Alpine urban utopias : experiment with the commons in do-it-yourself open space in Innsbruck

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SOCIOLOGY:URBAN SOCIOLOGY

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM

Acknowledgements

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Adeola Enigbokan of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the Universiteit van Amsterdam for her enor-mous support in this process. She allowed this thesis to be my own work, but guided me in the right direction whenever I asked for her assistance.

Furthermore, I would like to thank everyone who agreed to participate in interviews for this research.

I would also like to thank the ArchiveIT – Subkulturarchiv Innsbruck team, most importantly Maurice Kumar and Albrecht Dornauer, for allowing me to use their collected visual and written materials for this thesis.

The doors of Die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube have always been open to conduct fieldwork. I would like to thank the team, especially David and Christoph for their support.

Sarah and Kathi, thank you for hosting me during my stay in our beautiful city.

I would like to acknowledge Dr. Yannis Tzaninis of the Faculty of Social and Be-havioural Sciences at the Universiteit van Amsterdam as the second reader of this thesis.

Finally, I want to express my profound gratitude to my mum, sister and my friends here in Amsterdam for their support and encouragement throughout this process of researching and writing the thesis. Davide, Eugenio, Conny, Alessandra, Phillip, Will and Darren, I enjoyed our good and not so good times together. I especially want to thank Will for the valuable thoughts he contributed over the many coffees and occasional beers we had.

Thank you.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ... 10

2 Crafting the Alpine Urban Experience. ... 14

3 “Help yourself, otherwise nobody will!” - A History of Struggle

over Space. ... 23

3.1 Case Description: Die Bäckerei ... 36

3.2 Subculture, the Right to the City and the Theory of the Commons ... 39

4 Experimenting with the Commons in Open Space. ... 43

4.1 Organizing and Maintaining Open Space ... 44

4.2 Experiencing Challenges and Pitfalls of Open Space ... 51

4.3 Communicating Open Space ... 58

5 Conclusion ... 68

Abstract: In Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria, a city branding strategy around the notion of

an alpine urban experience, highlighting Innsbruck’s unique feature of a bustling city in close touch with mountain scenery was implemented. The city’s image creation process runs the risk of creating urban enclosures, because it leaves many citizens unrepresented, or even excluded from social and cultural life. This is because the alpine urban notion relies on heavy investments in mega sporting events, architecture and highbrow culture, and is mostly geared towards those who are ready to consume the city. Following a long history of a struggle over accessible urban space, citizens who do not identify or disagree with the official narrative of Innsbruck organize a considerable amount of subcultural initiatives and associations to create a city ac-cording to their needs and desires. Through the creation of open spaces, these bot-tom-up initiatives provide low-threshold access to spaces for cultural and social ex-change to reclaim and repurpose urban spaces. Hence, their practices are considered forms of DIY (Do-it-Yourself) urbanism. A local knowledge case study conducted in die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube (the Bakery – Cultural Bakery), one of Inns-bruck’s open spaces, illustrates how such cultural DIY initiatives experiment with the commons, by discussing the organization and maintenance of open space, but also the challenges and limitations to the concept. By showing how alternative knowledge about living together in cities is produced and disseminated through die Bäckerei and its extended network, the project contributes to the existing literature on the commons.

1 Introduction

The Capital of the Alps! proclaims Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria. Indeed, the city, which

lies in a valley in the Alps of western Austria – halfway from Verona, Italy to Munich, Germany – is bounded by majestic mountain ranges in the north and the south. Due to its geographic location, Innsbruck has played an important role in international trade since the Middle Ages, but is also a popular holiday destination. In recent years, the city undertook significant urban renewal measures and investments in architecture, highbrow culture and mega sporting events to gear up for the international inter-urban competition over city tourism. An image creation process, which is guided by Innsbruck’s official branding narrative of the alpine urban

experi-ence, highlighting its unique feature of a bustling city in close touch with nature.

However, there is always more than one story to be told about a city. Innsbruck has a considerable amount of subcultural initiatives and associations who do not feel represented or even excluded by the alpine urban narrative. Therefore, they create open spaces in order to enable low-threshold social and cultural exchange, apart from the commercialized spectacle of Innsbruck’s official discourse. These initiatives are bottom-up movements, strongly inspired by a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) ethos, aiming to reclaim and repurpose urban spaces, which is why they are conceived as part of what is called DIY urbanism. Furthermore, these collectives are ac-tively intervening in the urban discourse, which is why it is argued that they produce alternative knowledge about urban life.

This thesis aims to understand how and why such a brisk independent cultural scene could develop in this relatively small city and asks about its possible impact on the urban land-scape. This is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of DIY open spaces as part of the multi-variant DNA of the cultural fabric of urban space. Hence, the research is guided by the following research question and subsequent sub questions:

How do Do-it-Yourself open spaces shape the urban environment in the city of Innsbruck?

- How and why do grassroots cultural initiatives and associations develop in the city

of Innsbruck?

- How do (1) activists and (2) the city government perceive the impact of DIY

cul-tural initiatives on the city of Innsbruck?

- How do recent cultural DIY initiatives produce and disseminate alternative

The research approach to this project was of qualitative nature. This enables to discover the essence of cases or phenomena, because qualitative research methods guide researchers on their journey to “understand people and the social and cultural contexts within which they live” (Myers, 1997). Creating open spaces to alter the social and cultural context of the city is imag-ining and narrating an alternative story for the city and its inhabitants. Therefore, discovering underlying motivations, perceptions, ideas and ideologies to that story required a qualitative approach, to provide an in-depth understanding of these processes (Hennink et al., 2011a). More specifically, a local knowledge case-study of die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube (the Bakery – Cultural Bakery) in Innsbruck was conducted, which is characterized by high familiarity with the case of interest (Thomas, 2011). The big advantage of the local knowledge case study is that access to the field is usually easily pursued, because of what Fenno calls the “soak and poke” (Fenno as cited in Thomas, 2011, p. 514) approach. As Thomas explains, “the inquirer is already soaked, and in a good position (…) to poke” (p. 514).

The data collection process consisted of a combination of three strands: (1) Archival research, considering online and offline visual and written accounts and government docu-ments, (2) individual and group interviews as well as the analysis of interviews with 14 mem-bers of die Bäckerei published in die Bäckerei’s UND magazine (Hennink et al., 2011c) and (3) participant and non-participant observations at several sites and events (Hennink et al., 2011d). These steps of the research followed a cyclical approach and entailed reflection of the collected data with applicable literature (Hennink et al., 2011b).

The first strand was firstly implemented to identify the official city branding discourse evolving around Innsbruck’s alpine urban narrative, and secondly, to trace the history of sub-cultural movements in the city. Innsbruck’s vibrant subsub-cultural activity is rooted in a constant struggle over space. To understand how and why the numerous cultural initiatives emerged in the city, extensive archival research was conducted. Besides analyzing government documents concerning cultural policy, online research on blogs, YouTube channels and newspaper articles, the collaboration with Innsbruck’s subculture archive Archive-IT/Das Subkulturarchiv der

Stadt Innsbruck was essential for understanding the rich and troublesome history of the city’s

subculture. This step of the research helped to reconstruct a story about Innsbruck, which for a long time was not considered worth telling.

I participated at the vernissage of Archive-IT’s exhibition WIR//HIER – Die sogenannte

Subkultur (US//HERE – the so-called subculture). At the event, informal conversations with

under-stand how they perceive the impact of cultural DIY urbanism on their city. Furthermore, I in-terviewed members of the Bættlegroup for Art, a group of cultural workers from various branches who in 2004 joined forces to renegotiate the position of independent cultural work within the city of Innsbruck. These steps of the research helped to understand the preconditions that enabled open spaces to emerge and develop in Innsbruck.

