[spectre] budapest report, part 3: AK57 (Modified by Geert Lovink)

[ugly]

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Groups, Spaces Budapest, part 3: AK57
squat seed, mayhem central, anarchist headquarters

1074 Budapest, Dohány utca 57, door-bell 128
http://www.indymedia.hu/foglalthaz/

The single most salient feature of the urban environment in Budapest, 
even for a visitor making their way through the city for the first time 
in fifteen years, is the number of abandoned or vacant buildings. In 
the city center alone, on our first evening’s walk from one bar to the 
next, we counted fourteen vacant multi-story buildings over less than 
20 blocks. There were many more walks to and from many more bars over 
the next few evenings, and it became impossible to keep count. And 
almost all the pubs we ended our evenings in were set up in the 
courtyards of abandoned buildings; surrounded by trees, ivy-covered 
walls and hundreds of laid-back patrons, it was impossible not to 
wonder about the four stories of windows above us, vacated, in many 
cases, years ago. One was a former school with dozens of classrooms; a 
former bank, or ministry, factory or apartment building.

The city is trying its best to be a new European metropolis – investing 
in gigantic cultural institutions, revving up tourism and packaging 
“history” as its primary selling point, all requirements for what 
Europe considers a succesful urban center. Covering itself in the signs 
of “European” “representative democracy”, the “transition” period in 
Hungary has been primarily a ruthless plundering of common property by 
a corrupt political class. As in the case of Romania, holding public 
office has become the fastest way to seize vast industrial properties, 
real estate and lands from state ownership and “transfer” them into 
one’s own pocket at , shall we say, preferential rates. The 
proliferation of large, hip bars as a way of dealing with the 
courtyards of vacant buildings does little to disrupt the city’s newly 
constructed European facade. Camouflaged on hostile streets, an 
estimated 30,000 homeless in Budapest have become skillful at 
invisibility.

On Friday, 30th October 2004, a vacant former Socialist shopping Mall 
in the center of Budapest named Uttoro Aruhaz was occupied by squatters 
(more info here). It was the first such action in the city, an 
experiment to “prove to the public, and to ourselves, that it is 
possible to occupy a building in Budapest”. Driving this new movement 
is a campaign for the right to housing – to force the issue into 
visibility precisely as winter was approaching and the situation of the 
homeless was more and more precarious. But the squatters were a 
heterogeneous bunch, some affiliated with the Greens, some Reds, some 
anarchists, many independents – activists and students and writers 
alike – and some squatters wanted to create autonomous spaces as 
headquarters for already established projects such as indymedia and 
food not bombs.

Many of those involved in the short-lived but much publicized squat of 
last October are reunited around AK 57 – a small flat on 57 Dohany 
Utca, which many refer to as the Basement, or “the squat that is not 
really a squat”. Maxigas explains to us that the space is owned by a 
previously failed foundation of some sorts, and is occupied with their 
blessing – participants pay only building taxes as well as utilities. 
But this is not a squat really, it is “a seed for a squat, a legal flat 
that rehearses the workings of a squat (…) a headquarters and center of 
operations, a place to return (after evictions). What is developed here 
as individual projects can be transplanted to the next squat”. Our 
conversations at the Basement are about activating potentialities.

There is living space (people come and go, we are told, and many 
foreigners that are passing through find a bed there through global 
word of mouth), an illegal bar, a communal cooking space for nightly 
meals (most popular on the week-ends), a workshop (featuring a badge 
and stencil area) and an info-shop/anarchist-bookshop/library. “We are 
black and red and green” we are told, “there are eco-anarchists, 
communist anarchists and ontological anarchists”. There are formal and 
informal affiliations to political parties or activist groups or ngo’s, 
and many of the squat regulars play multiple roles in multiple 
collectivities – from indymedia to street art to the contagious afk 
(autonom fiatalok kozossege or autonomous youth collective, in which 
membership is by self-appointment), to a local CrimethInc cell . “we 
are anti-institutional and so we have no formalized collective 
structure, but we have many different affiliations”. We are curious 
about this strange intersection of forces  that seems keen not on 
sources, but destinations — not on existing social relations, but on 
transformation and consequence. “How do you find people, or how do 
people find you?”, we ask “How do you actually work?”– the response 
comes with the swift casualness of the self-evident: “it is a matter of 
needs” .

So check out AK 57 next time you are in Budapest. Do not pass through 
the dark hallway in too big of a hurry – on our visit we were 
introduced to what began as a sticker exhibition, but quickly became an 
exercise in collective culture as visitors started treating the walls 
less as an exhibition and more as a free exchange area: “People 
understand that where you take, you can also give back”. A visit is the 
best and quickest way to be introducesd to different projects, groups, 
networks and general mayhem that intersects in the Basement. Find the 
redesigned Hungarian shield or – a local favorite – the re-appropriated 
right-wing slogans. Help cook if you want, and spend the night if you 
need. Ask about the Horizon Research Institute, and its subdivisions: 
the Casual Biennale, the Peter Greenaway Society and Party Culture, to 
name a few. Try to talk about relational esthetics here and you might 
make people vomit — the playful re-enactment of Peter Greenway Films, 
illegal parties, political campaigns, research, performances and 
national organizing intersecting here spill out of any 
institutionalizing frame with a vengeance. This is a recent space, a 
young convergence still in tremendous flux. Whether or not it is 
sustainable is uncertain, and perhaps not the heart of the matter. The 
attitude to longevity here is relaxed, but different from the rather 
self-conscious short-term performances of mini-utopia we have become so 
accustomed to. The language once again is one of necessity and 
potentiality, an actual investment in notion of transformation: “we 
stay as long as we can”.

common_places is happy to now feature a short video of our visit to AK 
57, starring in particular maxigas and toxic, and (hopefully soon) an 
in-depth analysis/article authored by maxigas.