Recipe for success

Creativity, innovation and location: Ten years on, Linz, Austria – European Capital of Culture 2009 – is among the continent’s most dynamic and experimental cities, with artworks that go beyond the famous torte.

She looks me in the eye, bows her head, furrows her brow, exactly as I do. “She” is a small robot bust with a face like a porcelain doll and wires coming out of her head that make her eyebrows very agile. Below them, she has movable glass pupils that register every tilt of my head and every expression. The human-like mien of “Emotion Simulation Robot” brings a smile to my face nevertheless.

“It’s impossible not to establish an emotional connection to this creature,” says Gerfried Stocker, 54, who sports a ponytail, glasses and always wears black. Stocker is artistic director of the Ars Electronica Center (AEC) in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. “Involuntarily, we’re prepared to respond to her as we do toward a human being, which is a very powerful and somewhat dangerous illusion.” This is why AEC has documented the findings of robot psychologist Dr. Martina Mara, Europe’s first professor for robot psychology and a researcher at Linz University since 2018: How must a robot be built so that humans feel comfortable with it?  The small, friendly looking bust created by Japanese artist Takayuki Todo is one of the stars of the new permanent exhibition at the AEC, which opened in May. It features interactive presentations on artificial intelligence, robotics and genetic engineering as well as labs where visitors can, for instance, implant part of their DNA in artificially grown muscle cells – under supervision, of course.  So-called Infotrainers are on hand to explain the new technologies.

Since the city was unattractive, it was free to reinvent itself

 On the other side of the Danube, a 12-minute walk from the AEC across the Nibelungen Bridge, Genoveva Rückert joined forces again this year with sculptor Katharina Lackner, 37, to curate the Sinnesrausch exhibition at the OÖ Kulturquartier complex – an exhibition of international art that isn’t limited to the abstract. “We’re not just driven by our intellect, we come to exhibitions with our eyes and ears open, with a sense of touch and equilibrium. In short: with our bodies,” says Rückert, scrambling across the roof of the nearby Ursulinenkloster convent school through a labyrinth of blue safety nets – an installation by Croatian-Austrian design trio Numen/For Use. Taiwanese artist Te-Yu Wang also stimulates the senses with her “pneumatic installation,” for which she covered the interior of the school’s gymnasium, windows included, with lemon-colored balloon silk. As you walk on it, the fabric billows up waist-high like a silent, calm but dynamic wave suffused by soft light. Rückert calls this “immersive art,” and you do immerse yourself rather than just observe. For a full fifteen minutes, I relish a walking meditation in yellow.

The Sinnesrausch exhibition is a pared back version of the Höhenrausch Festival; they take place in alternating years. The Höhenrausch hallmark is the famous system of wooden bridges on which exhibitions conquered new space in 2009:  From high up on the convent school roof, the bridges stretched across to neighboring buildings, even passing through a church tower. A Ferris wheel lit up the roof of a nearby shopping mall in the early years. It was  replaced by the 30-meter-tall, wooden observation tower, the Keine-Sorgen-Turm, that stands there today and which visitors can climb through October 13, when the Sinnesrausch exhibition closes its doors. “The intoxication aspect ­[rausch means intoxication in German] was meant to address sensuality and the removal of barriers – which didn’t initially appeal to everyone,” says Rückert. “Some thought Höhenrausch in particular went too far toward becoming a spectacle.” But people in Linz now look forward to the annual event and particularly the Höhenrausch version that introduces modern art to a broad (non-vertigo-suffering) audience on a circuit high above the rooftops of the city. 

 Müller also has close connections to a project that is still somewhat outside the tightly knit Linz scene: Mural Harbour is a huge area in the industrial port where artists from around the world having been spraying or painting the exterior walls of warehouses and cold storage facilities since 2012. Leonhard Gruber, the initiator, is from the skater and snowboard scene and is a fan of Austrian rap, graffiti and street art. In 2014, he lured the Spanish star Aryz to the Danube, promising him a huge wall and the freedom to do as he pleased with it. “His gigantic mural of a mother and child has become one of the city’s most popular Insta spots and has fueled a regular boom,” says Gruber. Belgian street artist ROA and Berlin-based graffiti crew 1Up have also helped to transform the harbor into a giant open-air gallery within only five years. Every year, three to four pieces are added; this year, one addition will be a multilayered, ChromaDepth mural by Italian artist AweR which is viewed through 3D glasses.

Along with crash courses in graffiti, Gruber gives tours of the compound, either on foot or from the water in a zille, a traditional barge. As the warehouses and cold storage buildings are all still used, Gruber is always afraid that a mural might provoke criticism. “I held my breath one day watching fork lift operators emerge from a building on which ROA was just finishing a mural of a billy goat cut in two. But the men clapped him on the shoulder,” Gruber recalls fondly. “It was a sign of approval!” And proof that the Linz spirit has now also permeated everyday life.