The group interview with the Bættlegroup for Art as well as an interview conducted with the manager of Innsbruck’s cultural office provided a clear insight into the relationship between the municipality and the free cultural initiatives. Additionally, these interviews clari-fied how the city government and the activists perceive the impact of autonomous cultural work on the city. These steps where necessary to get a better sense of how cultural DIY urbanism is constructed by different groups (mainly initiators and government) and how these different po-sitions relate to each other (Hanna, 2014).

To address the question of knowledge production and dissemination in open spaces, the in-depth case study on die Bäckerei was conducted. The case selection is rooted in concrete personal experiences in this space. More precisely, comparing my personal experiences in Inns-bruck with DIY initiatives in other cities enabled me to understand that DIY urbanist practices are highly place-specific, which changed my perception of these practices. It shaped my under-standing of DIY urbanism as a reaction to a unique social and cultural context.

The familiarity with the place of interest facilitated access to the field, but also required to clarify my “cultivated position” (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012, p. 173), which describes the researcher’s propensity to openly engage with the surrounding environment and reflecting upon her position within this world. The cultivated position is denoted by the researcher’s biography and theoretical knowledge (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012). For my case, I had to position my-self first and foremost as a (1) researcher. High familiarity with the field as (2) an activist in and (3) patron of the scene required a high level of self-reflection throughout the entire research process. This entailed extensive writing of field notes and reflexive memos (Mills, 1959), which provided support in this position. It was particularly helpful in facing the challenge of defamil-iarization (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012) during the research.

The thesis begins with a chapter introducing the official alpine urban experience narra-tive of Innsbruck and elaborates on its relevance for the local tourism industry. Moreover, it provides examples of investments in sport events, architecture and sophisticated culture the city undertook to position itself within the international city tourism industry, reflecting upon David

Harvey’s notion of “urban entrepreneurialism” (Harvey, 1989). Lastly, chapter 2 critically dis-cusses these measures for creating urban enclosures through the marginalization of certain groups within the city (Bollier, 2014; Bresnihan & Byrne, 2015; Federici, 2010; Linebaugh, 2008; 2010).

Subsequently, chapter 3 traces Innsbruck’s subcultural movements from the 1970s up until today, to explain why open spaces such as die Bäckerei could develop in the city. It depicts movements fighting for their “Right to the City” (Harvey, 2003) by creating what Henri Lefebvre called “heterotopic spaces” (Lefebvre, 2003[1970]; Santos Junior, 2014), spaces which are created as an alternative to commodified urban spaces. It situates these practices within the discourse on Do-it-Yourself (DIY) urbanism, firstly, because of the underlying DIY ethos to those practices, and secondly, because independent cultural activities actively criticize the official urban discourse (Enigbokan, 2015; Finn, 2014; LaFrombois, 2015; Talen, 2015).

Lastly, chapter 4 depicts in detail how die Bäckerei as an open space is organized and maintained and links their practices to the theory of the commons (Bollier, 2014; Bresnihan & Byrne, 2015; Federici, 2010; Linebaugh, 2008; 2010). It illustrates why die Bäckerei is exper-imenting with the commons, firstly, by discussing the organization and maintenance of open space, and secondly, by highlighting challenges of and limitations to the concept of open space. Finally, chapter 4 shows how knowledge is produced and disseminated through die Bäckerei as a platform and discusses possible implications this has on the urban environment, the citizens of Innsbruck and the region Tyrol.

2 Crafting the Alpine Urban Experience.

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

-- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961).

Strolling through Innsbruck’s picturesque city center provides a spectacular view, char-acterized by an impressive combination of raw mountain panorama, medieval history in the Old Town, centered around the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof) (Fig 1), and modern landmark ar-chitecture like Zaha Hadid’s Bergisel ski jump (Fig 2), sitting high above the south of the city. The synthesis of rural tradition and modernity becomes particularly visible in the contrasting aesthetics of the villages surrounding the city, which is home to approximately 130,000 inhab-itants.

The appreciation of this unique locality is not only articulated by the locals, but can also be expressed in the large number of international tourists, visiting the city during summer and winter time alike. Roughly 1,6 million overnight stays in 2016 with an overall increase of 10,7% since 2010 and 7,435 people (2015) employed in the sector, make the tourism and leisure in-dustry one of the most potent branches in Innsbruck (Landeshauptstadt Innsbruck, 2017). The self-proclaimed Capital City of the Alps brands itself through the exceptional mixture of alpine

urban experiences, the interwovenness of supposedly contrasting images, combining pastoral

landscapes with the excitement of the city:

Welcome to Innsbruck! Discover the sights and attractions of this holiday destination and enjoy a unique mix of alpine urban experiences – in a place where the mountains meet the valley and the city is one with nature. Explore the holiday villages in the sur-rounding area, from sunny alpine plateaus and wildly romantic mountaineering villages

to family-friendly oases of wellbeing. Perfect for winter holidays, ideal for summer hol-idays. A great range of leisure activities, cultural highlights and sports are on offer year round in Innsbruck and the surrounding area (Innsbruck Tourismus Tourist Office, 2017).

The alpine urban experience narrative is a carefully crafted city branding strategy, cre-ating appealing images of a city full of activity and excitement (Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2005). With an annual revenue of 8,4 billion Euros, tourism is the “driving economic force” (Wirtschaftskammer Tirol & MCI Tourismus, 2015, author’s translation) in the region of Tyrol. In Austria’s city tourism ranking, Innsbruck lists third, after Vienna and Salzburg (Landes-hauptstadt Innsbruck, 2017). The city’s marketing specifically supports the location Innsbruck because “Innsbruck must stand out from other cities, clearly define and communicate its pecu-liarities and unique features to be able to survive in this competition”(Innsbruck Marketing GmbH, 2017)1.

Since 2005, Innsbruck’s tourism association comprises the city and its surrounding vil-lages, a total of 25 municipalities, to strengthen the area through a collaborative strategy: “The city can offer the recreational facilities surrounding Innsbruck to its visitors, whereas the cul-tural offerings and events in the city are open to visitors of the surrounding communities” (Tirol Werbung & Haimayer Projektbegleitung, 2005)2. The strategy divides the region in four areas, according to their market potentials. In this model, focal points for Innsbruck are congresses, culture and business travel, with an emphasis on cultural highlights and events (ibid).

The alpine urban experience is the result of an intensive city branding process initiated in 2009, incorporating political and administrational boards, Innsbruck’s tourism office, the chamber of commerce, NGOs, advocacy groups, universities as well as cultural and sports or-ganizations (Innsbruck Marketing GmbH, 2017). The city’s brand is based on seven strategic success patterns, articulating “the city’s future identity, its characteristics and unique selling

1

Innsbruck muss sich von anderen Städten abheben, seine Besonderheiten und Alleinstellungsmerkmale klar darstellen und kommunizieren, um in diesem Wettbewerb bestehen zu können.

2

Die Stadt kann ihren Gästen das ganze Jahr über die Freizeiteinrichtungen rund um Innsbruck anbieten, wäh-rend den Gästen in den Umlandgemeinden das kulturelle Angebot und die Events in der Stadt offen stehen.

point in the competition” (Innsbruck Marketing GmbH, 2017)3. The branding strategy’s guid-ing narrative is defined as follows: “Innsbruck fascinates with alpine urban impressions and experiences and inspires an active, vital lifestyle” (ibid)4.

