The Kaleidoscope. Capturing the versatility.

Ekaerina Timina, 066440

„The Kaleidoscope“

future.lab 2014

The Kaleidoscope Capturing the versatility Understanding and portraying a hybrid space is a tough job - due to their nature they keep slipping away and put researchers in the consitions of an informational blocade. The project is observing an existing space from various perspectives to create the basis for the understanding of the phenomenon of hybridity in urban context and its meaning for the planning practice.

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The Phenomenon As we entered the third millennium the time keeps getting only faster and the way users inhabit the city space, the way they reclaim it and their motives have also changed. Diversity and inclusiveness are now on every planner’s checklist.

Contemporary metropolis is being deconstructed and reclaimed by less and less formalized energy flows, that bring creativity and liveness to the planned structures. The economy, that was previously largely dominated but he market is now evolving to get on its new step - the economy dominated by intangible values such as culture and information.

The planner’s challenge is to identify and understand the meaning and the messages the city dwellers are sending, with all the variety of roles they play and the interrelations they

Fragment of the surroundings 2

stand in with each other, with the society, with the city itself and places in it, in all the complexity and ambivalence.

There is no white and black, no borderline between formal and informal flows, they mix to give all possible shades in between and not only the grayish halftones, but the full rainbow of diversity, they flow from one state to another, being the city itself and breathing life into it.

As planners, we have an instinctive understanding for the definition of formality and informality in urban context. As professionals speaking the same language in practice we feel the meaning of the term “hybridity” in urban context.

A hybrid is a mix, a combination, bringing together extremes, stirring them in a melting pot and coming up with something completely new, that though has all the features of the parental structures, is not any of them.

We say “hybrid spaces” and that these places of refuge for diversity, for the strong dynamics and various energy flows. We cherish and admire their ability to almost instant adaptation to the new programs of use, that often takes place thorough spontaneous refunctionalization. These places, produced by urban sprawl, have the potential to become new meaningful places and hence new types of public domain.

Unlike to what we are used to, these places, with all the life swirling in them, do not want to be classified and can not be classified as well.

With all the complexity of their behavior, with the kaleidoscope of protagonists, of reasons why, of shapes and sizes, maybe they do now need to be classified? Maybe they do not need to be analyzed under a microscope, but felt, sensed, simply observed?

Talking about hybridity in urban context, one can not come up with a simple clear definition to put in a dictionary for the very reason that

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diversity and creativity do not want to be put in frames. They are organized from the bottom, as a result of a strong need or urge. These hybrid heterotopias appear as fast as they might disappear, the scent of temporarity comes hand by hand with hybridity. Their programming is defined by actors and users themselves and changes almost immediately to fulfill the new needs emerging. Hybrid spaces tend to detach themselves from the “official” side of the city, preferring, as all the informal urban energies, to be in the twilight zone between legal and illegal, filling the gap between social acceptance and full rejection. With all that in their genome, hybrid spaces are an urban element of highest curiosity - diverse, being in constant change, slipping away the moment it notices your focus. Their nature stands for exchange, reuse and interpretation, they belong to a new spatial category of “continuous spaces”, that come to coexist with the conventional type of “spaces of stay”.

Hybrid spaces are an offspring of a modern city model and are needed for its successful life and development - they can activate new forms of urban identity for a renewed hospitable capacity.

What do they mean for us as urbanists? How do we plan them? Should we try to plan them?

Or should we let them be and adapt the plan-

future.lab 2014

ning with the hints they give us for their individual case?

There is one thing that is clear - we have to get to know them.

But how?

As already pointed out, hybrid spaces are a challenge for a researcher, as how do you study something, that is self-made, constantly changing, semi-legal and trying to alienate from the formal side of the city and therefore resisting all attempts to build up a contact.

In their uniqueness they have to be taken personally and not researched in a conventional way but in a way of constant curiosity and side by side revolving various sides of their individuality. One can not get a picture that is right or wrong, as there is no truth or lie in their fluid nature.

