the Erzberg iron mine complex in the Austrian Province of Styria that’s on display here, its various depictions, the legend of its discovery in 1669 and its significance for the history of iron mining in Erzberg—almost magical, as it were—attest to this ambivalence.

Room 4 Plan the Impossible:

In the history of the symbolism of humanity’s seizure of power over the Earth, the mine can be described as the “inverted Tower of Babel.” Such a structure of planetary dominion was planned in 1941 by Dutch architect and modernist Henricus Theodorus Wijdefeld, who designed a subterranean tower that was to reach all the way to the center of the Earth and would bring together the world’s foremost scientists to study the planet’s interior. Artist Florian Bettel’s project about an 1874 underground interment system shows that even amidst the technical fascination of the 19 th century, state-of-the-art technology was deployed to maintain the ancient order separating the great beyond from everyday life on this mortal coil.

Room 5 EXIT The Shaft of Babel:

The artist excavates a shaft into the ground below his studio. The material that he extracts in doing so fills the studio and, in order to create the necessary space in there, the artist seals up the shaft again. The excavated earth corresponds to the volume of the studio space. The apparent escape tunnel on which the artist had labored in secret is filled up. There is no escape from the studio. On one hand, among European historians of ideas, the process of digging below the surface is a familiar metaphor for the search to attain insights; on the other hand, the withdrawal into the interior of the Earth stands for flight into a countervailing world, a place governed by a set of rules completely different from the generally accepted conditions of reality.

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Hans Schabus Astronaut 2002 Video on DVD, 7 minutes 32 seconds The artist / Engholm Engelhorn Galerie

The psychonaut expands and digs through the underground. The unlit depths are a spooky realm, shadowy and brachiated; they enclose and oppose the individual, who becomes more relative with each stab of the shovel. The earthy depths come across as a utopian space but as a paradox too—after all, they’re also associated with the concept of weightlessness and boundlessness. But to an even greater extent, the underworld delivers an explanatory model for the stratification of the psyche—the encounter with mentality and the initiation into its secrets demand years of work on the “material resistance” of the consciousness.

Hallway: Lucifer Rising Director: Kenneth Anger, Music: Bobby BeauSoleil and the Freedom Orchestra, Tracy Prison, Cast: Miriam Gibril, Donald Cammell, Haydn Couts, Kenneth Anger, Sir Francis Rose, Marianne Faithfull, Leslie Huggins 1981 16 mm 28 minutes

Stairway: Orphée Director: Jean Cocteau, Cast: Jean Marais F 1950 (Excerpt: Orpheus enters the underworld)

Brigitte Felderer Studied applied linguistics, Romance languages & literature, and communications in and Perugia. She teaches at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Exhibition Projects (selected): Wunschmaschine Welterfindung. Eine Geschichte der Technikvisionen seit dem 18. Jahrhunder t Kunsthalle Wien, Wiener Festwochen, 1996 Rudi Gernreich. Fashion will go out of fashion Künstlerhaus Graz, steirischer herbst, 2000 and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 2001 Alles Schmuck Museum for Design Zurich, 2000 Phonorama. Eine Kulturgeschichte zur Stimme als Medium ZKM Karlsruhe, 2004/05 Thinking without brain, speaking without lips... Die Automaten und Maschinen des Wolfgang von Kempelen Humboldt University Berlin 2005 Rare Künste. Zauberkunst in Zauberbüchern Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, 2006 Sound of Art Museum of Modern Art Salzburg, 2008 (in preparation) New Production – Wall-mounted Works

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Peter Hauenschild / Georg Ritter Gold, 2000 Drawings

Hundreds of men, working by hand, raze an entire mountain and finally end up in a deep pit. They’re digging for gold, driven by rapture of the deep. Claims are staked out, bought and sold. In square parcels, the digging goes on. Sacks are filled with the excavated material, which porters carry out of the pit via narrow stairways and ladders. Then, the dirt is washed and the precious material filtered out. Torrents of rain repeatedly fill the pit with water. Pumps and hoses lay about on the heavy, wet earth. Below, men covered with mud or encrusted with dirt seek their fortune and try to survive while doing so. A drama of desire.

Peter Hauenschild: Born in 1958 in Linz; 1982–87, studied visual design with Laurids Ortner at the HfG – University of Design Linz; 1988–2004, member of the staff of Stadtwerkstatt Linz; since 2005, instructor at Linz Art University (graphic design and photography, with an emphasis on drawing, art in public spaces and computer animation. Georg Ritter: Born in 1956 in Linz; 1977–81, studied stage set design at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, and then visual design at the HfG Linz; 1981–2004, artistic and cultural work at the Stadtwerkstatt Linz; since 1994, collaborated on Radio FRO and Radio Freistadt; 1999, founded Kartell, an open forum of the Linz indie scene; since 1999, instructor at Linz Art University (painting and graphic art) Peter Hauenschild and Georg Ritter live and work in Linz; collaborative drawing since 1989.

