LarsKoch Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine
It is simplynot possibletoprovide asingle, uniform categorizationofChristoph Schlingensief’sart.Itranges from films made for the cinema and works for tele- vision, to operaproductions, theater productions at the Berlin Volksbühne and other theaters in Germanyand around the world. Not for nothing is Schlingensief described as a “total artist” [Gesamtkünstler](Jank and Kovacs 2011). Atext on Schlingensief in an anthologydevoted to “Disruption in the Arts” is justified, however,byasingle, specific aspect of his oeuvre,anaspect that bestows con- tinuityonall of his work and identifieshim as aparadigmatic representative of an aesthetics of disruption.¹ This aspect concerns his repeated efforts to under- mine the expectations of his audience by creatingmoments of irritation and con- fusion, as well as semantic, narrative,and aesthetic breaks.Schlingensief strives for an art form thatdoes not rest content with sleek, smooth meaning,anart form thatattacksall forms of closure – of the world, of the subject,ofmeaning – accentuating instead the provisional character and openness of art and life. This stance of refusingclosure, which is simultaneouslythe motivation and resultofhis aesthetics of disruption, cannot be pinned down (solely)onthe basis of content.Rather,asaformal program of ameta-art,itaddresses the au- dience in the mode of acalculated uncertainty regarding the status and bounda- ries of fiction and reality in the audience’sown practices of reception and reflec- tion. The substantial thrust of Schlingensief’saction art “no longer consists in a demand for changingthe world, expressed in the form of social provocation, but rather in the production of events, exceptions and moments of deviation” (Leh- mann 2006:105),² which first and foremost createaspace of reflection on the relationship between the symbolic order,semiotic practices,and “reality.” In other words, Schlingensief’s “total art” is concerned aboveall with the quasi- transcendental question of underwhat conditions it is possibletoform an idea of the society and the world in which we live.
Originallypublished in German (Koch 2014)and translated into English by Gregory Sims.On the concept of an “aesthetics of disruption,” see the contribution by Lars Koch and Tobias Nanz in this volume. Translation slightlymodified. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110580082-016 292 Lars Koch
Theater critics repeatedlydescribed Schlingensief as an agentprovocateur,³ a term that is accurate and inaccurate at the same time – inaccurate because Schlingensief’sart could never be reduced to the gesture oftenattributed to him, namelyspectacular provocation for its own sake; accurate,because Schlin- gensief always adhered to Heiner Müller’s aperçu that “theaters thatnolonger managetoprovoke the question ‘WHATONEARTH IS GOING ON HERE?’ are closed down, and rightlyso”⁴(Müller 1996). The moment of provocation is not an end in itself for Schlingensief, but rather aperceptual and political instru- ment.Inthis sense, his aesthetics of disruption is an epistemological mode of action that exposes latent power constellations as well as the socially and eco- nomicallypermeated configurations of subjectivity,byprovoking communicative and affective reactions that derail asociety’sroutines of discursive normaliza- tion. It is preciselythese forms of discursive normalization in the mode of scan- dalization that Schlingensief has in mind when he points out: “It’salways others who createthe scandal.”⁵ (Schlingensief in Bierbichler et al. 1998:19) Schlingen- sief interprets the commotion in the media regarding “scandals” as an attempt at communicative repair work that becomes necessary when – and because – art unsettlesthe culturalschemataofeveryday “world-making” (Goodman 1978) and thus calls into question thingsthat are considered normatively and political- ly self-evident:
Provocateur, enfant terrible,the terms don’tinterest me. At the very most,Iprovokemy- self. […]This is the trick of System 1, toimmediatelyfix on somethingthat enables acom- fortingclassification: Aha, aprovocateur,Iunderstand.Aha, anutcase, now Iunderstand even better.[…]From that point on, everythingcan simplygoonasbefore.⁶ (Schlingensief 1998:17)
To use Niklas Luhmann’sterminology,Schlingensief perfected an aesthetic ap- proach thatundermines the established codes and spatial “situatedness” of