In addition to a focus on sports, education, healthy life, ecological excellence, and the alpine environment, the success patterns pulsating urban space and avant-gardist alpine

aes-thetics complete the strategy (ibid). The first is characterized by urban planning measures, such

as the alteration of the pedestrian zone and shopping street Maria-Theresien-Straße (Fig 3), its central shopping mall Kaufhaus Tyrol (designed by David Chipperfield) and the world’s biggest

Swarovski-shop in the Old Town, attracting affluent citizens and visitors. The latter is tied to

internationally renowned architecture, for instance Zaha Hadid’s Bergisel ski jump and Dominique Perrault’s Rathaus Galerien (Town Hall), which also includes a shopping mall and a four-star hotel (Fig 4) (Innsbruck Marketing GmbH, 2017).

In the globally competitive city tourism market, providing goods and services is not sufficient anymore, thus attractions are transformed into exciting experiences (Richards & Wil-son, 2006). As Kavaratzis and Ashworth (2005) note, “[t]he application of place marketing is largely dependent on the construction, communication and management of the city’s image, because, at its simplest, encounters between cities and their users take place through perceptions and images” (p. 507). This is also in accordance with Harvey’s observation of urban governance shifting from managerialism to entrepreneurialism (1989), in which he states that “the selling of the city as a location for activity depends heavily upon the creation of an attractive urban

3

Diese drückt aus, was genau die Identität der Stadt in Zukunft ausmachen soll, welche Besonderheiten und Al-leinstellungsmerkmale im Wettbewerb von Belang sind.

4

Innsbruck fasziniert mit alpin-urbanen Impressionen und Erlebnissen und inspiriert zu einem aktiven, vitalen Lebensstil.

Fig 3: Maria-Theresien-Straße, pedestrian zone and shopping street

imagery (p. 13)”. Growing national and local austerity and governments’ attraction to “market rationality and privatization” (Harvey, 1989, p. 5) are fostering factors of change, leading to the implementation of strategies aiming “to maximise the attractiveness of the local site as a lure for capitalist development” (ibid). Additionally, Harvey identifies the “declining powers of the nation state to control multinational money flows” (ibid) as a triggering factor, resulting in cities being forced to compete for said flows.

As the following examples illustrate, Innsbruck’s image creation is strongly tied to in-vestments in sports, signature architecture and sophisticated culture. The city has a considerable history in hosting sporting mega events, such as, amongst others, the Olympic Winter Games in 1964 and 1976, the first Youth Olympic Winter Games in 2012 and the annual snowboarding event Air & Style, which are the manifestation of the sports city Innsbruck. Furthermore, the city hosted three games of the UEFA EURO 2008 football tournament, expanded the local sta-dium’s stands for that purpose to then get the expansion removed again. The matter of expenses for that project amounted to 30,6 million Euros (Tivoli neu: Ein EM-Stadion auf Miete, 2006).

Besides the Bergisel ski jump, star architect Zaha Hadid also designed the two stations of the Hungerburgbahn funicular system (Fig 5), the physical manifestation of the urban and the alpine narrative, so to speak. The ride on the Hungerburgbahn and the connecting ropeway enable a traveler to reach the mountain peak from the city center in approximately twenty minutes.

The Hungerburgbahn project, realized as a public-private-partnership between the city of Innsbruck and private partners, such as the STRABAG construction group, cost approxi-mately 56,2 million Euros (Nindler, 2012). The project has been criticized for being highly speculative from many sides, most importantly the audit court, concluding that the Hungerburg

project was implemented merely based on rough cost estimate and insufficient forward plan-ning (ibid). This illustrates a textbook-example of Harvey’s three distinct characteristics of ur-ban entrepreneurialism:

The new urban entrepreneurialism typically rests, then, on a public-private partnership focusing on investment and economic development with the speculative construction of place rather than amelioration of conditions within a particular territory as its immediate (though by no means exclusive) political and economic goal (Harvey, 1989, p. 8).

In 2004, Innsbruck considered applying for European Capital of Culture 2009, which suggests increasing attention to “inter-urban competition” (Harvey, 1989, p. 10), acknowledged as a further characteristic of urban entrepreneurialism. After a drawback, due to arising skepti-cism and lacking time for a thoughtful application, mayor Hilde Zach highlighted Innsbruck’s increasing future importance in European cultural life and called for a “culture offensive” (Inns-bruck bewirbt sich nicht als Kulturhauptstadt 2009, 2004). The city provides a broad range of cultural offerings, reaching from the renowned Tiroler Landestheater (Tyrolian State Theater) (Fig 6) to numerous museums and the annual New Orleans Jazz Festival (Fig 7).

Currently, a giant construction site opposite the Hofburg (Imperial Palace), next to the State Theater and the Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum (Tyrolian Museum for Local Crafts) in the city center, gives a hint on the scope of Innsbruck’s latest project, the Haus der Musik (House of Music) (Fig 8), a 58-million-Euro project of which the city covers 25,4 million Euros (Inns-brucker Immobilien GmbH & Co KG, 2017). The House of Music is “simultaneously the last

component and foundation for Innsbruck’s cultural quarter” (Innsbrucker Immobilien GmbH & Co KG, 2017)5, as the State Theater’s director announced.

What is particularly interesting are the groups and institutions that soon will find a new home in the House of Music. The office of the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik (Fes-tival of Early Music), the Tiroler Symphonie Orchester Innsbruck (Tyrolian Symphony Orches-tra Innsbruck), the Kammerspiele Theater, several institutes of musical education and associa-tions dedicated to more traditional music, such as Tiroler Volksmusikverein (Tyrolian Alpine Folk Music Association), will bring life to it. As the website states, the House of Music is the realization of a place of encounter for artists, musicians, actors, teachers, students and music enthusiasts in Tyrol (ibid).

The choice of groups and institutions to move into the House of Music indicates that there is space for creative encounter in the city, but only for certain types of culture. In an interview, the manager of the cultural office explained that the Portuguese city of Porto’s new concert house – combining classical music and avant-garde music – is a valuable project for cultural encounter. To my question of why this was not attempted in the House of Music, she replied: “It’s full, with um- so, there is no space”6.

This decision-making process can also be interpreted as ostracizing certain types of cul-tural activity, connoted to attract audiences with less culcul-tural and/or economic capital (Bour-dieu, 1984). Mohr and DiMaggio (1995) connect cultural capital to “prestigious tastes, objects, or styles validated by centers of cultural authority, which maintain and disseminate standards of value and serve collectively to clarify and periodically revise the cultural currency” (p. 168).

5

Letzter Baustein und zugleich Fundament für Innsbrucks Kulturquartier: das Haus der Musik!

6

Das ist voll, mit ähm- also da ist kein Platz.

If the House of Music is a newly established one of such centers of cultural authority, the cul-tural producers finding space in the premises are then clearly higher appreciated then those excluded.

Given the above stated examples, it can be argued that the underlying cultural concept to Innsbruck’s investments, lionizing event and representational culture, follows a logic of mere “cultural consumption” (Richards & Wilson, 2006, p. 1209), which caters the “‘symbolic econ-omy’ of cities and regions” (ibid). Be it the entertainment factor of sporting spectacles or the visibility of iconic architecture, such as the projects realized by Zaha Hadid – the high-cost investments undertaken by the city orbit around the representability and marketability of the ventures. As regional governor Günther Platter commented on the most recent endeavor:

Tyrol is a region of culture. The House of Music will be another visible sign for the significance of culture and particularly music in our region (Mitterwachauer, 2014, em-phasis added)7.