Peter Fischli/David Weiss Untitled (canal video), 1992 Video Courtesy of Galerie Sprüth/Maegers, Cologne Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss are masters of discovering traces of our longings and projections in the banalities of everyday life. For their “canal video,” they have recourse to the City of Zurich’s canal surveillance service that captures images via camera in the city’s underground tunnel system. The rapid sequence of different colors and levels of brightness produces a hypnotic attraction that transforms the tunnel images into a picturesque underworld.

Peter Fischli was born in 1952 in Zurich, where he currently lives. David Weiss was born in 1946 in Zurich, where he currently lives. The artists have been working together since 1979.

Franz Anton Obojes Innere Kerker und äußere Panzerungen (Inner Prison and Outer Armors) Mural painting, 2008 Proceeding from an architectural framework that alludes to Piranesi’s prison drawings, Franz Anton Oboje’s mural painting accompanies exhibition visitors as they descend the stairway into the depths of the OK. It depicts the fissures and faults running through the landscapes of our souls, as well as locations and elements that are proxies for the underground and the underworld. Oboje’s approach is to select images from his extensive archive and to assemble them like a collage—the psychoanalyst’s consultation room, a bunker under bombardment, and cinematic images coalesce into a representation of the underworld and our own internal abysses.

Franz Anton Oboje was born in 1961 in Linz, where he currently lives and works.

He has been involved in numerous exhibitions and projects.

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Christoph Draeger / Heidrun Holzfeind Tales from the Underworld Two-part video installation, 2008 What awaits us in this cinema-like display by Christoph Draeger and Heidrun Holzfeind is found-footage from Hollywood movies featuring views of the underworld. Clips from about 200 films—Murnau’s Nosferatu, Barbarella and South Park, to name just a few—elaborate on the underworld (in a consciousness-expanded sense). This is a horror trip indeed, full of twists and turns through caves, chasms and endless passages into the innermost sanctum of the subconscious where primal fears seethe and roil, a psychedelic nightmare through the history of the cinema, a relentlessly descending roller coaster ride. Destination: Hell.

Heidrun Holzfeind studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at Cooper Union in , where she now lives and works. Christoph Draeger was born in 1965 in Zurich. He studied at the School of Visual Arts, (1986-90) and École National Supérieur des Arts Visuels de la Cambre, (1990/1). www.christophdraeger.com , www.heidrunholzfeind.com ; www.exposed.at ; http://alien.thing.net

alien productions Martin Breindl, Norbert Math, Andrea Sodomka Tiefenklang I es ist viel zutage gekommen (much has come to light) Electromagnetic sound installation, 2008 Artistic collaborator: Daniel Lercher Interviews: Isabelle Muhr Research: Georg Nussbaumer The underground labyrinth of Linz’s Limonikeller and Aktienkeller tunnel systems and the tales told about them are the point of departure of this work by alien productions. People with real-life relationships to this real-life subterranean world have their say about it, their voices blending into the ether at certain locations in the confusing layout of the installation. With the radio serving as receiver and source of orientation, the narrative fragments assume an indifferent presence along the way through the slanting tunnel and gleaming white room with its unusual perspectives. It’s not until the end, at the speaking tube intercom system, that visitors can identify the voices.

Martin Breindl was born in 1963 in Vienna. Norbert Math was born in 1962 in Bozen, Italy. Andrea Sodomka was born in 1961 in Vienna. All three live and work in Vienna. alien productions was founded in 1997 in Vienna as a network for artists working in the theory and practice of new technologies and new media. Its sphere of activity encompasses media art, the visual arts, electronic music, network art, radio art, sound art and interactive art. The trio has been working in these fields since 1985, both individually and jointly as well as in collaboration with other artists, technicians, theorists and scholars. They have produced their projects at numerous festivals, symposia, exhibitions and concerts in Austria and abroad. http://alien.mur.at

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MANHOLE COVER PROJECT LANDSTRASSE

Hidden below street level, the cityscape is traversed by a network of shafts and tunnels through which sewer, gas and district heating pipes pass. The link-up between these unseen underworlds and hectic everyday life in the city is provided by the unobtrusive manhole covers that dot the streets. In a series of interventions between the Main Square and Schiller Park, these manhole covers will be utilized as media for visual and acoustic artworks that open up insights ranging from a depth of 50 meters all the way to the other side of the world.

