From Festivalisation of Public Space to the Right to Public Space: Deconstructing Social Infrastructure as a Conceptual Framework for the Town Hall Square in Vienna

In our globalised, interconnected and increasingly competitive world, the importance of public space is often highlighted. This article aims at connecting public space to the concept of social infrastructure to point to the underlying and indispensable nature of public space. It builds on the assumption that public space is the physical manifestation of the interconnection between global urban processes and local tendencies where dynamics of festivalisation and restricted access are on the rise. The town hall square in Vienna and its seasonal use for different festivals and events serves as the empirical case. The square, situated in the centre of the city, shows powerful dynamics within the production of public space and gives interesting insights into the prevalent global and local tendencies of urban politics.A two-step approach towards the deconstruction of social infrastructure for the conception of public space is adopted. Using the notion of social infrastructure permits to connect public space as a product – as a physical place and organisational structure, which allows people to interact– to its process – its interpretative context, where meaning and value are assigned through the material context. The notion of the right to the city is applied to formulate an alternative approach to the right to public space. This constitutes a multi-dimensional approach, which is necessary to grasp the multiplicity of perspectives and complexity of issues manifesting themselves in public space. The aim of the paper is to understand how representational public space is used and which role the understanding of the right to the city plays in reclaiming public space as a form of social infrastructure

Institutionalizing Digital Infrastructures: Discursive Institutionalization of Public Platforms in Vienna

Critical scholars dealing with platform capitalism, platform urbanism and smart city developments have emphasized manifold challenges connected to the rise of digital platforms and in particular the “Tech Titans”. Due to their economic and political power, platforms are by now often understood as new forms of infrastructures, thus making them an inherent public issue. Alternative models of developing platforms as public infrastructures, such as the emerging concept of platform municipalism point to an ideological shift in planning ideas. However, research on the process of developing planning ideas and their connection to the actual implementation of public platforms is still rare. Thus, this article focuses on the discursive institutionalization of public platforms in Vienna, their ideological foundations and the discursive interactions between different agents to implement new digital  infrastructures. The article finds that there has been an ideological shift in the strategic orientation of planning ideas towards a more human-centred development of platforms as new infrastructures. However, lack of coordination and institutional barriers persist. The article critically reflects on the role of local governments in developing digital infrastructures and thus contributes to debates on smart urbanism, platform urbanism and platform municipalism by providing in-depth knowledge on the case of Vienna

The power to transform structures: power complexes and the challenges for realising a wellbeing economy

This article draws on different strands of existing scholarship to provide an analytical framework for understanding the barriers to achieving a well-being economy. It explores the interplay between agential and structural power, where some actor-coalitions can reproduce or transform pre-existing structures. Conversely, these structures are strategically selective, favouring some actors, interests, and strategies over others. Making sense of this interplay between agential and structural power, the article introduces the notion of power complexes—time-space-specific actor-coalitions with common industry-related interests and the power to reproduce or transform structures in a given conjuncture. To understand the historical “becoming” of today’s political-economic terrain, the article provides a regulationist-inspired history of the rise, fall, and re-emergence of four power complexes: the financial, fossil, livestock-agribusiness, and digital. They pose significant threats to pillars of a wellbeing economy such as ecological sustainability, equ(al)ity, and democracy. Subsequently, today’s structural context is scrutinised in more detail to understand why certain actors dominate strategic calculations in contemporary power complexes. This reveals strategic selectivities that favour multi- and transnational corporate actors over civil society, labour movements, and public bureaucracies. The article then examines firm-to-state lobbying as a strategy employed by corporate actors within today’s structural context to assert their interests. It presents illustrative cases of Blackstone, BP, Bayer, and Alphabet. Finally, it explores implications and challenges for realising a wellbeing economy based on post-/degrowth visions. It emphasises the double challenge faced by such a wellbeing-economy actor-coalition. On one hand, it has to navigate within contemporary modes of regulation that favour corporate strategies of capital accumulation while, on the other, it must confront the self-expanding and extractive logic of capital. In this context, three key challenges are outlined: the need to form unconventional strategic alliances, operate on various spatial dimensions simultaneously, and institutionalise alternatives to firm-to-state lobbying to influence policymaking

Stadt.Macht.Kultur : eine Analyse hegemonialer Kulturpolitik und Kunstförderung in der strategischen Planung Wiens