The House of Music, located “at one of the most important hubs in the urban structure”, enables the emergence of a “new urban center, together with the State Theater, the Congress House, the Imperial Palace, the Court Church, the Museum for Local Crafts and the Univer-sity”, as architect Erich Strolz explains (Innsbrucker Immobilien GmbH & Co KG, 2017)8. A further dimension supporting the creation of this new urban center is the municipality’s plan to establish shared space, a limited traffic zone, in the area, which, according to the manager of the cultural office will create “an additional dimension”, which will also be “a challenge (…) for organizers and the creative scene in Innsbruck”9. The combination of Innsbruck’s medieval history and modern architecture is also promoted on the city’s website. Sightseeing in Inns-bruck, such as a stroll through the Old Town, enables visitors to “experience the exciting Middle

7_{Tirol ist ein Kulturland. Das ‚Haus der Musik‘ wird ein weiteres sichtbares Zeichen für den Stellenwert der}

Kultur und insbesondere der Musik in unserem Land sein.

8_{An einer der wichtigsten Schnittstellen im städtischen Gefüge entwickelt sich das Haus der Musik als offenes}

Haus. Der Platz fließt förmlich in das Gebäude hinein und gemeinsam mit dem Landestheater entsteht ein städte-bauliches Zentrum umgeben von Hofgarten, Kongresshaus, Hofburg, Hofkirche, Volkskunstmuseum und Uni-versität.

9

Ich glaub' das ist dann noch eine zusätzliche Dimension, die auch eine Herausforderung (...) an die Veranstalter und die kreative Szene überhaupt in Innsbruck.

Ages today”, but similarly allows them to see that “Innsbruck also welcomes the future” (Inns-bruck Tourismus Tourist Office, 2017). However, Inns(Inns-bruck’s history is a notable absence of the alpine urban narrative.

A point of discussion that needs to be highlighted here is that Innsbruck’s investments in the crafting of the alpine urban notion (which are removed from the city’s historical context) run the risk of creating urban enclosures, “the extension of the commodity form to every corner of the social factory” (Federici, 2010), sanctioned by a market-state relation, which can be char-acterized as “a tight alliance with a shared vision of technological progress, corporate domi-nance and ever-expanding economic growth and consumption” (Bollier, 2014, p. 16).

As Harvey (1989) elaborates, one possible option of urban entrepreneurialism is closely tied to the city’s attempt to increase its competitive power regarding the “spatial division of consumption” (p. 9), as the process of urbanization since the 1950s is strongly based on con-sumerism (Laermans, 1993). Laermans (1993) goes as far as to describe the city as a “sight of consumption” (p. 92). Even after the shock from the financial crisis, there is still enough con-sumer power present, resulting in a competition for it (Harvey, 1989). This, as Harvey argues, results in the issue that “consumers who do have the money have the opportunity to be much more discriminating” (1989, p. 9).

High-threshold access events defined by, for instance, high entrance fees and the luxury to have the time and money to “’dress up to go out’” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 267), can lead to the exclusion of less financially potent citizens. Here, it is useful to apply Bourdieu’s (1984) “modes of appropriation of the work of art” (p. 264-279), “expressing two opposite asset struc-tures” (p. 266), to understand the “nexus where culture and stratification meet” (Lizardo, 2008, p. 1). Giving the example of average prices paid for theater entrance in different class fractions, Bourdieu elaborates that

through the price they are willing to pay for access to a work of art, or, more precisely, through the relationship between the material cost and the expected ‘cultural’ benefit, each fraction expresses its conception of what specifically makes the value of the work of art and of the legitimate way of appropriating it (p. 266).

Lizardo (2008) draws on Bourdieu’s modes to sharpen distinctions between direct or

exclusive appropriation and indirect or symbolic appropriation (p. 4). The former “refers to the

capital” (ibid), the latter is “distinctive of class fractions that while having comparable levels of cultural capital lack the economic means to directly appropriate prestigious cultural works” (ibid). Indirect or symbolic appropriation, Lizardo argues, is “’non-rival’ since cultural works may be appropriated symbolically without claiming exclusive ownership over them” (ibid).

Innsbruck’s recent development around the alpine urban narrative, focusing on sports, architecture, highbrow culture and shopping opportunities, have strengthened the city as an economic site. “A clear image for economic success” (Landeshauptstadt Innsbruck, 2017), as the municipality’s website states:

In recent years, the urban character of the city has been further advanced. Starting from the first-class transport system, to numerous overnight stay, entertainment and shopping possibilities to the most modern sports and cultural facilities, such as the Berg-Isel ski jump, the Tivoli Stadium or the State Theater, Innsbruck leaves nothing to be desired (Landeshauptstadt Innsbruck, 2017)10.

However, Innsbruck’s alpine urban notion is only one possible story to tell. There is a noticeable number of subcultural scenes who critique this officially sanctioned narrative, which is striving to create an “artificial image as a global city” (Bravda, 2002)11_{. These subcultural}

groups, mostly springing from the 1970s onwards, counteracted the formation of a simplistic, “bourgeois – from conservative to reactionary culture” (ArchiveIT, 2017), marginalizing urban diversity. Subcultural movements in Innsbruck desire to create an “alternative to this mundane reality” (ibid)12. The imagination and realization of alternative spaces in Innsbruck follows a long history of struggle over accessible space for low-threshold cultural programming, still snookering independent culture into a degraded position within the city. This history of citizens organizing in collectives, trying to open up urban space and shaping it according to their needs, is a different story worth telling.

10_{Klares Profil für den wirtschaftlichen Erfolg:Ebenso ist in den letzten Jahren der urbane Charakter der Stadt}

immer weiter fortgeschritten. Angefangen vom erstklassigen Verkehrsnetz über zahlreiche Übernachtungs- Un-terhaltungs- und Einkaufsmöglichkeiten bis hin zu modernsten Sport- und Kulturanlagen wie etwa der Berg-Isel-Sprungschanze, dem Tivoli-Stadion oder dem Landestheater lässt Innsbruck kaum Wünsche offen. Dies, sowie die ebenfalls reichlich vorhandenen Grünflächen und Freizeiteinrichtungen in der Stadt, garantieren eine Lebens-qualität, wie sie nur selten vorzufinden ist.

11_{(…) ein künstliches Image als Weltstadt pflegen.}

12_{Wir orientieren uns an verschiedenen Szenen und deren Orten, die sich seit den 1950er Jahren herausgebildet}

haben, die erkämpft wurden mit dem Ziel, eine Kultur zu schaffen, die nicht bürgerlich – von konservativ bis reaktionär – ist, sondern eine Alternative zur alltäglichen Realität bierten soll.

3 “Help yourself, otherwise nobody will!”

- A History of Struggle over

Space.

There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in.

-- Leonard Cohen, Anthem.

Innsbruck’s way to success as a liveable, aesthetically pleasing and competitive city with nothing left to desire is a well-elaborated identity creation strategy, which “shall generate positive response from citizens and visitors and lead the brand to success” (Innsbruck Market-ing GmbH, 2017)14. However, as chapter 2 could present, the future identity of Innsbruck relies on heavy investments, and is mostly geared towards those who are ready to consume the city and its cultural offerings. ‘Pulsating’ urbanity is defined by shopping opportunities; cultural programming is focused on the mere consumption of such.

