Page - 32 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

32 siting futurity * * * In examining the nexus of cultural performance and location, this study follows the historical vectors this nexus opens up in order to reveal the struggles of counterhegemonic groups and the cultural workers that support them against the plutocratic forces of capital that continue to make bot-like incursions into the material realm of urban space. By taking these spaces back at the level of representation and re-enlivening them with sto- ries and images that look at the same time both backwards and forwards and that encourage audiences to inform themselves and take action, these productions offer important impetus in creating action-oriented alternatives, something that ongo- ing neoliberal onslaughts continue to encourage us to believe is impossible. While the overwhelming scale of contemporary technological development and the ensuing problems and crises may not have been deliberately designed to induce resignation, passivity, and despair, those who benefit from the related hy- perobjects of financialization and climate change must find it convenient that they do, as demoralization reduces resistance to their profit-making machinations. It is in this context that Vienna’s long tradition of resistance and radicality, which dates back to its time as a Protestant center in Catholic Habsburgia, deserves to be better known, especially as it tends to get erased in nationally oriented works like Fid- dler’s that take Austria and not Vienna as their focus. One sees the difference by comparing Fiddler’s claims that “Austria […] has but a slim track record in protest movements or civic un- rest” (29), and “Austria is not known as a country of protest or strife” (ibid., 30), with the opening of the “Prolo Chic” section of Wiener Chic: Class and political conflict have been a staple of modern Vi- ennese history, from the imperial army retaking the city in edge about the affair or any political matters from that era, such as the Watergate coverup.