All Clubs Are Beautiful: Fluc

Christian Fennesz is undoubtedly one of the most influential musicians of the electronic avant-garde. He gives this music feeling and puts the ghost back in the machine. Harmonies reminiscent of Gustav Mahler and the Beach Boys shine through the drones and noise. His groundbreaking album Endless Summer was five years old when Fennesz reopened Fluc on April 1, 2006. It is located on Vienna's Praterstern, which is being spruced up in readiness for the European soccer championships. Fluc consists of 21 office and shipping containers. The mission statement is Dance as Utopia (Tanz die Utopie). Fennesz played the opening event.

Fluc broadens the idea of what happens in clubs. In Vienna, they have so far been places for subculture and music. But Fluc is lots of things at the same time: a bar, an incubator, a building site, a meeting point, an exhibition space, a heterotopia, and a shop window. Fluc is constantly updating its facade. During the election campaign for Vienna's city council—with a populist right-wing party hoping to come out on top—the artist Julia Amelie plastered the words "Have No Fear" across the outside wall for the whole city to see. 

The new Fluc has quickly become a central hub for cool club culture. It consists of two areas: the containers above and the Fluc Wanne part below in a disused underpass. While many outside are making their way to Vienna's Wurstelprater, a 150-year-old amusement park, the guests at Fluc are enjoying hip gigs underground. Even Peaches, the proto-queen of sex positivity, appeared at Fluc in 2008.

In the first three years, the likes of Uffie, Planningtorock, The Blow, The Whitest Boy Alive, Brazilian Girls, Autokratz, I-Wolf, Ladytron, N.A.S.A, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and Sascha Funke all played at Fluc Wanne. International trends have come to Vienna as they are doing the rounds. 2008 saw Fluc host Benga, one of the pioneers of dubstep. 

It was always important for Fluc to show a certain international flair. It is even more important to do something for the local scene. There is space here for a wide variety of forms of music. There are experiments, experience is acquired, and a lot of sweat is shed under the lights. Fluc has become a playground for bands, DJs, songwriters, ensembles, and musical outfits of all kinds. Wild young acts played at the venue, alongside some wild older ones. For example, the band Fuckhead was founded in Linz as far back as 1988. They combine noise, Vienna-based activism, and music. 

Fluc is also a club. It reflects Vienna club culture in all its various forms. There is room for techno, house, deep house, minimal, Goa, drum’n’bass, electroclash, nu rave, ambient, dub, vaporwave, future bass, and any other styles too. Even autoKratz made an appearance in 2009. The party here lasts until the early hours. When the sun rises in the summer, you can see Vienna's Giant Ferris Wheel through the glass facade. 

It can all be blamed on 17 channels. This was the number of channels in a sound installation dreamed up by three graduates from the University of Applied Arts. In 2001, it was presented for a week in some empty premises on Vienna's Praterstern. The series of events was called fluctuated rooms. It was the nucleus for Fluc, or at least the first Fluc before it was converted. Even there at that early stage, art played a big role. The three graduates stuck a container, the FlucQuader, next to the premises.

Art ensures Fluc keeps growing. A sculpture could be seen waving from Fluc's roof at one point, Christian Eisenberger created a Nabenaltar (scar altar) there too, David Moises installed a VU meter on the outside wall—and sometimes Fluc even encroaches onto the forecourt. Sonia Leimer used large-scale letters (the kind that can be hired for commercial advertising) to spell out the basic elements of the new station.

Text, fluorescent tubes, posters, undulating lengths of fabric, or adhesive strips make Fluc look full of life to the outside world. And regular exhibitions are held inside too. With a 30-foot-long photographic installation, Manfred Grübl documented an action undertaken in Moscow's Red Square.

On October 16, 2009, the temperature in early fall was down to a chilly six degrees. The opening a new club called Pratersauna soon made waves at an international level. On this same day, Carl Craig, a genuine star of the Detroit techno scene, played there. Meanwhile, just a couple of hundred yards away, Juan Atkins, who is possibly an even bigger legend of Detroit techno, was playing at Fluc. This was not planned. From then on, there has been a bit more discussion when it comes to deciding which stars should come to Vienna and when. 

Fluc sees a host of different people come and go. The team is not always able to meet expectations. Sometimes there is nothing short of trench warfare, evening events flop, and not everyone is happy at the gradual emergence of a more professional approach. In 2013, the collective known as Gruppe UNO Wien staged a protest based on everyone against everything, a kind of artistic precursor to the culture of outrage or cancel culture. 

Club culture had always been queer. Clubs were safe spaces where people could live out their sexuality without persecution. The city of Vienna was relatively quick to adopt a cosmopolitan attitude. With the Life Ball and the rainbow parade around the city's prominent Ringstraße, there have been very visible signals from as early as the 1990s. Fluc too welcomes people from all different backgrounds and with different orientations. For example, the band Pop:sch appeared here in 2016.

The Berlin daily newspaper taz described the band Die Nerven as the best live act in the country. Most concerts now charge for admission, the cultural diversity of Vienna has increased, and a police car is often stationed outside to monitor the situation now the Praterstern has briefly become a social hot spot. The premises see a number of sexual assaults. But vigorous intervention and zero tolerance soon deal with the problem. 

COVID-19 presents an existential threat to Fluc too. Normal life has been put on hold for months. On June 16, 2020, there was finally a chink of light, when the first post-lockdown concert could be held. Under strict conditions, DIVES played two consecutive sets so enough people could see their concert. Most of the staff have been put on shorter working hours. It is unclear when or if things will return to normal. 

www.fluc.at