STWST's Annual Claim 2023:
COLD RESISTANCE between art, context and call.

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COLD RESISTANCE settles between minus art, tech anarchia, meltdown and climate catastrophe, between the cool criticism of the mind and the resistant world of retreat. Outside: Smash! Inside: Lying in bed and being critical!

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Let's address an outdated capitalism that is more than dead, but still lives on as a super-aggressive zombie. Let's combine that with talk of humanism and enlightenment, which still rattle on, but actually don't smell quite right anymore either. We state: Humanism becomes in post-humanism a kind of improved future-cyborg we don't quite know yet. And the end of capitalism lives on as a zombie: but we don't really want to look at it, because we're dreading it. As individuals in the collective, and by that we mean each and every one of us, we will soon have come so far that each and every one of us, as a kind of zombie cyborg, will have to buy our basic supplies, such as the electricity that we need like a sip of water to survive, directly on the stock exchange according to daily prices. And it's the same with the sip of water we need like a bite of bread, and the bite of bread we need like a cubic meter of gas. Why this polemic? Because the question is justified, how much we all-round consumers, institutionalized critique or art can actually still contribute to saving the world - keywords totalization, capitalization, machinations, climate catastrophe or the social cold death. We ask ourselves: What kind of art do we still want to make? Which critical production do we aim for? Hasn't critique long since become a residual gesture of “critical occupation” that serves self-affirmation (or the horror of prosperity)? Because the air to breathe, that is, criticism that leaves its own spheres, is now taken care of by children who stick themselves to the street or to art with super glue. Of course: they are not children at all. And yes, certainly: there is no right actionism in the wrong Adorno.

According to various sub- and pop-culture sources, popular among 16-year-olds in the 80s (Cold War) was the idea that in the future everyone would get their own little atomic bomb and have it plugged in. For your own use. Of course, in the 80s, the “little atomic bomb in your pocket” reflects little Hitler, the Cold War, rearmament and the nuclear war horror scenario all in one. As a general image, however, it also reflects: isolation, desolidarization, powerlessness, explosive potential, the trustlessness of an accelerating capitalism, the unease before a technology that we now have in our pockets in a self-endangering way. When we think of the bomb in our pockets, does anyone think of a smartphone or what will become of it? Oh God, no! Rather differently further: Cold, warm world. It is striking that revolt today as a statement or attitude pulsates in an almost schizophrenic way between rage, destructiveness, safe space and withdrawal. The outside invades the most personal spheres, the contradictory world. The resistance one feels twists and turns into individual life - and one half accepts the gauntlet or not. By seeing things or not seeing things, taking to the streets in protest, or simply not taking action: We are confronted with complex contexts and different realities of life. We hear about war deaths every day. And we can watch as undoubtedly ecological issues begin to take care of themselves, while our basic services and social conditions follow the same path: smash happens outside, with and without us. And perhaps some have always been too comfortable to get out of bed, but others simply don't get out of bed out of resistance. Many an art performance spreads a post-apocalypse mood: the catastrophe seems to have already happened, and we gather to indulge in a kind of survivor-community of a residual beauty. One thing is clear: there is no way back. And no one has ever explained the difference between a zombie and a cyborg to us.

Ism or no ism, here's the thing: In general, we're cheering for anarchist principles: Free association, self-determination, decentralization, liberation of individuals in the collective, etc. Of course, this also applies to digital technologies: Free software, open hardware, do it yourself, do it with others - becoming users instead of being used. We know and understand this. As a city workshop we refer here to our friends from servus.at: Like them and other communities, we want freely accessible means of production that can be modified as far as possible. We do not want monopolized technologies that are techniques of capitalist domination. Furthermore, we don't want to accept devices that have become planned obsolescent offerings to a religion of too-much-is-never-enough and are screwing up the planet.
But that's exactly what we find: GAMA and other tech giants calling the shots, billionaires able to determine the course of all humanity - not because they are particularly knowledgeable, but because they can get their way by means of their financial power. We seem to be faced with the choice of having to cling to the skirt hem of (supra)state regulation (because somehow “democratically” legitimized) or to hang our tattered cloaks in the wind of “free enterprise” - where ever it might blow. These are the real unregulated conditions - and we want to address here, in the techfantasia of sociopathic nutcases, the cold and hard anarchist approach of the smashing with the keyword of technoanarchism.
We do not want to pretend that anarchism as a concept is salvation, nor is it the adversarial negation, the absolute opposite of capitalism and completely incompatible with it. Rather, it is a combined contradiction that is meant to open up room for maneuver. This one, with its reset of the rules, also contrasts with the playing field on which the usual ideological templates cavort: Libertarians and liberals, for example, cultivate an electoral affinity that is sometimes more covert and sometimes more overt. Feyerabend's “anything goes” flirts with Schumpeter's creative destruction - nag Gerald Hörhan calls himself an “investment punk” (sidenote: please emigrate to Dubai and spare us your crappy tax tips!), and ultimately for both it is some form of market that is supposed to bring everything into balance. In fact, the anarchic character of capitalist production (Ernest Mandel following Marx) provides for scorched earth and for the fact that the need carousel electricity-water-bread-gas mentioned at the beginning turns faster and faster and throws off all those who cannot afford the ticket prices for the cynical carousel anymore.