Conversely, there is a diverging notion of urbanity, which was depicted by an inter-viewee from the Bættlegroup for Art:

If you visit cities, admittedly you take away the [architectural] icons. But the things you perceive through the feet, the nose and the hearing, is exactly what is not so easy to convey. And this is actual urbanity – consisting of people, of social contacts, of life15.

Innsbruck’s vibrant independent cultural scene, organized in currently more than 70 cultural initiatives (TKI – Tiroler Kulturinitiativen / IG Kultur Tirol, 2017), is fighting to pre-serve this understanding of urbanity, creating a city according to their imagination. The man-ager of the cultural office, who herself was involved in the UTOPIA cultural center in the 1980s, described the alternative scenes as a “colorful meadow, (…) carrying a lot of potential, talent and creative drive”16. Citizens host concerts, exhibitions, lectures and poetry events, workshops and the like, in several hubs for alternative culture.

13_{Referring to the idiom “Hilf’ dir selbst, so hilft dir Gott” (Heaven helps those who help themselves), this was}

the underlying motto to occupations pursuing the goal to receive space for alternative cultural practices.

14_{Diese Erfolgsmuster prägen die Marke Innsbruck in Zukunft, sollen bei BürgerInnen und Gästen auf positive}

Resonanz stoßen und die Marke zum Erfolg führen.

15

Und wenn du in den Städten bist, dann nimmst zu zwar die Icons mit, aber das was du durch die Füße, die Nase, durch das Gehör wahrnimmst ist genau das nicht so leicht vermittelbare. Und das ist eigentlich die Urbani-tät. Die besteht aus Menschen, aus Sozialkontakten, aus Leben, und das ist UrbaniUrbani-tät.

16

(...) im Grunde es ist eigentlich eine bunte Wiese. (...) Ja, es ist glaube ich sehr viel Potenzial, sehr viel Talent, sehr viel Gestaltungswille da (...).

Before tracing Innsbruck’s subcultural history, which is essential for the understanding of how and why this strong independent cultural scene could develop, it is suggested to con-ceive these initiatives as practices of Do-it-Yourself (DIY) urbanism. In recent years, a growing movement of DIY urbanist activities in mainly the United States, Europe, and most recently Russia, is increasingly gaining attention (Enigbokan, 2015; Finn, 2014; LaFrombois, 2015; Talen, 2015). While the phenomenon of unofficial interventions in urban space is common practice in other parts of the world, like for instance street vending practices in Vietnam (Kim, 2012), DIY urbanism is generally presented as a modern, revolutionary phenomenon in “ad-vanced capitalist democracies” (Talen, 2015, p. 136).

There are various conceptions of contemporary DIY urbanism (Douglas, 2014; Finn, 2014; Talen, 2015), of which the most concise and comprising is LaFrombois’ definition (2015). She characterizes DIY urbanist practices as “unauthorised, grassroots, and citizen-led urban planning interventions that are small scale, functional, temporary, creative, and place specific; are focused on reclaiming and re-purposing urban spaces; and take place outside for-mal urban planning structures and systems” (p. 421, emphasis added). Attempts to locate the variegated practices of unofficial citizen-led intervention in urban space within the theory re-sulted in numerous different labels, like – amongst others – tactical urbanism, guerilla urban-ism, bottom-up urbanurban-ism, insurgent urbanurban-ism, grassroots urbanism or most recently pop-up urbanism (Finn, 2014; Talen, 2015; Sawhney et al., 2015). These umbrella terms are used to discuss various phenomena occurring in public space, ranging from graffiti and street art to urban gardening or skateboarders adapting urban space for their own purposes (Finn, 2014; LaFrombois, 2015). For most of these practices, it can be said that they are “innovative, sophis-ticated, and low-cost solutions to difficult or unaddressed urban problems” (Finn, 2014, p. 381). Instead of merely raising awareness of problems, the goal is to produce creative answers to urban issues, which remain unsatisfactorily addressed or generally neglected by the government and official planning programs (Finn, 2014).

For the most part, articles on DIY urbanism conceive it as temporal practices (LaFrom-bois, 2015; Talen, 2015) and discuss implications for urban planning, design and policy-making (Douglas, 2014; Finn, 2014; LaFrombois, 2015). In accordance with Enigbokan (2015), delin-eating DIY urbanism as “creative thought and action developed in parallel with official expert and institutional knowledge about the city” (p. 3), it is argued that it is useful to consider DIY urbanism from a discursive long-term perspective, because a defining trait of these initiatives is that they “hold at their heart a belief that change is possible despite economic or political obstacles, or disciplinary or institutional inertia” (Zeiger, 2011). As the following section will

show, citizen-led cultural initiatives emerge from the willingness to actively engage with the city, address place-specific urban problems and renegotiate their position within the city. Es-sentially, their practices produce alternative knowledge and thoughts about how we want to live in cities. As the following history will show, alternative subculture was for a long time not encouraged but antagonized by the city of Innsbruck. Repeatedly, collective initiatives man-aged to create spaces according to their needs and thus influenced the urban discourse.

Although Innsbruck’s subcultural and alternative roots can be traced back to the 1950s, this chapter will cover the history starting from the 1970s. This is because numerous diverse scenes and projects sprung from student and youth activities from that time (ArchiveIT, 2017). Most of the history presented here is based upon the collected material of the archival research project ArchiveIT – Subkulturarchiv Innsbruck, which was shown at the exhibition WIR //

HIER. Die sogenannte Subkultur (US // HERE. The so-called subculture) (2017), and the

web-site the group created. This chapter will not present an exhaustive description of localities of subcultural activity, but a selection of influential ones.

A crucial role for the local development of subcultural activity was played by the foun-dation of the KOMM (Alternative Center for Communications and Culture) in 1976, which originated from a local branch of the Österreichische Hochschülerschaft (Austrian Student Un-ion). The goals of KOMM were to raise awareness for social contexts and contradictions, show solidarity and support for marginalized groups and to organize active cultural and social code-termination and participation (Sanders & Haselwanter, 2010). KOMM furthermore served as a low-budget interim solution for Innsbruck’s first arthouse cinema Cinematograph. After host-ing several charity events, the cinema could move into its own premises in protest of the city’s refusal to license it due to ‘lack of demand’ (Otto Preminger-Institut, 2017). In the early 1980s, KOMM formed Arbeitsgruppe Wohnen (workgroup housing) to address the increasingly pre-carious housing situation in Innsbruck. In 1981, the group squatted a house to protest the spec-ulative housing policy in the city. Soon, the squat was evicted by the police.17 In 1985, KOMM was closed due to the pressure of the Christian-conservative student association

AktionsGe-meinschaft (Sanders & Haselwanter, 2010).

Norbert Pleifer, founder of KOMM, is still a key figure in Innsbruck’s independent cul-tural scene: since 1981, he has been managing the well-established culcul-tural center Treibhaus

17

Squatting reemerged in 2003 to 2005, when activists occupied Villa Kuntabunt, to create housing and living space.

(Green House), which he describes as a meeting space for all scenes and all social classes (Pleifer, 2016). Furthermore, he is known for his humorous commen-tary on local and national politics, for instance, when in 2012 he stuck obituary-like posters over expired city council election posters asking “Bitte keinen Schwarzen Bürgermeister” (“Please no ‘black’ mayor”, ‘black’ referring to the Austrian Christian-conservative Party ÖVP) (Fig 9). In an accompanying letter he explains: “Innsbruck muss far-big bleiben und bunt werden” (“Innsbruck needs to stay colored and needs to become colorful.”) (Norbert Pleifer sieht schwarz: Beken-nerschreiben und Bekenntnis, 2012). This is a particularly interesting case, as the Christian-conservative party was and sometimes still is one of the main obstacles the alternative and subcultural scene has to face.

