Three cheers (plus one caveat) for the indie scene!
Among the most essential tasks for a city in the field of cultural politics is the cultivation of those creative individuals and artists that are loosely referred to in in Linz and Upper Austria as the Freie Szene, the indie scene. What we are talking about here is a vital factor of cultural life, a force that is passionately and of its own accord seeking a place for itself in society and in the perceptions of society. However, the term indie scene is somewhat misleading in that this scene in fact consists of a number of different scenes rather than constituting one coherent one. These scenes differ in their content-related and artistic agenda, in their organisation and potential. If it is the case in Linz that “the” indie scene sees itself in opposition to “the” institutions (which are conceived of as a kind of cultural establishment), this picture fails to do justice to reality not in one, but in several ways. What is neglected here is the tightly woven network that links these scenes to many of the city’s institutions. Behind the shield of ostensible solidarity all existing rifts are touched up and a pattern of avant-garde versus mainstream is proclaimed that has in fact been defunct for a long time – also in Austria. This creates the necessity in the post-2009 era to make regular and far more generous subsidies than in the past available to these scenes but to make sure at the same time that quality is not lost sight of. One way to do this is to formulate high expectations, others include organising a competition of ideas, stressing artistic excellence or, in isolated cases, entering into performance agreements. The hunger for powerful, strong-willed signals and new existential blueprints must be taken seriously. Complacency must be discouraged.back