Slide 2On June 11th 2013 the Greek government announced its decision to close the countrys Public Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and fire all of its employees. The announcement was met by ERTs workers spontaneous decision to occupy its buildings across the country and continue to broadcast radio and TV programmes. From that point and for over two months, ERT became the epicentre of a peak in anti-austerity struggles in the country. At the same time, its occupied buildings were transformed into the biggest experiment in self-organization and self-management in the country, as ERTs workers embarked upon the 24/7 online broadcast of TV and Radio programmes. Although public interest withered away in the months that followed and ERTs occupation in Athens was evicted in November 2013, ERTs workers continue to self-manage the Radio and TV stations of ERT for twentytwo months now. In this presentation I want to mobilize ERTs experience as a living laboratory for embodying and exploring further the relations between the urban and emancipatory politics or what is commonly described as the question of the urban political. However, rather than focusing on spectacular and evental urban uprisings as much of the relevant literature does, ERTs occupation offers an ideal entry point to analyze the continuous efforts around opening and sustaining emancipatory urban political spaces. Slide 3With these concerns in mind, my aim is to develop a reading of ERTs occupation as the assembling of what Rancire calls an artifice of equality and explore some of the possibilities and limitations that such assemblages create for an emancipatory politics of urban infrastructure. The presentation is structured in four parts. In the first part, I draw from Rancires conceptualization of politics to sketch the theoretical framework that informs my understanding of ERT as an artifice of equality and my reading of the role that such assemblages might play in formulating an emancipatory politics of urban infrastructure. The second part focuses on what can be called the event of ERT, the first five months of ERTs occupation up until the eviction of the occupation of the companys headquarters in Athens in November 2013. The next part looks closer to the self-managed operation of ERT in Thessaloniki in the aftermath of Novembers eviction. In light of the previous sections, the final part returns to the question of emancipatory politics of urban infrastructure to draw some tentative conclusions. Slide 4Over the past ten years geographers have extensively mobilized Rancires political writings (1992, 1995, 1999, 2009, 2011). On the one hand, his notions of post-democracy and the police serve to criticize the hegemonic techno-managerial politics that seek to foreclose dissent through an exhaustive ordering of bodies, places and identities (Dike, 2005, 2007, Oosterlynck and Swyngedouw, 2010, Swyngedouw, 2007, 2009). On the other, Rancires conceptualization of politics informs readings of the opening of spaces of and for politics (Bettini and Karaliotas, 2013, Dike, 2012, 2013, Kaika and Karaliotas, 2014, Swyngedouw, 2011a, 2011b, 2014). It is with this latter aspect of Rancires work that I want to engage here through an emphasis on his understanding of politics as a world-making activity (Dike, 2013). Politics, for Rancire, revolves around the properties of spaces and the possibilities of times (2006: 13). It is whatever shifts a body from the place assigned to it or changes a places destination. It makes visible what had no business being seen and makes understood as discourse what was once only heard as noise (Rancire, 1999: 30). Hence, emancipatory politics unfold in and through the opening of spaces. This emphasis on the opening of spaces foregrounds a framework wherein politics emerges as the configuration of a specific world. For Rancire, there are two contrasting structurations of the common world: one produced by the logic of the police and one that revolves around democratic politics (2010). Democratic politics, as the performative enactment of the logic of equality, stages politics as an artifice of equality, which is itself not a real foundation, since it exists only as the enacted condition of dispositifs of dispute (Rancire, 2010: 85). In this line of argument, artifices of equality are assemblages that are constructed through the enactment of the logic of equality and re-configure the common of our given world by imagining and materializing different forms of politically being and acting in-common (op cit: 92). Slide 5In addition to their spatial connotations the construction of such artifices of equality is also an art of duration and endurance. It depends upon and simultaneously supports the development of specific material, virtual and embodied infrastructures. In this sense, artifices of equality assemble bodies, objects and practices into urban space (Vasudevan, 2014) to produce a common spatial field in which the ongoing interactions of participants continually generate sentiments, ideas, values and practices (Gould, 2009: 178). Hence, constructing artifices of equality as an emancipatory politics of urban infrastructure contributes in re-imagining and re-articulating the urban as what Simone calls a flexible resource for emancipatory forms of political, social and economic organization (2008: 200). At the same time, it pays particular attention on the role that artifices of equality as urban infrastructure play in circulating and assembling emancipatory urban politics. In what follows I read ERTs occupation through this lens.Slide 6In order to better understand ERTs