Forexample by IrmgardSchmidmaierinthe newspaper article Nazi-Hamlet: Schlingensiefs Aktionismus provoziert Zürich (Schmidmaier: 2001). “Theater,denen es nicht mehr gelingt,die FrageWAS SOLL DASzuprovozieren, werden mit Recht geschlossen.” “Den Skandal erzeugenimmer die anderen.” “Provokateur,enfant terrible, die Begriffe interessieren mich nicht.Esist doch höchstens so, daß ich mich selber provoziere. Aber ich freue mich, wenn funktionalisierteHumanisten ver- strickt werden. Vielleicht merken einige, wie lächerlich es ist,immer den Konsens zu suchen. […]Das ist der Trick vonSystem 1, sofort etwas festzumachen, das beruhigende Einordnunger- möglicht: Aha, ein Provokateur,verstehe. Aha, ein Spinner,verstehe noch mehr.[…]Von da an kannalles so weiterlaufen wie bisher.” Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 293 communication, therebyshifting the focus of attention onto the wealth of pre- conditions for these codes and situations.⁷ He thus provokes “collapses of mean- ing” (Stäheli 2000) in which the eminentlypolitical procedures of asociety’s self-description – which otherwise remain suppressed below the collective per- ceptual and discursive threshold – can then become the object of reflection and critique (see Luhmann 1998:867).
1Aspectsofanaestheticsofdisruption
To gain amore accurate idea of Schlingensief’sdisruptive work, it maybehelp- ful to situate his artistic actions within the constellation of contemporary post- dramatic theater.AsHans-Thies Lehmann points out,theater today “does not be- come political[ly][effective]through direct thematization of the political,but rather through the implicit content and critical value of its mode of representa- tion”⁸ (Lehmann 2006:178). Contemporary theater is
apractice in and with signifyingmaterial that does not create orders of power, but rather introduces chaos and novelty into orderlyand orderingperception. Theater can be political by openingupthe logocentric procedure – in which identification is paramount – in favor of apracticethat does not fear the suspension and interruption of the designating func- tion.⁹ (Lehmann 2006:178)
The audience is thus meant to understand that all formations of form are at one and the sametime evident and contingent,and that anychoice –“[since] every use of form has an effect of rendering [certain things] invisible”¹⁰ (Luhmann 2008:301) – of formations of form rules out otherpossiblechoices.Inthis sense, “the politics of theater is a politics of perception.”¹¹ (Lehmann 2006:185)
“ForLuhmann, the achievement of aworkofart consists preciselyinthe fact that it presents its form as necessary,and at the same time makes [its] contingencymanifest […].” [“Die Leistung eines Kunstwerks besteht für Luhmann genaudarin, daß es seine Form als notwendigvorführt und zugleich die Kontingenz erkennen lässt […]”](Werber 2008:467). “[…]kaummehr durch die direkteThematisierungdes Politischen [politisch wirksam],son- dern durch den impliziten Gehaltseiner Darstellungsweise.” “[…]eine Praxis in und mit signifikantem Material, die nicht Macht-Ordnungschafft, sondern Neues und Chaos in die geordnete,ordnende Wahrnehmung bringt.Als Öffnungdes logo-zen- trischen Procedere, in dem das Identifizieren überwiegt,zugunsten einer Praxis, die das Ausset- zen der Bezeichnungsfunktion, ihreUnterbrechung und Suspendierung nicht fürchtet,kann Theater politisch sein.” “Jeder Formgebrauch hat einen Invisiblisierungseffekt.” “Politik des Theaters ist Wahrnehmungspolitik.” 294 Lars Koch
In his actions, performances and stageproductions, Schlingensief pursues the “lines of flight” (Deleuze) of just such adisruptive politics of perception.¹² In endeavoring to destabilize modes of perception, he standsinthe tradition of the avant-garde, which has always soughttodeconstruct apassive immersion in art. Like Brecht or Handke, Schlingensief also strivestocreateanalienation effect,although it is much more ambivalent and less clearly didactic than was the case in the epic theater.