A few observations about the squatted Rog factory in Ljubljana

/for the seminary Precarious spaces/dreams, Graz 3^rd, September 2009 /

First of all I have to state that I am not an official representative of Rog but a member of one of the initiatives that occupies a space in Rog – the Cirkulacija 2. This statement also reveals the ideologic situation in the ex-factory Rog. But since the situation now is closing its “temporary” slot of time – the ideology platform of Rog has decayed already.

I would also like to present a wider view – by also incorporating the other big “liberated” space – Metelkova City – which is now legalized (property was transferred from the state ownership to the municipality) and has become a regular place for the niche tourism “of visiting an alternative culture space”. I was a regular observer and often a participant at Metelkova over the past 15 years and especially in the beginning when I was involved professionally at local Radio Student station – the main public support channel for legitimizing the Metelkova squatting.

It should be noted that the squatting of both places were the realization of the real needs for spaces of the local inhabitants – especially the artists for working spaces and people involved in specific public cultural approaches for small public spaces – that the local authorities all through the nineties and in the next decade were not doing anything to fulfill. There is now a solution for this being put out by the city: the “service of public exhibition spaces” – meaning that anyone can apply for the exhibition in one of the city exhibiting places. There are about five such galleries all over the city that will not have their own programs anymore and will be put on the “cultural market”. With this measure the local authorities try to evade the need for providing the specific spaces for different generations or different types of activities. I would call this the “consumation of the needs” of initiatives and ideas and forcing them into temporary existence. By mentioning this word it should be noted that in such use it is already consumed and perverted (if the original sense would be as in the Hakim Bey’s title “Temporary Autonomous Zones” and the usage of word as used below).

The former Rog factory was liberated in the spring of 2006 (after almost 15 years of being empty and slowly demolished) by a couple of groups – mainly the Temp group of socially involved architects and the social activists of the Social center (the remnants of the local “anti-globalist” movement; a “fraction” – to use the old revolutionary language). It was reclaimed as a public space and defined as the temporary place for cultural production. In the first weeks it was daily joined by many individuals and initiatives – on the so-called parliamentary meetings – and always about 50 to 100 observers were present – not so many were the active workers – about 20 to 30.

The ideology of the beginnings of Rog was totally opposite to that of the beginnings of Metelkova. One would say that at Metelkova the masculine element was at work (the mass rush for land… claiming the places, putting them under three locks, preparing the roots of personal economies – many small bars with drinks – and this is the situation still today), while in Rog the feminine element was at work: the wish for cohesion, cooperation among the many different groups and individuals. No locks but sharing of space and always debating about the principles and possible solutions. Both principles were at their very extremes.

One more metaphor for Rog would be: the open-source-code principle. But the openness of it was quickly questioned. Especially in the case of the participants less-willing to share – with more definite ideas about their needs for space and work. The more enterpreneur ones. These would want a separate space, to a certain extent willing to share (“the keys”) – but not with all. Some of the participants with more dislocated ideas than the predominant ideologic core groups were turned down and they left. Some of the members that now occupy Cirkulacija 2 space were also not positive about such situation and we didn’t move in until one year later.

By thinking back I now find the hectic search for a kind of individuation, self-identification as “Rog people” (“rog” meaning horn) by making caps and helmets with horns a miss-conception – especially in the view of the temporary state of things. It poses questions as to what extent it was really meant as temporary. It was clear that there were ideas to create a broader collective platform of temporary usages built up from initiatives that would move from one place to another – even different places – would continue to help each other and in this sense satisfy their longer-term needs and strategies. And this could be done in much less restricted manner than the above mentioned city’s model of satisfying the “niche social consumer by temporary niche services”.

One addition to the floating identities’ problem: to many of the Metelkova people, Rog was seen as competition and vice-versa.

The space of Rog is huge – the main building has four floors, of which only one was used in the beginning – with many spaces around the main building which were left empty. A kind of decompression situation for the handful of people present every day. In the first couple of months it was a huge cleaning place for them and even if helped by some outer people, the place was still huge. Later – when confronted with futility on many levels (the endless cleaning, the endless discussions, the disagreements, the indefinite response – the “non-communication” of the authorities) – an idea of “arbeit macht frei” came to mind and the idea of working youth brigades from the socialist times: just consuming the energy and time and not meant for any kind of practical and immediate results. In other words: a symbol – an individual being consumed in the flames of futility.

In time personal relationships degraded and some individuals were physically and emotionally worn out – and soon left forever – with big resentments about the whole idea of collectivity, the public space. A couple of “generations” rotations happened. Also on the level of “energy”: in “civilized times” the cerebral element was predominant – at other times (let’s use the word “chaotic” – not “anarchic”) the emotional element prevailed. The latter I call the “junky-times”, “hysterical times” – when the “real-timers” prevailed – not always real junkies – but the “emotional people”. The problem is because the focus and view of the future (the time span) – the sequence of actions – the strategy are lost and especially: the time is being lost in timeless discussions. But luckily it was cyclical too.

