Contribution to the publication “Bending the rules”, realised in the context of a workshop in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna initiated by Axel Stockburger with the text: The wave’s propagation, a text about the protests initiated in 2008 in Italy by students against the Bologna Process, national reforms and budget cuts that took the name of “Anomalous wave”.

One year later the wave stormed Austria. In the wake of student protests in Austria since the end of October 2009 against restrictions on the access to higher education, many Austrian universities’ lecture halls and rooms were occupied, including the two largest auditoriums in Austria at the University of Vienna. The protests started with the occupation of the assembly hall of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna by a group of students and teaching staff on 20 October 2009. They protested against the rector’s office’s introduction of the Bologna process. After declaring solidarity, the Audimax of the University of Vienna was spontaneously occupied on 22 October 2009. Soon the occupations and protests spread all around the country.