Zusammenfassung in englischer SprachePolitik und Planung erleben seit einigen Jahren eine Renaissance der strategischen Planung. Dabei stellt die Kulturplanung eine wesentliche Säule dar, die Städte zu Alleinstellungsmerkmalen im globalen Standortwettbewerb verhelfen und so einen Ausweg aus der durch den Übergang von Fordismus zu Postfordismus entstandenen finanziellen Krise bieten soll. Die vorliegende Arbeit geht der Frage nach, ob und wie Kulturpolitik und Kunstförderung in der strategischen Planung verankert sind und inwieweit eine räumliche Strategie in Form einer hegemonialen Kunst- und Kulturproduktion zu erkennen ist. Auf Grundlage der Hegemonietheorie von Gramsci wird zu diesem Zweck eine Politikfeldanalyse zur Untersuchung unterschiedlicher stadtplanungsrelevanter Ebenen in Wien durchgeführt. Anhand einer Inhaltsanalyse der strategischen Stadtplanungsdokumente wird der kulturpolitische Diskurs untersucht, die Verteilung ökonomischer Ressourcen mittels der Analyse der Umsetzung raumrelevanter Kulturpolitik aufgezeigt und die kulturbasierte Raumproduktion wird durch eine exemplarische Beschreibung relevanter Kunst- und Kulturprojekte nachvollziehbar gemacht.During the last few years politics and planning are undergoing a revival of strategic planning. In this context cultural planning represents a relevant backbone, which should help cities to establish unique selling points in a global competition between cities and provide a way out of the financial crisis of city budgets due to the transition from Fordism to Postfordism. The thesis at hand pursues the question, how cultural politics and the promotion of culture is linked to strategic planning and to what extent a spacial strategy through hegemonial culture and art production can be recognised. On the foundation of hegemonic theory by Gramsci the applied method here is a policy analysis for the empirical study of different levels of urban planning in Vienna with the purpose of understanding the cultural discourse throughout the strategic planning documents, the distribution of economic resources through the analysis of promotional instruments and the spatial practice through the exemplary description of art and cultural projects.13

Socially innovative experiments for transformative local development: putting more-than-growth-oriented local interventions in spatial context

Experimentation is key for accelerating local transformations. Experimentation discourse, however, is often biased towards technology. We introduce the notion of socially innovative experiments (SIX) and their contribution to transformative local development as a counterbalance. We conceptualize SIX in local development and study over 100 SIX in Austria in terms of spatial context and their interactions with space. Results show that (1) SIX with a place-based approach are more likely to spark change than unbound interventions, (2) rural SIX face more barriers while at the same time being more substantial for successful local transformations, and (3) thorough spatial embedding is thus key for ensuring SIX’ contribution to local transformations. We hence advocate for local caretakers and transformation hubs to oversee local challenges, promote exchange and learning between experiments, and take on the patronage of SIX for transformative local development

In vivo pink-beam imaging and fast alignment procedure for rat brain tumor radiation therapy

International audienceA fast positioning method for brain tumor microbeam irradiations for preclinical studies at third-generation X-ray sources is described. The three-dimensional alignment of the animals relative to the X-ray beam was based on the X-ray tomography multi-slices after iodine infusion. This method used pink-beam imaging produced by the ID17 wiggler. A graphical user interface has been developed in order to define the irradiation parameters: field width, height, number of angles and X-ray dose. This study is the first reporting an image guided method for soft tissue synchrotron radiotherapy. It allowed microbeam radiation therapy irradiation fields to be reduced by a factor of $ 20 compared with previous studies. It permitted more targeted, more efficient brain tumor microbeam treatments and reduces normal brain toxicity of the radiation treatment

Kapitel 10. Integrierte Perspektiven auf Strukturbedingungen

Strukturen wirken auf vielfältige Weise auf alltägliches Handeln und ihre adäquate Gestaltung ist daher notwendig, um klimafreundliches Verhalten dauerhaft zu ermöglichen. Die in Abschnitt 3 behandelten Strukturen fördern oder behindern eine Transformation in Richtung klimafreundli-chen Lebens maßgeblich und sind quer durch alle Handlungsfelder von Relevanz. Die einzelnen Strukturen, deren Analyse sich so weit möglich auf die besonderen Bedingungen in Österreich bezieht, thematisieren unterschiedliche Bereiche, die von Strukturveränderungen betroffen sind: Recht, Governance, Strukturen der öffentlichen Willensbildung in Diskursen und Medien sowie in Bildung und Wissensproduktion als auch wirtschaftliche Aktivitäten einschließlich ihrer tech-nischen Dimensionen und der zugehörigen Innovationssysteme. Ebenso werden Bereiche wie räumliche Ungleichheit und Raumplanung sowie soziale Sicherungssysteme in den Blick ge-nommen. Der Abschnitt betrachtet zudem die Versorgung mit Gütern und Dienstleitungen gene-rell, legt aber auch einen Akzent auf globalisierte Warenketten und Geld- und Finanzsysteme, um die interdependenten Strukturen über die Grenzen Österreichs hinaus zu thematisieren. Die strukturierende Rolle der gebauten Umwelt wird im abschließenden Kapitel zu netzgebundenen Infrastrukturen diskutiert

Kapitel I: Zusammenfassung Für Entscheidungstragende

Derzeit ist es schwierig, in Österreich klimafreundlich zu leben. In den meisten Lebensbereichen, von Arbeit über Mobilität und Wohnen bis hin zu Ernährung und Freizeitgestaltung, fördern bestehende Strukturen klimaschädigendes Verhalten und erschweren klimafreundliches Leben (hohe Übereinstimmung, starke Literaturbasis). {Kap 3-9} Der vorliegende Bericht bestärkt somit für Österreich die Aussagen des Klimarates der Vereinten Nationen (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC), wonach zur Erreichung der Ziele des Pariser Klimaabkommens grundlegende Transformationen im Sinne umfassender Strukturveränderungen notwendig sind (hohe Übereinstimmung, starke Literaturbasis)