For those who could not identify with the student cultural work of the KOMM, another left-wing cultural center, the autonomously run KOZ (Fig 10), existed in the years from 1977 to 1979 (Varano, Dornauer & Lampert, 2010; ArchiveIT, 2017). The program mostly consisted of political and cultural events, concerts and open bar service. Several work groups and initia-tives hosted meetings and events, one of which was the women’s forum. KOZ defined itself as an open house without formal structures and rules, attempting to translate democracy into prac-tice, living openness and tolerance. Over the course of time, the lacking organizational structure put an end to the cultural center (ArchiveIT, 2017).

The alternative-left scene and the emerging punk scene of the 1980s found itself in the

AKT club (Arbeitsgruppe Kreative Tätigkeit – Workgroup Creative Activity) (Fig 11). Besides

screening films and providing rehearsal rooms for musicians and artists, AKT was also used as

Fig 9: Poster Campaign, N. Pleifer (2012)

Fig 10: Editorial, Autonomous Cul-tural Center KOZ (1977-1979)

an event location for the HOSI Tirol (Homosexual Initiative Tyrol). AKT was forced to shut in 1987, after street riots between the police and punks as a result of hosting the annual Chaostage (Chaos Days) punk meeting. These riots marked Innsbruck’s biggest post-war police operation until this point in time (ArchiveIT, 2017; Varano, Dornauer & Lampert, 2010; Sanders & Haselwanter, 2010).

In the late 1980s, a group of approximately 20 young people created the Haus am Haven (referring to the German ‘harbor’ and the English haven) project (Fig 12) to fill a gap in Inns-bruck’s subcultural landscape.

They rented a vacant half-timber house on the edge of the city. Through a combination of a low budget, hard work and punk aesthetics from a spray can, one of Austria’s few subcul-tural centers was born. Haus am Haven hosted numerous events, provided rehearsal rooms, workshops and studios, explicitly set apart from commercialism and traditions. Moreover, be-tween 30 and 50 people lived in the premises. The governing ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party, Christian-Democratic) never considered Haus am Haven worth funding. Publicly, the cultural project was perceived as a “hotchpotch of drug addicts and homeless people” (ArchiveIT, 2017)18_{. Indeed, in the last years of its existence, the audience changed, and consumers of hard}

drugs increasingly used Haus am Haven. Despite several attempts to prevent its destruction (Fig 13), Haus am Haven was demolished in 1993, because an investment firm planned to build parking lots for coaches. Today, a commercial event location is located on the site (Alpen Punk, 2017; ArchiveIT, 2017; RicciBock, 2016).

18

(...) als ein Sammelsurium von Drogensüchtigen und Sandler_innen bekannt.

Fig 12: Haus am Haven (1989-1993) Fig 13: Protest ‘Innsbruck must remain Haven City at

From 1983 to 1995, the Traumwerkstatt (Dream Workshop) (Fig 14), an autonomous workshop project combining culture, social affairs and craftsmanship, rented out the premises of an old metalworking factory. The project could be realized due to funding confirmed by the social democratic minister for social affairs. After one and a half years, future funding was denied. Two members of the initiating collective continued the project on their own, which marked the beginning of the cultural center UTOPIA (Fig 15) (ArchiveIT, 2017). The shut-down of Haus am Haven and the closing of UTOPIA due to bankruptcy left the city in a state of subcultural vacuum.

In the early 2000s, the struggle over open spaces for alternative cultural activities reemerged (Fig 16). Several groups collaborated as p.m.k – Plattform Mobile Kulturinitiativen (Platform Mobile Cultural Initiatives) to develop a concept for a separate location, comprising an office and event location for approximately 300 people, aiming to create an interdisciplinary network to share resources. City, region and state agreed to invest, but the search for a suitable location was unsuccessful. As a makeshift, a construction trailer served as office and commu-nication hub. In the summer of 2001, a street parade “Offen und Herrlich” (Open and Wonder-ful) was organized to protest the lacking open spaces for cultural presentation and production. Flyers claimed “produktiv und obdachlos. Wir brauchen einen Ort” (productive and homeless. We need a location) (Plattform Mobile Kulturinitiativen – p.m.k, 2017). Finally, when in the winter of the same year the collective could find a location, city and region asked for a detailed concept including a cost report. After constructive collaboration, the municipality refused to provide funding, the region of Tyrol would only invest with the city involved. Again, the activ-ists’ endeavors remained unsuccessful.

The struggle reached a peak, when in November 2002 a group of artists (including p.m.k) and residents occupied the Minatti-Halle (Fig 17), a former factory hall. After the years of failed negotiations about space for alternative culture between the activists and the munici-pality, predominantly with mayor Hilde Zach, the occupation was planned as a desperate at-tempt to finally be heard (Bravda, 2003; Plattform Mobile Kulturinitiativen – p.m.k, 2017). In a statement, the group articulated their motivations and concerns, outspokenly disagreeing with the municipality’s urban redevelopment strategy:

The city can continue to build multi-million glass palaces and to create an artificial im-age as a global city. But global cities are not just characterized by prestigious monu-ments and shopping malls, but predominantly by a diverse cultural life (Cultural Broad-casting Archive, 2017)19_.

Mayor Zach, followed by the local media, came to see the occupation, which led to a heated discussion between the diverging parties. Zach repeatedly promised to support projects: “I notice that the scene insists on receiving something [a separate location]. And I didn’t state otherwise. And I don’t push away anything [responsibility]. I am ready for negotiations, and I also said, that we [the city] are going to support individual projects” (Zzapp TV Tirol, 2015)20_.

However, the activists struggled not only for financial support for small projects, but also for

19

Die Stadt kann ruhig weiterhin millionenschwere Glaspaläste bauen und ein künstliches Image als Weltstadt pflegen. Weltstädte verfügen aber nicht nur über Prestigebauten und Einkaufszentren sondern vor allem über ein vielfältiges kulturelles Leben.

20_{Ich nehme zur Kenntnis, dass die Szene darauf besteht, Etwas zu bekommen. Und was ich jetzt gesagt habe,}

war nichts Anderes, und ich schiebe nichts ab! Ich bin zu Gesprächen bereit, ich habe auch gesagt, dass wir die einzelnen Projekte (…) weiter unterstützt werden.

Fig 16: Banner “long live subculture” on the city tower in the old town. The cultural office is located in the city tower. (December 06, 2002)

Fig 17: Occupation of Minatti factory hall “Culture needs space” (November 2002)

their own free space, where artistic expression could take place at any time. Belying Zach’s promise, the occupation was evicted by a special unit of the police the following morning (ibid).

In spring 2003, the troublesome negotiations finally led to the realization of the p.m.k (Fig 18), an event location conceptualized as an umbrella association and network, which pro-vides infrastructure and public relations for around 30 associations to host events at low cost. The program predominantly consists of concerts ranging from hardcore and punk rock to hip-hop, including local and international bands (Plattform Mobile Kulturinitiativen – p.m.k, 2017).