Produced in cooperation with Linz AG Artistic Collaborators: Linz Art University, Bildhauerei_transmedialer Raum / Renate Herter and Raum- und Designstrategien / Pepi Maier

Katharina Lackner Hochunten (High Under) Video installation, 2008 The viewer’s glance falls not upon a manhole cover but a figure gaily clad in a polka-dot dress rotating on her axis like a top. Spinning at breathtaking speed, she seems to be boring further and further into the underground depths. In the first part of the video, the artist opens up and expands the space with her playful movements; in the second part, plunging, she plumbs its depths. Over and over again, she jumps into the abyss and her dress morphs into a sort of parachute. Katharina Lackner’s mode of measuring what lies deep beneath the street appears enchanting and, due to changes of speed, slightly skewed. Katharina Lackner was born in 1981 in Kirchdorf. She currently lives and works in Linz. http://www.kathilackner.net

Wolfgang Bretter Der Zug fährt ab (Stand clear of the closing doors!) Installation, 2008 A subway—adapted to Linz circumstances—is set in motion by a photoelectric sensor. We hear the familiar announcement “Stand clear of the closing doors” and the interior-lit model train runs in a counterclockwise circle underground. Each car making up this three-car train had to be bent twice to correspond to the diameter of the Linz sewer system. Wolfgang Bretter’s approach to the phenomenon of depth proceeds via a means of transportation and is at the same time an ironic commentary on a smallish city outfitting itself with big-town accessories for its stint as Capital of Culture. Wolfgang Bretter was born in 1973 in Pöllau/Hartberg. He lives and works in Grieskirchen and Linz.

Svitlana Trattmayr Kaleidoskop (Kaleidoscope) Installation, 2008 Instead of colored stones, what’s glittering down here is the stuff from which Landstraße lives. Cash money is tossed into the sewer pipe. We can thus actively set in motion the constantly changing inner workings of what’s transpiring down below. The image of the coins is refracted into a multifaceted symmetrical pattern, and finally into an abstraction. We take part in a playful act in which the process of depositing cash promises something beyond a classic money-for-wares exchange: the view of something spectacular, the hope of return, or simply happiness. Svitlana Trattmayr was born in 1978 in Lviv, The Ukraine. She lives and works in Linz

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Alexander Jöchl Fluchtweg freihalten! (Emergency Exit Keep Clear!) Installation, 2008 The familiar directive regarding the exit to use in an emergency appears inside the sewer shaft and thus initially comes across as an ironic reference to regulations and signs posted in public. Nevertheless, the identity of the intended recipients of this message is kept concealed—after all, it’s obvious that the transparent door can only be opened from within. What’s the point of an emergency exit from the sewer system? On a seemingly neutral level, this appears to be a treatment of the concept of fleeing itself, but the emergency drill staged here doesn’t address escape from fire or any other danger. The bottom line is the possibility for each installation visitor to individually confront the subject of escape and exit from the underground. Alexander Jöchl was born in 1971 in Kitzbühel. He currently lives and works in Linz.

Johannes Steininger ring…ring…ring… Installation, 2008 From different distances, sometimes loud, sometimes softly, there’s a ringing from down below. The location of the bell being made to chime can be ascertained from the nameplate next to the doorbell. The inaccessible depths and their specific spatial qualities can be experienced acoustically. We transmit the sound so that it makes a portion of this invisible realm accessible to us with its waves. When we attempt to measure these unfamiliar locations, to take possession of them, we discover, using our sense of hearing, new spaces that we fill with our power of imagination. www.myspace.com/johannessteininger Johannes Steininger was born in 1977 in Linz. He lives and works in Berlin.

Georg Schobert Ohne Boden (No Bottom) Installation, 2008 An optical construction lures us, tempts us to undertake intense mental involvement with depth and to resist dizziness. Peering into the depths of the sewer shaft reveals an apparently bottomless hole. From a considerable distance away comes the sound of sewer water rushing through a channel. What initially seems to be an endlessly long pipe is actually a very complex technical construction that produces a visual system without optical aids. Like a reversed telescope, nested, conically tapered and successively shorter aluminum tubes make the five-meter-long construction seem ten times longer than it actually is. Through this reversal of perspective, installation visitors can playfully experience the affect that depth has upon us. Georg Schobert was born in 1969 in Tulln. He lives and works in Linz.