When Cirkulacija people joined in a year later (spring 2007) the situation was somehow inverted: the main space was left empty and the smaller peripheral spaces were used for individual initiatives. The locks were legitimate. We moved in after presenting the initiative to the Rog parliament. The drawback was that a place that we focused on was being reserved by some other group – and this also puts some questions of people’s perspective of non-legal but legitimate, public but privatized, etc. principles. We used the name Cirkulacija 2 as it was a very appropriate already existing name of the place we moved in (the heath circulation station number 2). I many public events throught the 2007, 2008 and a bit less in 2009 we tried to to propose a semi-public space of discourse in art and other areas, a presentations of principles of art production by raising the focus to processuality and not the finished product, to re-introduce events, actions, happenings, combined with a sort of discoursive “salons” – in opposition to the lifeless exhibitions that were popping up in Slovenia also. All in all: to propose an anti-gallery, anti-museum situation. We also experienced the energy up and downs.

While there were some events at times that involved the whole of the community of Rog – they were very few. The differences between various groups quickly showed. Especially on the level of their basic “public calling”. The social activists were trying to use the artists in a circus-like manner – for entertainment – to fill up their social issue’s event with some cultural program. Of course, artists’ initiatives have their own vision of their public role and also the social issues. The (communication) technologies are widely different and it is not even clear if they want to achieve the same goal. Also the understanding of the co-existence of public and private was never clear. Private things were being “borrowed” or just plain stolen. There was an issue of even creating the internal security, police – not to just replace the city guard at the gates but also to keep the internal criminal level down. The conception of autonomy was going too far in some heads. Luckily this did not happen.

The idea about autonomy should be: a self-run public space with democratic internal structure of decision making, open to new initiatives, being able to sustain the principles and over the time control conformity of initiatives’ activities to the basic principles that gave birth to such a place. Public space is getting consumed by private, so it should be kept as a “cultural reservation”. Definition of limits of the “too private for public space” should be given and it should be linked to the classical relationship between inputs and outputs and where does the difference value go (I am not talking only about money – also the ideas).

And this is enough about the autonomy. On the level of being connected to the standardized distribution channels of public goods (water, electricity, gas, information channels) there should be no question: these are the cheapest sources and should be described as the “normalized level of civilization“. These were denied by all the Ljubljana city authorities and I question the degree of their urbanity.

All throughout the both “liberations” the different city mayors were very careful at raising the issues of Metelkova and Rog. Not in the least it is worth mentioning that the two squatting actions were performed by the people actively involved in so-called “alternative” politically involved culture of the eighties and this was closely linked with the political independence of Republic of Slovenia. One could add that the politicians on the state and the city levels were part of about the same eighties movements – so in a kind of family relationships. The state and city beaurocracy structures have had big plans for these two places – but couldn’t touch it. A couple of times bulldozers have already arrived to the gates of Metelkova, but the political directive was always issued at the last moment to stop them.

However, there was no city or state support either – the politicians were not able to move the beaurocrats. The beaurocrats just had to wait. The fresh mayor from 2007 was a combination of political left-wing post-communist party economic and political elite with strong liberal economy foundations, autocratic and with populist approach. He would lead the city as a private enterprise. For this he had to clean some non-cooperative beaurocrats and the others just adapted to new leadership. He appointed the chief of city urban architecture planning office the academy professor who was teaching urban planning the very same individuals of the Temp group who a year before “liberated ” the public space of Rog.

Throughout the 2007 the discussions were going on between the Rog representatives and the mayor’s office. At one point a document was produced about legitimization of temporary use of public spaces, but at the very last point the mayor had the person responsible for preparing this document changed. It was clear that no legitimization document would be signed. In other words: my observation is that the meta-political-meta-family path followed by the eighties “alternative” generation came to an end.

Another observation: the mayor’s urban planners are unable to respond to real-time citizens needs and demands – and will in time (five years?) probably accept the urban public place models developed and put to action at this very moment elsewhere in Europe. But it will be “consumed” and packaged as a “service” according to the local folklore meta-political-meta-family-meta-NGO principles.

The basic observation would be regarding the growing up (“learning to talk, learning to walk”) of the local civic initiatives. It should be a progression from the acceptance of their infantile position (accepting the paternalistic/ maternalistic position of the local rulers) to the emancipated position in claiming their demands. If Rog situation represents the end of the road for one principle than it can be observed equally as a step in another direction – in growing up.

Borut Savski