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Surroundings

The Case First coming to Vienna one might not expect to see that much of informality of any scale - from sunbathing in a royal palace park to unexpected anarchistic parade in the central shopping street. A city of flea markets, food cooperations, all types of informal economies is underlaying the city of museums, guided tours, uptight ladies in the opera house and strict demands to the strudel dough.

Having moved to Vienna not long ago with a backpack of classical imperialistic urban design stereotypes, tending to an urban dictatorship with their straight axes and clearly defined functions, your humble author was not expecting to see what is actually behind the opera curtain. In the bright tornado of informal organizations met a small door kept popping up in the mind.

The shabby door with a colorful name above belongs to the Kaleidoskop project - a part of the KUKUMA network. The project defines itself as an “anarchistic free space” and is housed in three rooms 86 square meters in total, situated in the famous Schönbrunnerstraße in the Margareten district.

These rooms “can basically be used by everyone for many different kinds of events, without any rent or other payment” as stands on their 4

website. The non-profit project exists on free donations collected at the bar in exchange for a cup of tea and heartfull company. Memberships are open and free, but it is expected that you share the interests of the member community and help to keep it going. Kaleidoskop, though declaring itself an anarchistic space, has a number of rules, that mainly banish all types of racism, sexism, heterinirmativeness and social intolerance. Decisions are made by members, that come to organizational meetings. Those take place two times a month, are open to public and the contingent visiting is not expected to be the same.

To put it in a nutshell, any bypassed is promised to be in a full right to come to the meeting, discuss and influence the project development.

The research, originally determined to make an attempt of portraying this space in details ti understand the mechanisms and behavior of something that could be defined as a small-scale semi-official structure, met the silent rocks of members’ unwillingness to communicate to a total stranger, who came attracted by the promised openness. Numerous emails to the provided contact persons received no answers, multiple visits gave nothing but a door tight shut and, when it finally got to conversations in person, to an informational block.

It got clear that the “official version” was not a lie, but just the truth not full. An informational block is to be awaited from hybrid spaces, as they exist not_illegal, most likely in at least a potential conflict with the state, having no official rights on the space they are using and a fear to be thrown out of it.

The questions of coexistence and integration of such spaces in the city tissue are emerging and only will be unless we find a way and approach to observe them from various viewpoints and learn from them.

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future.lab 2014

Scheme of the surroundings 5

Graffity in the discrict

The District

The Neighbors

The Schönbrunnerstraße is well known in the informal community for the house number 111, the Project Trust. The street itself and this part of the district tend to show their underground part more than most of the centrally located districts and also is seems to have not originally austrian inhabitants dominating in its population.

The district itself and the moods felt in it provide a basic idea of the typology of spaces to be found around. Numerous small thematic shops such as DIY shops, rasta-shops, a shop selling a broad variety of latex outfits, balkan and russian groceries and cultural shops is filling the gaps between small to middle-sized multicultural restaurants that also show the dominance of balkan, russian and ukranian culture with small infills of Asian cosine. A list of thematic services such as piercing/tattoo studios and a dreadlocks salon crown it all.

Street art is the voice of citizens and it speaks out loud the local moods. Represented by mainly tags and short political slogans, mostly refer to the current political regime from the view of expatriates and people from Eastern Europe in particular.

The space of Kaleidoskop itself is classically for Vienna surrounded with a number of small ground floor offices and food destinations, topped up with residents. The neighbors are cafes, car rental service, a night club, a laundry service, a pedicure salon and the Atosa Community.

Two Italian food spots “Gondola” - an upper-middle class restaurant and a contemporary-looking cafe - are standing out in the whole picture and even seem to not quite “fit”. These can be seen as the first signs of gentrification process in its ongoing phase, which inevitably leads to estate problems and conflicts of the inhabitants and local businesses.

Surroundings 6

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The Media The media analyses was also one of the first things done, so even before the first personal contact, data was collected and digested, providing another viewpoint.

Interestingly enough, Google search shows very few relevant and informative results, although the Kaleidoskop exists many years and has surely left a trace. In the Foursquare database it is listed as a gay bar with a close to zero number of 4 check-ins by 4 different users. A similar to Foursquare but less popular in global, but not in the european context, service „Yelp“ gives a more trustworthy though outdated description of Kaledisokop as a left-oriented alternative space with cozy couches, board games and a cheap bar.