Starting from the late 1960s, after years of Christian-democratic supremacy, the local government became more liberal. The increasing number of seats of the Green party concur-rently with disaffiliations in the Christian-democratic party21 led to a more open political culture in Innsbruck. As a key event, amendments on the law for the promotion of culture have affected the abovementioned movements so that they became more successful over the course of time. As stated by a member of the Bættlegroup for Art: “Only starting from the 1960s, espe-cially with the amendments on the law for the promotion of culture, alternative culture was made possible in the first place. From 1945 to 1965, it [the law] was focused on traditional culture and contemporary, alternative … howsoever …culture was not considered worthy of promotion”22. Furthermore, the interviewee characterized the above illustrated resistance

21

In 1994, governing mayor Niescher, former ÖVP, founded the local electoral list Für Innsbruck (FI – For Innsbruck), which broke ÖVP’s supremacy. Since then, FI overtook the majority of the seats in the local council (Landeshauptstadt Innsbruck, 2017a).

22

Ähm, wo bis zu einem gewissen Grad ab den 1960er-Jahren das erst möglich gemacht wurde, dass alternative Kultur ... nicht im Sinne unseres heutigen Begriffs, aber ... möglich gemacht wurde, auch durch die Änderungen des Kulturfördergesetzes. 1945 - 1965 was das hauptsächlich Traditionskultur und zeitgenössische, alternative ... wie auch immer ... war die Kultur ja gar nicht förderwürdig.

movements starting from the 1970s as “the nutrient fluid and the beginning of Innsbruck’s awakening”23.

Most certainly, the lively history of bottom-up initiatives struggling over the creation, use and accessibility of public spaces created the necessary preconditions for the very active contemporary independent scene. In 2004, the Bættlegroup for Art, an advocacy group consist-ing of different actors of independent cultural scenes, started a poster campaign, demandconsist-ing payment for cultural work (Fig 19). They initiated a collective dialogue between the independ-ent cultural scenes and the municipality to negotiate cultural concepts, articulate problem areas the cultural scene had to face and offer possible solutions. In 2006/2007, as a reaction to mayor Zach’s call for a culture offensive, the group conducted the city-funded research project Bættle

research24_{, to evaluate the sentiments and situation of Innsbruck’s cultural initiatives. The}

re-sults – a map (Fig 20) illustrating the network and variety of the scene and a handbook express-ing the relevance of independent cultural work – showed that there is a lack of low-threshold access space for alternative culture as well as insufficient financial support from the municipal-ity.

Resulting from working conferences and the research project, the local government made concessions in 2008 and implemented stadt_potenziale (city_potentials), an annual

23

Ich sag' jetzt einmal, in meiner derzeitigen Recherche, was die 1970er-Jahre betrifft ... ist die Nährflüssigkeit und der Beginn ... eigentlich dieses Aufbruchs in den 1970er-Jahren in Innsbruck.

24 _{The research project comprised 77 surveys with cultural initiatives as well as 21 interviews with artists and}

cultural experts (Bættlegroup for Art, 2007).

Fig 19: Campaign "Culture is Work. Work deserves Money", Bættlegroup for Art

Fig 20: Map of Innsbruck's cultural initi-atives, Bættlegroup for Art

pulse-giving fund for new alternative cultural projects, dealing with cities in general or Inns-bruck specifically: “Above all, the jury needs to respect activities and projects, which approach important aspects and questions of contemporary urban life in an innovative and high-quality manner” (Bættlegroup for Art, 2017)25. A recent example for such a ‘high-quality’ project is

Birdlab-Mapping Waltherpark Realities (funding: 13,800 Euros) by the cultural association Vogelweide. This association aims to invigorate the use of the public park Waltherpark through

cultural programming, such as lectures and concerts. The project aims to “deconstruct tempo-rary use of public space through experiments, ranging from qualitative-innovative urban and socio-spatial research and experimental, artistic activities” (Bættlegroup for Art, 2017)26. Wal-therpark and the surrounding district St. Nikolaus have been involved in the participatory neigh-borhood-development project Anpruggen. Mayor Oppitz-Plörer stated: „The work of citizens is highly relevant for municipal policy. We will do our utmost to realize suggestions and wishes” (Stadt Innsbruck, 2014)27.

A second project, which was accepted for stadt_potenziale funding is Home Taping is

Killing Music (funding: 10,000 Euros), which is dedicated to the history of the audio cassette,

focusing on its local and global relevance for DIY music recording. The project plans to host two exhibitions at die Bäckerei, one dealing with the cultural history of the Walkman, the other reviews Innsbruck’s cassette paper SFI, which existed in the years from 1986 to 1991 (Bættle-group for Art, 2017). The two given examples show the broad spectrum of topics and interests of projects applying for funding.

With an initial amount of 70,000 Euros, stadt_potenziale was expanded to 100,000 Eu-ros in 2013. Recently, the budget was cut back to 70,000 EuEu-ros again, because there have not been enough of such ‘high-quality’ projects, as the cultural office manager explained:

I: If you say, the city appreciates the free cultural scene and their work, then isn’t that [70,000 Euros] rather a drop in the ocean?

25_{Die Jury hat bei ihrer Auswahl vor allem auf Arbeiten und Projekte zu achten, die innovativ und qualitätvoll}

wichtige Aspekte und Fragen des heutigen städtischen Lebens bearbeiten.

26

(...) versucht, das Thema der temporären Aneignung von öffentlichen Raum mit Experimenten zu dekonstru-ieren, die sich zwischen qualitativ innovativer Stadt- und Sozialraumforschung und experimentell künstlerischer Arbeit bewegen.

27

Die Arbeit der Bürgerinnen und Bürger Anpruggens ist für die Stadtpolitik von großer Bedeutung. Wir wer-den weiterhin unser Möglichstes tun, die Anregungen und Wünsche in die Tat umzusetzen.

R: No, I don’t think so, because you can’t make culture, and even less art, at the push of a button…every year, so to speak, reinvent themselves. A lot of things exist already, and we furthermore noticed, also from feedback from the juries, that the 100,000 Euros hardly- ... that there are not as many good projects, to fully max out the 100,000 Euros28.

The 30,000 Euros, she further clarified, are now part of the city’s cultural development and funding budget (Fig 21) which funds projects from stadt_potenziale and other independent cultural projects and initiatives, traditional cultural associations as well as projects from large cultural establishments, such as the Tyrolean State Theater (Landeshauptstadt Innsbruck: 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2016).

Fig 21: Cultural Development and Funding (2012-2016), created by the author

The Bættlegroup for Art is still active, claiming there is not enough funding, which especially hinders new initiatives to develop. As possible reasons for the insufficient funding and support, they mentioned saving resources as well as diverging concepts of culture within the free cultural scenes and the municipality. Repeatedly, the city’s focus on event and repre-sentational culture, the visibility of investments and the ephemeral character of such cultural

28_{I: Wenn Sie sagen, es gibt schon diese Wertschätzung der Stadt gegenüber der freien Szene, was die da macht,}

dann ist das ja schon eher ein Tropfen auf den heißen Stein, oder nicht?

R: Nein, das glaube ich nicht. Weil man Kultur, und Kunst schon gar nicht, auf Knopfdruck machen kann. Jedes Jahr sozusagen, sich neu erfinden kann. Vieles gibt es schon, und wir haben auch aufgrund von Rückmeldungen der Jurys festgestellt, dass die 100.000 Euro gar nicht- dass gar nicht so viele gute Projekte vorliegen, dass sie die 100.000 Euro ausschöpfen würden.

programming was emphasized. Furthermore, the detrimental effects of Innsbruck’s alpine ur-ban narrative on independent cultural initiatives have been highlighted by a member of the Bættlegroup for Art:

What I perceive is this marketization of the city and the region. I have the feeling that brand development organizations are significant. I experience Innsbruck sticking to the alpine urban as a marketing attempt. For the cultural field, this means that the value of a lot of things is not perceived anymore29.