We say NO. FUCK THAT. There must be another way - maybe art, theory and criticism can start again their utopian, non-market conform or simply personally motivated and/or unfinished fascicles of techno-anarchism instead of back-digesting some NFT shit.

With COLD RESISTANCE, we are interested in approaches that integrate the social, political, technological and environmental themes. But we want to go further. What can COLD RESISTANCE mean in terms of cold resistance, cold resistance or even in the midst of undead in the infinite living data space? We want to get closer to the zero point of research: at absolute zero at minus 273, the measure of entropy is zero. Quantum computers operate at minus 273 degrees. And we think: Art also works there, with all the open means and media that should be available to critical minds. We want to settle between laws of nature, contradiction, resistance, art, life, language, body, entropy, information, the physics of relations. We want to ask with Erwin Schrödinger the simple but serious question: What is life? Specifically, while we do not know what art, life and consciousness might mean at absolute zero, and suspect it lies in an Outer Space of definition, because: What does “zero” alone mean at absolute zero? But: In the Stadtwerkstatt some projects were realized in the last years, which can be seen as approaches to these themes. This is to be pushed again this year. As minus art in progress. As social criticism anyway.

COLD RESISTANCE settles between cold resistance and cold resistance, between minus art, tech anarchia, meltdown and warm climate catastrophe, between the cool critique of the mind and the resistant world of retreat. Outside: Smash! Inside: Lying in bed and being critical!

STWST pursues the transformation of politics and society and locates itself in an art after new media: media and means are open. We want to realize projects and collect texts with COLD RESISTANCE in 2023. We don't want to afford pessimism, but criticism and horizon very well. Help us with this. Send texts, projects or even yourselves.

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The call is deliberately kept open.

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You want to make art?
Anything goes, between meltdown and minus 273 degrees. 1 page project outline and a few lines of bio are enough for now. By January 10, 2023 to cold@stwst.at. Subject: Art at minus 273 degrees.

You want to send texts?
Texts should be related to the year's claim and can be submitted in all stages and forms - samples or sketches of about 2000 characters will suffice for now. By January 10, 2023 to cold@stwst.at. Subject: The TechnoAnarchia in me.

You want to talk?
STWST will be hosting kitchen tables again in 2023. If you want to participate in one of the four meals, where strategies between cold resistance, resistance and art will be discussed between March and June, you can apply with an informal letter. Say: Write an email about what topic you would bring for the dinner. By January 10, 2023 to cold@stwst.at. Subject: Cold Kitchen.

The text was formulated by the No Content Department of STWST.

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The Year starts with spotting: Art, world and electricity

STWST at the beginning of the year: we go out at night. And work on the annual program during the day. We read horror news from the world. We write about it, among other things, in the Versorgerin, which is being created. Warmongers, climate catastrophe, corruption. That's it. And around the clock we sit in front of the electricity meter and watch money and resources disappear. How this is supposed to work, we don't know.

The world has glued itself to us.

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All procetcs of STWST's New Art Context Department 2023:

19th January 2023, 18.30 h
Vortrag Magnus Klaue
Versorgerin author Magnus Klaue will present his volumes of 'Die Antiquiertheit des Sexus', published by XS-Verlag, on 19 January.

5 Nights: 25. Feb, 23. Mar, 29. Apr, 25. May, 10. Jun 2023
Night Creature's Deamons: Club culture in the context of its political impact. Empower FLINTA and queers, exclude the norm. Yes, baby, you got canceled, stop crying!

8 March, International Women's Day
Fem Wilde Woche
Demo, Internationaler trans★feministischer Streik gegen digitale Ausbeutung, Feminist*innen lesen Feminst*innen, DJ Freund*innen im Cafe Strom. Plus mehr Female Power am 10. und 11. März.