occupation it is important to briefly situate it within the context of hegemonic austerity politics in Greece. Since 2010, loan conditionalities consensually negotiated between successive Greek governments and the EU-IMF-ECB troika defined the horizon of politics in Greece. They revolved around the neoliberal mantras of austerity, privatization, deregulation of working conditions and the downsizing the public sector. The governments decision for ERTs closure and the dismissal of its 2,656 workers constituted a continuation and deepening of this logic of privatizations and vilification of the public sector. The governments spokesman Simos Kedikoglou himself a former employee of ERT- clearly articulated the message when announcing ERTs closure: At a time when the Greek people are enduring sacrifices there is no room for delay, hesitation or tolerance for sacred cows (2013). ERT is a a typical example of unique lack of transparency and a heaven of waste [that] costs three to seven times as much as other TV stations and has four to six times their personnel (op. cit). What is striking, in Kedikoglous announcement, is how the cynical rhetoric of unproductive public sector workers and parasitic public sector is mobilized to pass over the fact that the countrys political elites are the ones to be held accountable for any misconducts regarding ERTs function. Moreover, and more importantly, the fact that the decision for ERTs closure was brought forward in the form of a ministerial decree, without parliamentary discussion or approval, constituted an unprecedented act of authoritarianism. It, once again, made apparent that the government would not even try to keep up any pretence of legitimacy. It exemplified the governments hatred of democracy and its intolerance for democratic public media, public goods, culture, freedom of thought and creation. Slide 7It is within such a context that ERTs occupation unfolded. On June 11th and immediately after Kedikoglous announcement, a spontaneous workers assembly was organized in the headquarters of ERT in Athens. As participants in it describe, the meeting lasted for only a few minutes with everybody agreeing on the proposal for a working occupation of ERTs buildings. From Athens the decision spread across the country leading to the organization of workers assemblies that took similar decisions. The workers were determined to keep ERT open in a twofold sense. On the one hand, the occupied ERT would continue to broadcast TV and Radio programmes voicing their disagreement with the governments decision and highlighting ERTs role as a public media. On the other, ERTs journalists mobilized the occupied infrastructure to address calls to people in solidarity to gather outside ERTs buildings across Greece. And so it happened. Within a matter of hours thousands of people in solidarity gathered in ERTs courtyard in Athens to protest against its closure. In the evening of the same day, a massive free music event was organized and the now tens of thousands of people in solidarity together with the workers made clear that they would not conform with the governments decision. Despite massive popular discontent the government proceeded in cutting the power in ERTs transmission centres at the midnight of the same day. Yet, the peoples and the workers conviction to maintain the occupation of ERT and continue to online broadcast in the face of the governments brutal nihilism would give birth to a massive political struggle for ERT. It would also fuel however, something bigger than ERT as one of the workers put it, a struggle for democracy and the commons, an exciting political experiment revolving around equality, self-management and the forging of networks of solidarity.Slide 8The central element of ERTs occupation from its early days was the self-managed online broadcast of alternative Radio and TV programmes. The basic guidelines, framework and often times participants of political shows, news and information programmes were consensually discussed and agreed in the workers assembly which brought together all of ERTs employees including journalists, technicians, musicians e.tc. While ERTs re-appropriated infrastructure provided the necessary material means to produce the programmes, the role of other social movements and activists in solidarity in keeping this broadcast live cannot be overstated. They not only participated in a free voluntary basis in covering the needs of ERTs functioning but also and more importantly provided the necessary material and virtual infrastructure for online hosting the programmes and transmitting them throughout the globe. This role was even more prominent during the first days of the occupation and before the European Broadcasting Unions decision to host ERTs online broadcast in its site for the next five months. At the same time, ERTs courtyard was almost always packed with a spontaneous crowd, creative artists and musicians, international visitors and celebrities, who came to speak to the public live and online. In parallel, a solidarity assembly was also held every evening in ERTs courtyard and a number of grassroots unions and social movements against austerity held their assemblies and rallies in front of ERTs buildings. The urban infrastructure of ERT was re-allocated from its role in serving the interests of the markets and the state and was transformed into a space of direct democratic practices, solidarity and self-management of the commons.Slide 9It is here, however, that the first challenges and limitations emerged. From the early days of ERTs occupation in Athens, it became apparent that the links between