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“Das Kaleidoskop ist ein linksalternatives selbstverwaltetes Vereinslokal, das von einem Haufen junger Linkies betrieben wird.

Hier finden Parties statt, Filmabende, es gibt Lesungen, Jamsessions, politische Diskussion zb. ein Themen Brunch über Basisdemokratie Außerdem: Club Mate (mir scheint die sponsern die Linken), Bier und Wein zu sehr günstigen Preisen, gemütliche Couches und alles was sich ein linker Hippie sonst noch so wünscht.

Die Leute sind lieb, locker und offen.

Ich finde solche Freiräume gut und wichtig und es ist schön, dass sich Leute unentgeltlich in ihrer Freizeit engagieren, damit dies für andere erhalten bleibt.” (user Stefanie S. on 27 August 2010)

Cloud of the top discussed topics 7

The entrance

“<...> Gemütliche Sofas, viel billigen Alkohol und dazu Brettspiele, so habe ich meine Abende im Kaleido in Erinnerung behalten - sehr angenehm, solange nicht politisiert wird. Denn hier geraten gerne mal verschiedene dogmatisch vertretene Ansichten aneinander. Diese unterscheiden sich für den Außenstehenden wohl nur in Nuancen, für die an der Diskussion beteiligten scheint‘s allerdings sehr wichtig zu sein. Sei‘s drum, meist beruhigt sich das Ganze spätestens nach dem nächsten Bier oder dem nächsten Zug, und weiter geht‘s mit einem der besten Spiele aller Zeiten: Junta!

Allein dafür, mich in dieses sehr komplexe Spiel eingeführt zu haben, bin ich den Kaleido-Leuten ewig dankbar - doch auch sonst komm ich auch heute immer wieder gerne hierher, wenn ich auch manchmal das Gefühl nicht loswerde, hier wäre seit einigen Jahren die Zeit stehen geblieben. Es verändert sich nichts groß, in diesem Freiraum, weder was die anwesenden Personen noch deren Ansichten angeht. Aber das hat halt auch seinen Reiz”. (user Charles D. on 5 May 2010)

Reading through the project’s blog and website news gave a cloud of most discussed topics, that show the interests of members. Those tend to be less cloudless than the descriptions read before and cover sharp political questions as well as question of inclusiveness and rights of minorities.

The Network In addition to the interests cloud, structured and categorizing of events, that took place in Kaleidoskop in the past years we not only see the long-term transformation from a bar to a discussion tribune coming hand in hand with short impulsive transformational blasts of pro-

Surroundings 8

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gramming alteration - from movie evenings to workshops - but also get to construct a schematic network of protagonists and assume possible contacts between them, that are based on crossing interest and/or professional fields.

The information is being broadened with an additional search through the KUKUMA network and people and groups mentioned in private talks with the members. Results of this research can be put into a mind map to get the overview of contacts.

The network on a smaller scale was provided by stickers on the entrance door. They are not long-lasting and therefore deliver more or less up-to-date information about exact persons.

This information is priceless and more detailed as the one that can be gotten in the first step of web research. The stickers vary party invitations and designer and artist “signatures” to independent publishers and strikes:

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Surroundings

network for art, culture and media 11) http://deepjackinacid.tumblr.com - Deep Jackin’ Acid, a weekly party event 12) http://www.nize.at - Josef Faustbeck, an artist and a graphic designer 13) http://www.bikramyogaloft.at/wp/ - a bikram yoga studio 1)http://www.1maerz-streik.net - The Transnati- 14) http://beatmakersessions.eu - a project bringing together experimental music ants on onal Migrants‘ Strike 2) http://sainmus.at - a guitarre and cello duet the stage of the famous Fluc club in Vienna 15) http://backyamouf.blogspot.co.at - a blog from Vienna 3) http://bahoemagasin.blogsport.de - anarchi- dedicated to street art stic publishing office 4) http://www.streifzuege.org - a critical com- The wide range of protagonist types from artists and party organizers to strikes and a community 5) http://lovingactivism.blogsport.eu - a blog munity providing sleeping places to refugees was to be expected due to the ambivalent naand info-point on activism in Vienna 6) http://eben-holz.org/index.htm - an ecocom- ture of the space itself. munity saving rare tree sorts from being used for musical instruments 7) http://kermeszalest.com/ - a brass band from Belgium, combining in their music Balkan and klezmer motives with rock and metal 8) http://www.uadieleiberl.at - an online shop, selling T-Shirts with critical political slogans 9) http://www.yasmo.at - Yasmin Hafedh, a young austrian author, rap artist and a slum poet 10) http://www.kukuma.org - a decentralized 9

