Ta številka Časopisa za kritiko znanosti je posvečena AKC Metelkova mesto (v nadaljevanju večinoma zgolj Metelkova, op. a.). Ideja zanjo se je porodila ob spoznanju, da jeseni 2013 mineva dvajset let od zasedbe dela kompleksa nekdanje vojašnice, njeno izhodišče pa je zelo jasna in temeljna potreba metelkovske skupnosti – pa tudi širše skupnosti, ki aktivno soustvarja avtonomne prostore pri nas – po novem krogu razmišljanja o Metelkovi in njeni umeščenosti v današnji družbeni kontekst. Ambicija snovalcev številke je bila skromna: razmisliti o različnih vidikih turbulentne zgodbe o Metelkovi, kakršna je ta oziroma se kaže danes, s čimer naj bi pripomogli k temu, da bo njena prihodnost čim bolj izhajala tako iz potreb njenih današnjih in bodočih uporabnic in uporabnikov kot iz potreb širše skupnosti, v katero je vpeta Metelkova. Dodatno izhodišče pri pripravi te številke je bila teza, da konceptualizacije o Metelkovi, ki smo jih podedovali, niso (več) uporabne: zamenjali so se ljudje, spremenile so se splošne družbene okoliščine, predvsem pa je današnja realnost Metelkove drugačna od vizij, ki jih je kdorkoli od vpletenih imel ob njenih začetkih. Danes Metelkova ni niti najlepši geto na svetu niti živahen inkubator kooperativ, temveč nadvse heterogen in pogosto protisloven mozaik prostorov, ljudi in projektov. Marsikaj, kar je bilo v teh dvajsetih letih zapisano, je treba znova premisliti, po drugi strani pa so tok časa, novi ljudje in vsakdanja praksa prinesli tudi nove koncepte in trenja, ki jih je treba šele umestiti v širše družbene procese. Snovalce te številke je vodilo zavedanje, da je Metelkova skozi ves čas svojega obstoja nenehno predmet različnih bolj ali pa manj odtujenih študij in raziskav, hkrati pa tudi lahek in priročen plen na eni strani najrazličnejših predsodkov in bizarnih predstav ter na drugi strani utopičnih projekcij in fantazij. Ti razmisleki so pripeljali do špekulacije, da bi se, če bi proces nastajanja te številke vsaj na neki ravni postal kolektivne narave, utegnil izogniti omenjenim čerem in pripeljati do uporabnih novih pogledov in konceptualizacij. Zdaj, ko je ta proces pri koncu, je mogoče suvereno reči, da je bil korak naprej narejen, še vedno pa velja, da gre pri tej številki Časopisa za kritiko znanosti bolj kot za nek ultimativni nabor analiz in refleksij za enega številnih posamičnih momentov nenehne diskusije v avtonomnih prostorih, ki bo svoje polne učinke šele razvil skozi burne polemike, nove zamere in konflikte, ki šele pridejo.
In some circles in Slovenia the name Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova City is considered to be almost a synonym of squatting. Although Metelkova was not the first public squat, it definitely remains the oldest of those still around. Drawing comparisons with the international squatting movement, the squatter community in Metelkova is analyzed on different levels: to what extent it nurtures the culture of squatting, and what was and remains the role that Metelkova plays in a wider Slovenian context in terms of developing and sustaining the squatting culture. The article ends with the conclusion that the squatter movement in Metelkova (and elsewhere in Slovenia) has so far failed to fully develop, nurture and maintain strict guidelines and principles, and that this can be attributed to the lack of squatting tradition, the large number of people involved in the project, and the internal division among them on the legalization issue.
After twenty years the establishment still does not recognize Metelkova City as one of the most important centers of alternative culture. Correspondingly, the alternative scene is still viewed as »underdeveloped« or merely as »undeveloped mainstream culture.« Something that can, in the best-case scenario, aspire to develop into an ideologically aligned established culture. The perspective of a »not yet« Metelkova is not problematic due to economic and real estate interests but because of a wider ideological inadequacy, which is expressed also through continuous gentrification attempts. Metelkova is one of the last defense lines of diverse cultural and production modes in the area.