the solidarity assembly and the workers assembly as well as between the people in solidarity and what was happening in ERTs buildings were extremely fragile. As one of the votes by the solidarity assembly narrates the story: while we have actively sought to establish links between the two assemblies our contacts were limited to only a few of ERTs workers who participated on a personal basis and could not express the decisions of the workers assembly. Similarly, efforts by the solidarity assembly to have a say over the TV and Radio programme were practically ignored with established journalists and high ranking Union members having a decisive role in its formulation. This was particularly true for the TV programme. Finally, the buildings of ERT were also guarded by Union members (mainly coming from the communist partys labour union) creating barriers in people accessing the building. Arguably, this failure to further establish links between the two poles of ERTs occupation played a key role in the withering away of the massive solidarity movement. This, in turn, fed the self-referential and particularistic trends that already existed within ERT. As a result, the call for support when the government decided to evict the workers from ERTs headquarters in Athens had only limited success. ERTs occupation in Athens was evicted in November 2013. In the meantime, a new state television had been established and attracted applications for employment from almost half of ERTs former workers. These developments, however, did not signal the end of the self-managed experiment of ERT that is up until today broadcasting via the online platform ERTopen. By virtue of being still occupied, ERTs infrastructure in Thessaloniki would now be transformed into the central node in ERTs experiment as it would provide studios to host and equipment to broadcast most of the programmes. At the same time, the arrival of workers from Athens would give renewed life to Thessalonikis initiative and fuel a further round of experimentation with self-rule and self-management practices as well as with forging networks of solidarity.Slide 10ERTs occupation in Thessaloniki had from its early days been more successful in opening ERTs buildings to the people and giving voice to political movements and solidarity initiatives that were customarily excluded from mainstream media. After the eviction of their Athenian counterparts the repertoires, discourses and practices of Thessalonikis occupation were further radicalized. It was by then apparent that the government had no intention to re-open a fully functional public broadcaster but was rather creating a far more clientelistic state propaganda mechanism. It was also evident that the struggle for ERT would last long and face everyday practical and political challenges. In the face of these challenges, Thessalonikis ERT occupation, decided, on the one hand, to deepen and systematize its direct democratic practices of self-government, and on the other to further open ERTs infrastructure to affected citizens and political movements in the city. Two elements stand out in this process: the publication of a proposal for a new self-managed ERT informed by the workers experience in June 2014 and the institutionalization of a collective of friends and people in solidarity with ERT in October 2014. Slide 11In June 2014 and with a years experience in self-managing ERT the workers assembly of Thessaloniki published its proposal for a new public and democratic ERT. Thessalonikis proposal is not an abstract utopian treatise on self-management and organization but rather the crystallization of an embodied practice that emerged from the everyday experience of running the TV and Radio stations. The proposal is articulated around direct democratic practices and seeks to provide a framework for the self-managed production of the information and cultural commons in the service of the public. Writing the text as such was the result of direct democratic practices and emerged through the general assembly meetings of ERTs workers. It was written by a nine-member working group of volunteers that were selected in the assembly and returned there, with thematic discussions organized in the meantime, to take its final form. The philosophy of management for the new ERT is based on the central role of the general assembly, the rotation of the heads of various departments and their direct revocability. Executive and managerial positions are replaced by sectoral coordinators who are elected by the workers in the respective sector and are directly accountable to the general assembly. In parallel, and perhaps most importantly, the manifesto repeatedly insists on safeguarding the open character of ERT and proposes ways for societys involvement in the participatory formulation of the general philosophy of the programme. More specifically, it proposes the formulation of a platform where representatives of the various social and political movements, self-managed experiments, solidarity initiatives and neighborhood assemblies together with representatives of the academic community and professional bodies of the city would express and discuss the opinions of their respective general assembly to ERTs general assembly and programme committees. In this spirit ERTs workers concluded the publication of their manifesto with a call towards the local political movements as well as all of Thessalonikis citizens to actively support and participate in the construction of the new ERT.Slide 12As I have already mentioned ERTs occupation in Thessaloniki was from its early days more open to political movements and