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fiveseasons

NOMAD.theatre

Montmartre Wien

Mo.ë

3Raum-Anatomietheater

ZZOO Verein für Leguminosen & Literatur

Kosmostheater

Eva Winter-Künsterltreff

ORANGE 94.0 – das freie Radio in Wien

Verein Venster99

Kulturverein Einbaumöbel

Initiative Pankahyttn

MusikarbeiterInnenkapelle

Verein Boem*

Verein Lust

Kanak Attak

TÜWI

Guerilla Gardening

Jonglieren

Plan.los!

SyndiCars KUKUMA

BOKU

PerpetuuMobile 2.3

Kaleidoskop

ZeitungsProjekt Jenseits

dérive

ÖG für Architektur

Ökologische Linke

International Network for Urban Research and Action

Literaturgruppe Narenfreiheit

Open Space - Zentrum für Kunstprojekte

Artminutes

no-racism.net

Deserteurs- und Flüchtlingsberatung

Schnittpunkt Verein für Austellungstheorie & Praxis

Interkulttheater

7STERN

Kunstraum Ragnarhof

Vekks

culture2culture

Verein Jugendstiltheater

monochrom

Wiener Vorstadttheater

Culture fly

Verein Forum Wien Arena

Galerie Werkstatt NUU

ei(s)kon:fekt

Irene Dlabaja

Fotogalerie Wien

Verein für Gegenkultur

ISI-Europa

Circus Kaos

dasviadukt

Das Werk

Pink Zebra Theatre

Sargfabrik

Theater Antonin A.

igkulturwien

A.C.T.I.O.N. - Kooperative kulturelle Vernetzung

MIK – Mobile Initiative Kultur

Kulturzentrum Spittelberg

Töchter der Kunst

Verein zur Schaffung der postmodernen Kulturelite

Initiative Minderheiten

Stichwort - Archiv der Frauen- und Lesbenbewegung

D.O.M.L. Dokumentationsstelle für ost- und mitteleuropäische Literatur

The Network mindmap MoneyNations

Rosa Antifa Wien

contrast.org

kein mensch ist illegal

Mayday 2000

Get to attack

Volkstanz

Reclaim the Streets

IG Architektur

AZ Wien

Permakultur

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future.lab 2014

A selection of stickers found on the entrance door 11

The Talks Being a part of the urban tissue, hybrid spaces do not exist without neighbors’ notice. Getting to talk to them gives not only plane information on what visible actions take place there and what the typology of the actors is, but also give a personal insight, let know about the presence or absence of communication with other city dwellers, what problems and conflicts occur and - in case it is possible to interview multiple people in different times of the day - the typical day plan.

In the case of the Kaleidoskop the positions of people questioned were spread between “not interested” to strongly negative. Surprisingly, even the mailman had no idea of what this place is and what could be happening there. By interviewing it was one of the aims to talk to various neighbor types, to those differently distanced from the Kaleidoskop and those working in different times of the day, for example the vietnamese bistro cook, who is basically standing facing the Kaleidoskop door all day long and a lady from the car rental service, whose working place is a bit further away and who is not having the entrance the whole day in front of her eyes.

Fragment of the entrance door 12

“I think it’s like a club for hippies, some homeless come sleep here, i know. They have parties but make little noise, so i do not call the police. Some days it is many people some days few, different ages but mostly young, under 35.

