Vienna Perspectives ― Art, Urban Space and Social In-/Equality

30/10/2022 by Alenka Barber-Kersovan

An international Scholars‘ Study Session in the framework of the series Groove the City – Urban Music Studies and Digital Humanities

Artistic interventions in public space, the relocation of cultural events and festivals
from the city center to the outskirts as well as the intention to achieve an all-encom-
passing social equality through music and the arts remain a central motive of urban
cultural policy. Therefore, the concept of class and various mechanisms of inclusion and
exclusion ― in Luhmann’s sense ― still operate as parameters for measuring social equality and inequality. In the field of music and urban culture, this situation continually
leads to discourses about participation, access and interpretive power ― until today
and especially after the rupture of the cultural fields caused by the pandemic and since
the beginning of the war happening in Ukraine.

In this discourse, the City of Vienna continues to play a paradigmatic role during the last 100 years. Since 1918, as a model of a city governed by social democracy, Red Vienna offers ― not without nostalgic recollections ― varied scenarios of a desired social and cultural assimilation. Based on fundamental explorations of the concepts of equality and inequality, the international study sessions will draw on the case of Vienna presenting and discussing models of utopian (and less utopian) concepts of local urban politics and the organization of musical life before and after Covid as well as facing the current socio-political tensions across and beyond Europe