Miguel Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez 7.5 Installation , 2008 Support: Alannah Gunter, Victoria University’s School of Design in Wellington, New Zealand & Fringe HQ www.fringe.org.nz Everybody, at some time or other, has toyed with the idea of taking a peek at the opposite side of the Earth. And no less fascinating is the thought of actually cutting a direct path through the globe. Miguel José Gonzalez Gonzalez opens up this possibility. Peering into the depths of the sewer, you end up gazing into the heavens above Wellington, New Zealand in real time. In order to hit land, the virtual drill hole was angulated by 7.5°, a degree of tilt that also determines the position of the sewer pipe. This unusual perspective not only calls into question the relationship between up and down; it also enables visitors to grasp diametrical opposition, an otherwise abstract concept. Miguel Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez was born in 1973 in Dornbirn. He lives and works in Linz.

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Constantin Chaber wellenreiterIn (surfer) Installation, 2008 What seems rather unspectacular at first glance becomes, when the installation visitor brings his/her own body into play, a vertically mobile floating body. The medium that’s in motion deep within the sewer shaft makes it possible to experience that underground space with the senses. That medium, water, becomes a carrier for passers-by for whom it’s interaction via the sense of equilibrium that provides a way to grasp how this unusual “piece of urban furniture” functions. Constantin Chaber was born in 1978 in Passau, Germany. He lives and works in Linz.

Roland Wegerer Ich bin kein Fisch (I’m No Fish) Video installation, 2006/2008 Within the red sewer pipe, a head emerges. The face is slightly distorted and seems strained. Another thing that makes you take notice is the movement of the air bubbles. They float downward. What seems to be like surfacing from the depths of the sewer is actually the moment of submerging in it. This video, which shows artist Roland Wegerer during repeated dives, is turned on its head: on the monitor affixed at eye-level, it engenders the illusion of someone surfacing from the sewer system. In his simple experimental setup, Wegerer confronts installation visitors with the fundamental structures of our everyday life and impressively limns its boundaries. Roland Wegerer was born in 1974 in Amstetten. He lives and works in St. Nikola, Upper Austria. www.rolandwegerer.com

Stefan Hofer event horizon Installation, 2008 The view into this sewer conveys us into a mediatized experiential space of quite an unusual sort. From below, two- dimensional images are decontextualized in that they’re projected into a three-dimensional material. Moving about in the water are graphic structures that morph into bodies made of light, and it’s precisely this transient carrier medium that enables the material to become visible in the first place. Light speed and space-time curvature—the concepts to which this work’s title refers—have become symbols for the Information Age. This sensory installation plays with the visualization of such barely imaginable phenomena. Stefan Hofer was born in 1980 in Kufstein, Tyrol. He lives and works in Linz.

AUXILIARY PROJECT ON DACHSTEIN MOUNTAIN

Agnes Mayer-Brandis SGM Iceberg Probe Installation, 2006-08 Located near the entrance to the Dachstein Ice Caves This project has been produced in cooperation with Dachstein World Heritage and will be on display until Fall

We’re not just exploring the urban underground; the depths below an Alpine landscape also occupy our attention. In an expedition tent set up near the entrance to the Dachstein Ice Caves, visitors can use a tactile search device hooked up to a monitor and headphones to visually and acoustically scan an underground region that’s now threatened by economic interests and global warming. The SGM (sub-glacialis montometer) probe is steered through a hole drilled 120 meters deep, and thus functions as an interface between two worlds. It’s a research instrument as well as a video installation that transports us into fantastic worlds.

Software: Ralf Baecker. Mechanic & Electronic. Support: Ralf Wolf, Roman Kirschner Supported by: NRW Art Foundation, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Agnes Mayer-Brandis was born in 1973 in Aachen, Germany. She lives and works in Cologne. www.ffur.de

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Curatorial Staff: Rainer Zendron, Martin Sturm, Genoveva Rückert In cooperation with Brigitte Felderer, alien productions, Christoph Dreager/Heidrun Holzfeind, Renate Herter, Pepi Maier Project Director: Norbert Schweizer

Tiefenrausch Information Bureau: Complete information and tour reservations OK Center for Contemporary Art OK Platz 1, 4020 Linz T: +43.732.784178-555, [email protected] www.ok-centrum.at/tiefenrausch

Project Associates: OK Center for Contemporary Art Director: Martin Sturm www.ok-centrum.at Project Director: Norbert Schweizer OK Platz 1, 4020 Linz; T: +43.732.784178

Linz 2009 – Kulturhauptstadt Europas OrganisationsGmbH Artistic Director: Martin Heller www.linz09.at Gruberstraße 2, 4020 Linz; T: +43.732.2009

Press Contacts: OK: Maria Falkinger, OK Platz 1 , 4020 Linz, Tel: +43.732.784178-203, [email protected]; www.ok- centrum.at Linz09: Pia Leydolt, Gruberstraße 2, 4020 Linz, Tel: +43.732.2009-37, [email protected] ; www.linz09.at PRINT-QUALITY PRESS PHOTOS are available at www.ok-centrum.at

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