For the last twenty years the protagonists of the ACC Metelkova City have been transforming its public space and the façades of the buildings by architectural, constructional, artistic and handcraft interventions, thus creating a unique kind of gesamtkunstwerk. The article focuses on the key points of the construction process and its contextualization in a broader historical, social, political and cultural context, thus aiming to define the constitutive elements of artistic practices and procedures of setting up the Metelkova artists’ community. The article highlights the necessity to perceive the entire area as a work-in-progress, with individual segments sometimes disappearing or gradually overlapping with other interventions, and with a number of elements that from the very beginning were meant to be only temporary. This principle, in contrast to the traditional understanding of cultural heritage preservation, appears to be crucial.
Starting from the fact that the idea of autonomy appears in the very name of Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova City, the article on the one hand outlines the general concept of autonomy in the field of art and the conditions that made its emergence possible, while on the other hand it delves into the particularities of autonomy that is characteristic of Metelkova. Inasmuch as the latter is known to possess a subcultural or alternative character, it is necessary to clearly define the practices that correspond to this characterization. It is argued that a practice can be understood as alternative only if it aims to annul the existing social relations. An alternative practice also cannot be deemed autonomous without doing away with both the concept of authorship as well as the notion of a work of art being a finalized singular product.
The article deals with the spatial issue of Metelkova City, the urban complex situated in the city of Ljubljana. Comparing its northern and southern part, the article focuses on the aesthetics of space, having in mind obvious contrasts of regulation/use and political connotations of squatting in the northern part where Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova City is located. Following this, my video intervention is presented at the same venue where it happened, eight years before the writing of this text. In the light of that intervention, which should set a temporary situation of symbolic occupation of the mainstream’s part of the complex, I aim to open a space of reflection of the representation phenomenon that can be put into service of either neutralization or resistance as an open process.
Gentrifikatorji, odjebite!
Za agente marketinških agencij, mlade podjetneže in povzpetnike kreativnih industrij, ki ne utegnejo prebrati izjave v celoti, ker nemara za branje nimajo časa (verjetno ga za branje prav veliko niso niti tratili), saj lahko svoj čas bolje unovčijo s parazitskim izčrpavanjem tujih znanj, spretnosti in invencij ter vzpenjanjem v naročnikov anus, smo izjavo, kolikor je mogoče na kratko, povzeli že v naslovu.
The article deals with the development of the gay and lesbian scene in ACC Metelkova, while specifying the preliminary aspects of establishing and building gay and lesbian activism associated with spatial issues. The struggle for space or occupying public space is vital for the gay and lesbian scene, as it provides not only the necessary socializing opportunities for gays and lesbians, but also does away with the historical hiding of homosexuality in the closet, in seclusion and silence. Because of their autonomy and long-term, continuous existence, homo-clubs at Metelkova contributed to the consolidation of the gay and lesbian scene in Slovenia and significantly improved the opportunities for cultural, social and political expression of gays and lesbians. Such a synthesis of the cultural, social and political, further intensified in Metelkova, and characterizes the gay and lesbian community in Slovenia from the very outset of gay and lesbian activism in 1984. It is this long-term synthesis that keeps this community in Slovenia so vital and politically resilient.
The YHD group (Youth Handicapped Deprivileged) was shaped from the need of young disabled students who wanted to taste freedom and independence. Through revolt, persistence and thirst for answers, the informal movement Youth Handicapped Deprivileged was established. It was later transformed into YHD – Association for Theory and Culture of Handicap. YHD found a home in ACC Metelkova and has stayed there for 20 years. The theory of handicap and revolt against medical comprehension of disability are the principal guidelines to which the Associations’ projects and actions adhere. Other associations for disabled people are centered around medical diagnoses of its members, whereas YDH aims to bring about positive changes concerning the position of handicapped people in the society. For YHD, disability is a social status and not a characteristic of the body or a mental condition, difficulty or »special need«. YHD rejects a pre-written script for the lives of the disabled.
