Page - 48 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

48 siting futurity Misthaufen, was being performed (Weidinger 2012, 96). After the performance, not only did the audience refuse to leave, but they were joined by the protesters, swelling the crowd.12 Quickly a list of four demands was put together (the slaughterhouse was not to be torn down, it was to be turned into a year-round cul- tural center, it was to be run not by the city but by those inter- ested in it, and the costs for its maintenance were to be covered by the city), and the realities of the situation took hold. Some forty or sixty people stayed over the first night, and a number of work teams sprang up to look after organizational practicali- ties.13 Their first “Fest” took place two days later, on Tuesday, with two thousand visitors, while over eight thousand showed up the following weekend for the free “[d]as ist Schlachthof Arena: Konzerte, Theater und Kabarett, Lesungen und Filme, Ausstellungen, Vorträge und Diskussionen” [“This is Schlach- thof Arena: concerts, theater and cabaret, readings and films, exhibitions, talks and discussions”] (Weidinger 2012, 97). The success of these events received wide and for the most part very positive coverage in the press, which aided those in the slaugh- terhouse immeasurably by bringing further support.14 They also notably received the support of the Kulturstadträtin [City Coun- cilor Responsible for Culture] Gertrude Fröhlich-Sandner, who 12 As Weidinger notes, its size is difficult to determine. Estimates in the press run from two hundred to over a thousand (2012, 100 fn. 7). The question of who opened the door so that the crowds could enter is also a question, to which the likeliest answer seems to be Ulrich Baumgartner, the head of the Wiener Festwochen. 13 Weidinger claims 40 (97), Friesenbichler around 60 (110). In retrospective interviews held in 2011 for the Besetzt exhibition at the Wien Museum, participants stress the impressive level of coordination and cooperation that was achieved, describing the occupation as “ein Wunder an spontaner Organisation” [“a miracle of spontaneous organization”] (Höllerl and Spanbauer 2012a, 101) and “wie ein wunderbar funktionierendes Dorf” [“like a wonderfully functioning village”] (Höllerl and Spanbauer 2012b, 108). 14 “Only the Arbeiter-Zeitung [Workers Newspaper] emphasized the illegality of the action, denounced the hygienic conditions in the slaughterhouse, and presented the Arena as a collection of drug addicts and criminals” (Weidinger, 2012, 97).