They surely smoke marijuana, you can smell it, and i think they also sell other drugs. At first i thought they are dangerous and aggressive but no, though they are not friendly as well. I guess they do not want problems. they also have evenings when they drum...” (elderly lady, lives in this quartier) “I think it is a club or a bar. or most likely a Rauchlokal for all these hippie people. People of all ages come. They are really quiet in daytime and mostly closed. Around 18:00 they start to come. I don’t know what exactly they do there, when i go home i see them sitting and just hanging out doing nothing. Sometimes i go home later and then i see some of them standing even outside drinking beer. They are not really nice - all dirty and preppy. I’m pretty sure there are many drug addicts, marijuana or extasy… ” (laundry owner)

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Entrance

“I don’t know what it is. I work here every day and see them, young people, only eating or drinking but it is not a cafe… maybe some kind of a club or a community, but what they do there i have no idea. Never saw these hippies doing anything except of eating and sitting.

But people know where they come when they come, they never come to us also. Maybe they only meet to cook or for free food, sometimes they do not look like they have a job or a home”. (vietnamese bistro cook) “I do not know what it is but looks like nothing good. i never delivered anything to them either”. (mailman) “I do not know this place, is there really something interesting? It looks abandoned”. (car rental service manager) “I do not have time to talk about it, i have to work. i do not like this place, these hippies look creepy and scare our customers”. (italian restaurant waiter)

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The Visit While neighbors can tell about the exposed life of the project, its inner processes were still to be discovered. A personal visit was not easy to get, but it was crucial for the overall understanding of the nature of the space. A visit not as a researcher, but as a potential user, within the opening hours of the InfoLaden - an information day, when the space is open to everyone and provides consults and literature on the topics that are in the focus interest of the Kaleidoskop. Near the Drumming workshop and the organizational meetings it is one of the most long-lasting events in the calendar and is being relatively highly visited.

The members were friendly but extremely precautions in their talks and, though not refusing to answer the questions, never answered any of them. They mentioned, that under the visible organizing structure there is also a closed one, which by now is not functioning too good due to the renewal of the Kaleidoskop core collective, which takes place every once in a while.

Even though the members were obviously not acting the way they would act and communicate when not bein potentially observed and judged by an unknown person, the personal experience collected was enough to have a glimpse of the inner side if the space and feel its spirit.

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Collage based on the neighborsâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; impressions 14

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Collage based on personal impressions after a visit to the place 15

The Conclusio Due to the specific, constantly changing and balancing on the border with illegal, nature of hybrid spaces, they are not possible and not reasonable to be researched in conventional methods used in planning practice.

The researcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s duty is to find a personal approach to the studies space and take it in all its diversity, revolving, side by side, its complex nature. Not to mention the ethical problem of possible harassing the rights and freedoms of the protagonists and mind their unwillingness to be researched under a microscope.

They try to detach themselves from the formal side of the city, do not want and are not to be classified, taken apart and played test on to.

They are to be observed, to be talked to and to be listened to. Hybrid spaces occur in response to the in-the-moment needs of the society and successfully fulfill them, while in planning practice we always have the borders of formalities, a slow reaction and never the first-hand insight. These places tell a story, and like there are no two people same, there are no two hybrid spaces same.

In their ever-changing nature lies the charm of the Do-It-Yourself culture and practical wisdom of city dwellers.

Street art 16

We have to see them as a natural layer of a modern city, accept and respectfully treat them, helping with the planning tools when possible.

On the example of a relatively small and stable project, we see, how many sides it has, shining different colors depending on the point of view and the viewer himself. We see it as a tiny part of a huge network on one hand and a place of swarming energy on the other, it is a cozy living room of rebels, a place where critical minds write brochures on equality and where they learn how to properly arrange an urban garden in a workshop by Permakultur, they are open and closed at the same time, one is welcome and not, one is promised to be never judged or put labels on, but it is made by humans and it is in human nature to try to categorize everything.

We can not study and learn the rules of hybridity, we can not and should not put this term in a cage of words, as they need space to grow and air to breathe. Classifying and scientific research can not describe the informality.

Only a friendly involved approach can tame hybridity for a moment and bring a chance of depicting its state in this and only this moment in all its uniqueness.