citizens. The activities of the platform against auctions, the social solidarity health clinic of Thessaloniki, the movement against gold-mining activities in Halkidiki, and the occupied and self-managed factory of VioMe all had a central position in ERTs programme. In parallel, a series of documentaries that narrated the stories of these initiatives were produced by ERT after November 2013. In turn, all of these initiatives hosted most of their press conferences and from time to time their general assembly meetings in ERTs infrastructure. The development of this reciprocal and mutually empowering relationship between the different political movements in Thessaloniki was of paramount importance both in strengthening them but also in influencing their further development. The opening of political spaces in Thessalonikis occupied ERT was creating room to exchange experiences, discuss common practical and political challenges and forge long lasting solidarity bonds between movements and people. It is, thus, no surprise that ERTs workers call for support in June was eagerly accepted by Thessalonikis citizens and political movements. A first manifestation of this renewed and deepened network of solidarity occurred in September 2014 during the prime ministers visit to Thessalonikis annual EXPO, when ERTs workers and political movements from across the country concerted their actions in staging their disagreement with the government through demonstrations, press conferences and general assembly meetings open to citizens. Ultimately, activists succeeded in hijacking the spotlight from prime ministers visit to turn it to political struggles unfolding in Thessaloniki and beyond. Septembers success and the conviction of Thessalonikis occupied ERT to remain open to society further contributed in deepening the links of this emerging solidarity network. This was crystallized in the formulation of the collective of friends and people in solidarity with ERT in October 2014. Bringing together activists and volunteers from all of the above groups the collective seeks to support ERTs self-managed and direct democratic experiment, while simultaneously serving as a temporary platform for the above described dialogue between ERT and Thessalonikis society. Slide 13To conclude, I want to return to the discussion around the urban political by briefly discussing some of the insights that ERTs case can offer for what I have called an emancipatory politics of urban infrastructure. As I have tried to demonstrate through ERTs case, emancipatory politics have a trajectory that together with events that punctuate the flow also consists of the ongoing efforts to create forms of being in common different from the ones offered from the state and the market (Rancire, 2011). Such efforts revolve around opening spaces, assembling artifices of equality that reconfigure the partitioning of the urban sensible and thus contribute to its constant re-politicization. Sustaining and nurturing such artifices, in turn, requires a daring imagination, constant and rigorous organizational innovation and political activity informed by a fidelity to the logic of equality (Swyngedouw, 2014; Karaliotas, forthcoming). As ERTs case through its different phases suggests two elements are vital in this process. First, formulating and deepening a solidarity network between different urban political movements and activists (Arampatzi and Nicholls, 2012; Uitermark and Nicholls, 2013). Being a TV and radio station ERT had the opportunity to make visible, support and strengthen the numerous solidarity initiatives and political movements that are unfolding in Thessaloniki and to a lesser degree Athens. In turn, its struggle for over twenty two months would have been impossible without the unprecedented support of key activists and political movements. However, as the case of ERT also suggests, a second element is also pivotal, namely: keeping such artifices of equality open to society and newcomers. Establishing links between activists and movements of all sorts is a slow and demanding process that apart from the efforts of key activists and the physical convergence in space (Routledge, 2003; Arampatzi, forthcoming) also requires that such initiatives remain radically open to newcomers through a fidelity to the logic of equality (Rancire, 2010; Stavrides, 2014).Slide 14It is in this sense and form that I argue that artifices of equality can be seen as an embodied, networked and porous urban infrastructure that holds a central role in circulating and assembling emancipatory politics (see also Vasudevan, 2014). Finally, zooming out a bit further, it is important to note that similar, albeit geographically differentiated, experiments and movements are unfolding throughout the globe in the aftermath of recent urban uprisings: from the convergence between the Indignados and the movements against housing dispossession in Spain (Garca Lamarca, 2014), through the Strike Debt platform initiated by Occupy movement activists in the US (Ross, 2014), to squats, social centers and neighborhood assemblies in Turkey (Agbulut, 2014; Karaman, forthcoming). While the links between these initiatives remain fragmented and sporadic and their practices are often limited in their specific contexts, they nonetheless participate in a prefigurative planetary dialogue revolving around equality and the production of the urban in-common. Imagining, forging and sustaining a trans-local embodied network that connects these spaces through an emancipatory politics of urban infrastructure remains for me one of the most important tasks for urban theory and praxis.13