10. March 2023
Lesung Johanna Grubner
Female Positions und Affidamento: Affidamento lässt sich als feministische politische Praxis der Freiheit und als Wertschätzung.

1st April + 27th May
Noise Meetup Workshops
Die Noise Community with 2 Workshops in STWST, 1st of April: Circuit Bending Workshop, 27th of Mai: RGBastler Workshop

30. May
Print your Money great again
At the end of the NFP Gibling Year, Punkaustria is proud to present: News about NFP, the circulating secured currency Gibling and our Blockchain: Print Your Fiat-Money Great Again!

from 5th of June
Niveau Leaves Safe Harbor
Bootsdemo, zeremonielle Wasserung, Bootstaufe der NIVEAU am 5. Juni. Danach eine Woche Work-in-Progress und Fahrt zum Kunstschiff Eleonore in der Traun. Kooperation von Kunstuni und STWST.

5.-10. June
Don’t use your time, kill it
Don't use your time, kill it shows dancers making music or maybe musicians dancing, but possibly neither. Performance by Edgar Lessig, with support from the STWST.

15. June
Gibling Ed 12 von Tina Kult
The 12th edition of the Gibling was designed by Tina Kult. The exhausted human being becomes a historical representation on banknotes. Gibling presentation of the new Gibling and destruction of the old Gibling on 15 June. Valid from 15 June.

20. June
Floating Wild Growth Elements
Floating objects: STWST shows an installation with floating wild growth elements, root stream and a preview of the hybrid beaver castle as part of Culture Climate Change.

28. June
Reclaim!
Symposium in cooperation with Kunstuni and STWST: The symposium Reclaim! Clubnächte, Häuserkampf und urbane Freiräume starts on the afternoon of 28 June at the STWST Donaulände. Lectures and performances, afterwards party and DJ line in the house.

2.-8. August
KW31 STWST Research Week @ Flur 4 - join us!
stwst research week

Shown from 8-10 Sept.
Plus Minus Schutzleiter
The STWST basic resource project: Is there life after electricity? Who's gonna pull the plug on us? Media art - something with electricity. Shown at STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN, parallel and in co-op with Ars Electronica 2023. In-year project development and implementation.

4.-10. Sept, Residency and Radio
Contingent Snapshot
Sound and transmission, radio residency on the ship Eleonore, project shown at STWST48, by Eugenia Seriakov and Francesco Zedde, in coop with STWST.

1.-10. Sept
Mobile Hybrid Beaver Lodge - BEAVER LAB
On the banks of the Danube at STWST, an old bus body was transformed into a mobile, hybrid beaver's lodge: Between field laboratory and sculptural beaver lodge, the interaction of nature and culture is thematised.

Shown from 8-10 Sept.
Endlose Annäherung an Null / Endless Approximation to Zero
Infolab Project 2023, Research in Theory and Practice, shown at STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN. In-year project development and implementation. More about Infolab.

Shown from 8-10 Sept.
Minus werden / Become minus
Quasikunst research and art project 2023, shown at STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN. In-year project development and implementation. More about Quasikunst.

Shown from 8-10 Sept.
Bloodproof of Life
The STWST project on the realness of our lives: Are you real? Is your life alive? Shown at STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN, in parallel and in co-op with Ars Electronica 2023. In-year project development and implementation.

8.-10. Sept
STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN
48 Hours of Immersive Trash.

With STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN, Stadtwerkstatt hosts its 9th edition of the annual 48-hour non-stop showcase extravaganza STWST48. It positions itself between cool criticism and cold resistance, between minus art and meltdown, between immersion in trash - and imagination as material. Also in 2023, STWST48x9 COLD HEAVEN means forty-eight hours of genre-free art and critical production in the house's anti-white cube.

12.-31. Oktober
BestOFF 2023 – Radical Collective
STWST@BestOFF 2023 and BestOFF 2023@STWST: The Kunstuniversität Linz is placing this year's show BestOFF under the claim 'Radical Collective' and its associated 50th anniversary celebrations. STWST is one of several cooperating venues.

November 2023
Filmdreh Herzblutwiese STWST
Film shoot on several days in Nov at STWST: Herzblutwiese STWST - The STWST from a feminist perspective. A film scheduled for completion at the end of 2024.

28. Okt + 25. Nov
Noise Meetup Workshops
Die Noise Community with 2 more Workshops in STWST
28. Oct: Quircy Circuits, 25. Nov: Minipatch Workshop