Stadtwerkstatt Linz
AUTONOMOUS STRUCTURE SINCE 1979
Stadtwerkstatt (STWST) is a cultural center in Linz, Austria, which was founded as an artists' collective in 1979. Since the 1980s it has shaped media history with significant projects in the context of new media. Today Stadtwerkstatt still houses three initiatives from this period of time. They have important roles in the making of artistic and citizen-generated content. Over the past years each initiative has developed its own hands-on approach. The cultural center also includes the initiative Stadtwerkstatt itself, which consists of four departments: New Art Contexts, Discursive Media, Club Culture, Cafe Strom. The initiative servus.at runs its own cultural data center. It creates and features art dedicated to hacktivism, Open Culture and critical engineering. Radio FRO, the free radio, is producing and archiving citizen-run radio shows in Austria. The project Stadtwerkstatt, as a greater collective of all resident initiatives, is operating as a networked society, not getting tired of questioning the current situation of network disasters by aiming for and experimenting with alternatives.