The Metelkova project is (was) a socio-political position: Interview with Andrej Morović
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For ten years Andrej Morović was one of the key people of the Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova. In the end of the 90s, he strongly influenced the shaping and transformation of Metelkova from the ruins into a relevant social space for Southeastern Europe. In the interview, he touches upon performance, construction, art, finances, art and political projects of Metelkova City.
The article deals with nomadic journeymen and journeywomen from the German guild Axt und Kelle and with their encounter with Metelkova. At the outset, the historical trajectory of German guilds, the constitution of Axt und Kelle and the custom of tramping artisans (i.e., walz) are highlighted. The hypothesis that Axt und Kelle make use of re-appropriated spaces (i.e., squats) either as a sporadic proactive clientele or they choose such spaces as their annual summer solidarity work camps is defended on a twofold basis: firstly, squats are considered and constructed as a substitute of the previously guaranteed houses of call (i.e., herberge) by the classical guilds. Secondly, the guild intentionally constituted itself as a political subject with the mission of empowering communities in resistance. ACC Metelkova City was chosen as a solidarity work camp twice in the early and mid-00s when many emblematic interiors and exteriors were created. Focusing on the non-instrumentalized (own) production of knowledge, exchange of experiences and outwardly oriented distribution, the article views the reciprocal interaction between ACC Metelkova City and Axt und Kelle through Mauss’s theory of the gift.
The comic strip deals with Metelkova City and the authorities whatever their political alignment who have been always engaged in dialogue. Occasionally, this dialogue was more stressed, and sometimes it was covered in layers of ambiguity. The discussions between the representatives of ACC Metelkova City and the authorities did not always end with a clear, precise and straightforward conclusion.
Avtonomni kulturni center Metelkova mesto te dni praznuje svojo 19. obletnico. Kar se je davnega 10. septembra 1993 začelo kot reševanje prostorske stiske za množico kulturnih in civilnodružbenih dejavnosti oziroma zaščita spraznjene vojašnice pred uničevalno samovoljo mestne oblasti, se je sčasoma razvilo v edinstven prostorski in socialni eksperiment, katerega pomen je že davno prerasel mestne ali državne okvire. Metelkova mesto je danes dodobra uveljavljena in nepogrešljiva – v ponos premnogim doma in po svetu.
The article identifies the differences between that which produces normality and is destructive to the otherness, and that which deconstructs the former and produces the latter in the case of Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova City. It also delves into the question how to act upon and make (our) world meaningful under the conditions of the present neoliberal market-oriented time and services, and in the era that is essentially characterized by the creative industries and hastened withdrawal of the state from the public sphere. Is it possible in this context to recognize the cultural economy of ACC Metelkova City as merely a duplication of the socially dominant production mode that in effect prevents any autonomous model to evolve? The premise of the article is that we have to clearly differentiate between independent culture and autonomous culture, and monitor both at ACC Metelkova City. The fundamental question is how to incorporate holistic relations of productions within a limited territory into a respective legal order that would not determine the conditions of different production processes itself.
Protests against neoliberal reforms implemented by the ruling elite, which took place in Slovenia during the winter of 2012/13, created a public space for reflection on the concept of direct democracy. In the context of very different approaches and conceptions of direct democracy that have appeared within the protest movement, the need for outlining the field of direct democracy arose as a matter of political necessity. The article argues that any discussion on this topic should be based on the perspective of broadening the sphere of basic human rights. Thus we need to pursue and develop direct co-decision-making through deliberative forms inside particular communities. ACC Metelkova City is an example of a political community that develops and applies certain elements of direct participation and represents an important political experiment, as well as object of research.