The overall cultural concept of the independent cultural activists, based on interviews and informal personal conversations with different representatives, is characterized by a trian-gle of education, culture and arts, aiming at long-term effects on society, as arts and culture are understood as an integral part of society. It was also mentioned that cultural projects should – directly or indirectly – comment on the contemporary political development. Moreover, pro-gramming should provide low-threshold access to guarantee the inclusion of a diverse audience. Rather than the mere consumption of culture, they take a participatory, decommodified, low-threshold approach to cultural programming. Open, liberal and alternative concepts are under-stood to the mainstream cultural program in Innsbruck as providing space for playful experi-ments for social and cultural exchange.

These diverging approaches to culture are key to understand the underlying issues to the conflicts illustrated here. As chapter 2 depicted, the municipality of Innsbruck approaches

cul-ture as a product, whereas the free cultural scenes conceive culcul-ture as a process (Van der Borg

& Russo, 2005). The former “raises relevant questions regarding the production, the consump-tion and the economic value of culture as well as the instrumental use of culture as a tool for urban regeneration and place marketing” (Lavanga as cited in Van der Borg & Russo, 2005, p. 11), whereas the latter “hints at creative thinking leading to distinctive patterns of social organ-isation and economic growth” (ibid). Culture as a product deals with the more tangible aspects to culture, while culture as a process conceptualizes its intangible features (Van der Borg & Russo, 2005).

29

Was ich auch wahrnehme ist auch diese Marketisierung von Stadt und Land. Ich hab' so das Gefühl, maßgeb-lich sind Markentwicklungsorganisationen. Also ich erlebe Innsbruck, dass sie sich auf dieses alpin-urban fest-setzen, und versuchen, Marketing zu machen. Und im kulturellen Feld bedeutet das dann, dass vieles nicht mehr wahrgenommen wird in der Bedeutung.

As it became apparent in the interview with the cultural office manager, stadt_potenziale is considered a budget for smaller experiments, whereas already established, bigger independ-ent cultural cindepend-enters receive a three-year-contract: “The criterion to be accepted [for such a con-tract] is that [the association] provided year-round cultural work for the last three years and received annual funding of 30,000 Euros”30.

This can be problematic, especially concerning the development of new initiatives, who aim to reach beyond the organization of smaller projects. The criteria for a three-year-contract imply that cultural initiatives first need to assert their position for three years in order to be sufficiently funded, which consequently enables longer-term planning. Hence, the three-year-contract model marginalizes new initiatives and puts the already well-established and experi-enced organizers into a more privileged position.

Since a couple of years, the Bættlegroup for Art faces a new challenge. I was informed that former mayor Hilde Zach always showed willingness to negotiate, which was essential for the strength of the advocacy group. Now, the group stated that Innsbruck’s current mayor Chris-tine Oppitz-Plörer shows little inclination to discuss the issues the free cultural scenes have to face, although the municipality’s policy convention for the term of office from 2012 to 2018 explicitly states otherwise. A measure defined in the document aims to “continue and expand the commenced dialogue with artists and cultural workers”31 (Landeshauptstadt Innsbruck, 2012a).

Additionally, they struggle with the lack of appreciation for independent cultural work on the part of the municipality. This lack of appreciation for their work and the added value of resisting and less conform cultural practices for the urban discourse was repeatedly mentioned in the interview. Besides the Bættlegroup for Art criticizing the lack of subjective, nonnumeric price-based evaluation by the local government, they furthermore addressed the issue of lacking visibility of the activities of the free cultural initiatives. As became apparent in the conversation with the cultural office, the manager is aware of the latter problem. To increase the visibility of alternative cultural work, there is the attempt to create an interdisciplinary shared agenda of some sort. Seemingly, there are disagreements appearing in the negotiations between the cul-tural office and the Bættlegroup for Art. As I was informed by the manager of the culcul-tural

30_{Das Kriterium neu aufgenommen zu werden ist, dass man in den letzten drei Jahren kontinuierlich,}

jahres-durchgängig Kulturarbeit geleistet hat und dass man eine Jahresförderung von 30.000 Euro bekommen hat.

office, questions about what this shared agenda should look like (online and/or offline), which initiatives should be in the agenda, and who decides whom to include are the main obstacles to finding a consensus. According to the Bættlegroup for Art, the discursive discrepancies illus-trated here hinder the development of new initiatives with a broader impact on the city.

3.1 Case Description: Die Bäckerei

The last collective bigger in magnitude is die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube (the Bakery – cultural Bakery), which has been enriching the city’s independent cultural landscape since 2010. Die Bäckerei emerged from a citizen’s initiative as a response to the still existing lack of accessible space for public cultural and social exchange. Initially, the project was limited as a five-year experiment in the old premises of a traditional bakery, which the collective could use rent-free for the five-year period. The modification and renovation of the premises of the old bakery were realized by the initiators themselves, at low-cost and comprised the idea of recy-cling existing resources. The decision to raise a credit enabled the development of an initiative conceptualized as open space with no hierarchies.

This organizational structure can theoretically be framed within horizontalism, or

hori-zontalidad, a political concept which “implies democratic communication on a level plane and

involves – or at least intentionally strives towards – non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian cre-ation rather than reaction. It is a break with vertical ways of organizing and relating” (Marina Sitrin as cited in Nail, 2013, p. 22). Despite this, the team of die Bäckerei do not characterize themselves as horizontalist, this is rather a possible theoretical framework which can be applied to describe the conceptual idea die Bäckerei is based on. Chapter 4 will elaborate on how this concept is organized and sustained in the day-to-day practices of die Bäckerei.

Die Bäckerei coordinates up to five different events per day. Regular concerts, and par-ticipatory formats such as sing-a-long and dance-a-long sessions are examples for music events. Lectures, political and philosophical discussions and a monthly changing art exhibition are in-tegral parts of the agenda. One flagship event is the monthly Bäckerei Poetry Slam (Fig 22), where up to 350 spoken-word enthusiasts squeeze themselves into the venue that has long be-come too small.

Furthermore, the collective die bikerei – open bike repair workshop (Fig 23) finds its place in die Bäckerei. Every Tuesday, they provide tools and knowledge to amateur DIY-bike mechanics. On the roof, die Bäckerei established a community garden for interested hobby gardeners from the close and wider neighborhood (Fig 24). Die Bäckerei provides its premises for different collectives, one of which is WerkStatt Couch (Fig 25), a DIT (Do-it-Together) workshop, which is a (wood-) working space where people can act out their creativity and de-velop their skills together. Due to a shortage of space at the original location, they rented addi-tional space in a different district, which is also shared with carpenters and designers (Die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube, 2015).

In traditional DIY urbanist manner, die Bäckerei also contributed to Park(ing) Day (Fig 26), DIY urbanism’s annual holiday, so to speak. “Park(ing) Day is an annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into’PARK(ing)’ spaces: temporary public places” (Rebar Group, 2017). Ini-tially started in 2005 by artist-activist group Rebar in San Francisco, Park(ing) Day spread out globally with the aim to “challenge existing notions of public urban space and empower people to help redefine space to suit specific community needs” (Rebar Group, 2017).

Fig 22: Die Bäckerei Poetry Slam