The article examines the politics of autonomous spaces. We understand their narration of resistance in the context of ongoing movement against the dominant social order. The existence of autonomous spaces enables people to build social relationships that fundamentally differ from those that are dominant in a society in general, and also at the same time to generate different subversive practices. In the present article, it is argued that autonomous spaces should be understood merely as potential spaces of this subversion inasmuch as its realization depends on the always-ongoing reflection of their own practices. ACC Metelkova is understood as one of such spaces of potentiality or cracks in the struggle against the capitalist system. The state and the capital are trying to discipline, normalize and subdue Metelkova through different mechanisms examined in the article. It is argued that Metelkova needs to remain heterogeneous, since it is vital for effective resistance against the processes of normalization.
The article highlights the significance of autonomous spaces. Instituting autonomous spaces and working in them is usually a contradictory and multidimensional process that has a plethora of different effects for those involved, ranging from exceptionally positive to extremely frustrating ones. My experiences derive from collaboration in various liberated spaces in Ljubljana, mostly in the Rog Social Center and Boj Za, an occupied square in front of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, and at the same time from my role of a user of ACC Metelkova. The methodology is based on a form of participant observation in specific types of autonomous spaces that strive towards openness, horizontality, non-profit and inclusion. Being fully aware that generalizations are possible only to a certain extent as each space is characterized by a multitude of experiences and ideas, I still believe that we can address some thoughts or even misunderstandings shared by people active in both autonomous space as well as in wider public. Mostly those that are usually absent in comparable texts as they are considered too trivial, even though they frequently impede daily practices in autonomous spaces and their development.
Navigating the North-West Passage: Metelkova as a Space of Autonomous Politics in the Middle of Social Devastation
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At the spatial and social intersection of global processes driven by capital and twenty years after the occupation of former barracks, Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova City is – taking into account the entire legacy of its specific trajectory – confronted with a challenge to once more recognize how those processes are being daily manifested in practice through the encounters with powers-that-be on the one hand and through the dynamics of its courtyards, clubs and other spaces. General social devastation that is the result of a neoliberal assault on society also confronts autonomous spaces with a fundamental question: what can be their role in this ever-greater destruction? Can these places function as organizational nodes for the needs of the new social margin? What would this mean in practice?
Improvisation on Theme 93/13: Orientation of a Precarious Musician in the New Global Order
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The article discusses several aspects of massive cultural infrastructure developments, especially those devoted to the so-called independent culture, in Ljubljana. These took place two decades after the squatting of former military barracks in the city center and its transformation into the alternative Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova City (19932013). It pays special attention to the urban-planning and cultural policies of urban regeneration of several city parts, especially in regard to construction of cultural and creative districts in Ljubljana, in which also ACC Metelkova City is (potentially) situated. In its second part the article attempts to detect, by exemplifying certain events and practices of different stakeholders, an ambivalent character of ACC Metelkova City in particular, and of the cultural and arts sphere in Ljubljana in general, in the overlapping points of two discursive complexes in conceptions: of liminality and creative destruction.
Rather than a scientific text, the author contributes a concise memorandum from the originator of the idea who has managed the campaign for the conversion of the military barracks into a creative cluster between 1988 and 2002, when he parted ways with Metelkova due to conflicting views on the center’s future. His views shed light on a distant period of time from a perspective of a participant–observer. The information is abundantly supported by primary sources, also available online. However, some of the presented hypotheses are heavily influenced by his personal experiences of xenophobia, elitism, and predatorial behavior, which were already then discernible on the so-called alternative scene as well – so much so that they obstructed the implementation of progressive programs. The author claims that, in spite of the substantially different reality today, the myths and prejudices concerning Metelkova must be done away with in order to enhance its progressive nature. Above all, the paper calls for an objective view on internal antagonisms, mainly originating in deep class divisions between the users. These make a clear distinction between truly marginal individuals and the overambitious beau-bourgeois, as the author labels the large part of users of Metelkova of »his« time. On these grounds, he argues for a robust approach to ban all forms of xenophobia and self-ghettoization.
Metelkova - A coat without a body or a body without a coat? Interview with Nikolai Jeffs and Miha Zadnikar
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Currently, the Metelkova Network is the most exposed initiative mentioned in regard to the occupation of former of Yugoslav People's Army barracks on Metelkova Street in September 1993. However, several other les-ser-known initiatives also played a key role in this dynamic, for instance Resistance Breaking Network, Mass People's Committee, and People's Defense of Metelkova. From this circle and in the aftermath of the occupation, a Metelkova PR group was formed. The interview that Andrej Pavlišič conducted with two members of PR group Miha Zadnikar and Nikolai Jeffs focus on both the immediate as well as wider political and social context of the occupation, and revisit some of the lesser-known challenges of Metelkova’s early period.
Squatting Europe Kollective. (ur.). (2013): Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. New York, Port Watson, Minor Compositions, Wivenhoe.
Letošnje leto je pri založbi Autonomedia v zbirki Minor Compositions, znani predvsem po izdajah del o avtonomnih politikah, političnih bojih, angažirani estetiki in še kar sodi vmes, izšel zbornik samostojnih prispevkov na temo skvotiranja.
V času, ko se po vsej zemeljski obli dnevno odvija kapitalistično razlaščanje delavskega razreda, po dekretih bank in političnega razreda pa deložacije družin, migrantov, vstajniških zasednic, ko neizvoljeni politični odločevalci frivolno kockajo z urbanim prostorom in ko je urbano tkivo podvrženo lukrativnemu apetitu privatnih javno-zasebnih deležnikov, ki se nam dobrikajo z urbano revitalizacijo in regeneracijo, s trajnostnim razvojem degradiranih območij, urbanistično-arhitekturno prenovo v tematske parke kreativnih industrij, gentrifikacijo pod pretvezo kulturalizacije kapitala in z drugimi urbanimi vulgarizmi je Skvotiranje v Evropi: Radikalni prostori, urbani boji, kakor sliši ime publikacije v slovenščini, dobrodošel prispevek k odpiranju nadvse aktualnega vprašanja samoniklega reapropriiranja (urbanih) prostorov, ki so neobhodno (bili) tudi prostori družbenih bojev. Knjiga dregne naravnost v samo srčiko neoliberalnega kapitalizma, namreč v večno zdravorazumsko svetost privatne lastnine.
KAVALIAUSKAS, Tomas (2012): Transformations in Central Europe Between 1989 and 2012 – Geopolitical, Cultural, and Socioeconomic Shifts. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth (UK), Lexington Books. 208 strani.
Milan Kundera je v svojem znamenitem eseju iz leta 1984 Tragedija Srednje Evrope samopomilovalno opisal usodo njenih malih narodov, po njegovem uničujoče stisnjenih med nemškim in ruskim interesnim območjem, nedolžnih žrtev različnih totalitarizmov in geostrateških načrtov. Esej je v drugi polovici osemdesetih postal ideološka opora in programska osnova novim srednjeevropskim progresivcem in konservativcem, demokratom in trdorokcem, nacionalistom in kozmopolitom, v njihovem boju zoper obstoječe, jaltsko oz. hladnovojnovsko stanje strani. Tako kot drugo pomembno delo tistega časa, Antipolitika: srednjeevropske meditacije Györgya Konráda (1984), je bil večkrat ponatisnjen v različnih jezikih od Baltika do Balkana. Taktično afirmiranje in vztrajanje na Kunderini »srednjeevropskosti« je bilo strateškega pomena v odporu sovjetskemu objemu in pozabljeno takoj, ko so nove elite Srednjo Evropo pripeljale v objem druge, »evroatlantske« polovice stare celine.