¹³ Even when concrete socio-economic and political issues are dealt with in Schlingensief’sart,hefinds it justasimportant to in- volvethe audience in agame that,bymeans of extremelydiverse aesthetic strat- egies, focuses on the procedureofthe production and legitimation of societal self-images, aprocedureoscillating between transparencyand opacity.In order to problematize self-evidence and authenticity,Schlingensief repeatedly creates situations in which the self-evident can become clearlyrecognizable as aconstruction. In such constellations, it becomes apparent that the plausibility of the seemingly self-evident is created by the mechanisms that govern percep- tion in media productions. If one wantstodescribe Schlingensief’sdisruptive maneuvers more precisely, there are three main significant distinctions which are repeatedlydeployed in integrative combinations. In order to thematize shared conceptions of normality – the constitutive con- ditionsofwhich generallygounnoticed – Schlingensief works first of all with techniques of cognitive dissonance: he repeatedlybuilds disruptions or incom- prehensibility into his theatrical texts and performances,¹⁴ which as discursive
“Afterall, people, thoughts and images are all just waitingtobedisturbed,” [“Die Leute warten doch nur darauf, die Gedanken warten darauf, die Bilder wartendarauf, dass sie gestört werden”](Schlingensief in Kuhlbrodt 2002:142). Another genealogical line connects Schlingensief with the shock aesthetics of surrealism. AndréBreton’sstatement that the simplest surrealistic act would be to take arevolverand shoot into the crowdcorresponds with Schlingensief’srepeated calls for the assassinationof various politicians (including Helmut Kohl and JürgenW.Möllemann),which he presented as an empowerment of art,the idea beingtorecode aesthetic statements politically, in the public’s reaction to them. Forexample, the recorded aircraft noise used in the post-9/11piece “Rosebud”,which,be- cause of its sheer volume, made the communication on the stage incomprehensible, thus mak- ing it palpable that September 11 had created amassive scarcity of discourse in the mode of fear. At the same time, this irruption of turbine noise also makesclear just how much the audience’s cognitive associations aredetermined by images and sounds from the media: “This tonicity was recognized by almost 80%ofthe audienceand condemned as too blatantlyobvious.Inthe course of the premiere, the sound was replacedwith the sound of aCessna. At that point, only20% of those present recognized the allusion. It was onlyweeks later,after afifteen- year-old in the USAhad crashed his plane into an officebuilding, that onceagain 80%of the spectators understood the allusion and felt that the sound was interesting and authentic” Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 295 aporia render discernible the principle of representation itself. Schlingensief himself appears on stageasaframe-breaking commentator and actsasasec- ond-order observer, who, often equipped with amegaphone as amedium of dis- ruption,¹⁵ comments on the reactions of the audience to the occurrences on stage, thus initiating adynamic communication in the formofafeedback loop. Furthermore, the audience of aSchlingensief action must always expect to be subjected to aconstant process of sensoryoverload – Schlingensief works with such aflood of signs,references,and plot elements that one inevita- blyloses the overview and one’sperceptual capacities are stretched to the limit. This involves apermanent sampling of media content,avortex of pop-cultural and political quotations,their presentation cadenced by disruptions in the re- presentational flow.Schlingensief’s “rhythm is derailment” [Rhythmus ist die Entgleisung] (Kohse 2001). He uses the resulting cadence “to creategapsinper- ception, to produce blank spaces that confuse and unsettle the audiences.Byde- laying meaning,the text is opened up for adifferent approach to reception”¹⁶ (Nissen-Rizvani 2011:178). Asecond major strategyofdisruption, which supplementsthe cognitive dis- sonance, results from the implicit or explicit thematization of the co-presenceof actors and spectators,which always plays arole in Schlingensief’sperforman- ces.Schlingensief works with acomplex interplayofdistance and proximity, withdrawal and contact,reproduction and liveness,which completelydismantles the fourth wall that conventionallystructures the theater space. The experimen- tal space of the theater thus becomes a
[“Diese Tonizität wurde vonfast 80%der Zuschauer erkannt und als eindeutig verurteilt.Noch während der Premiere wurde das Geräusch gegendas Geräusch einer Cessna ausgetauscht.In dem Moment erkannten es nur noch 20%der Anwesenden. Erst Wochen später, als ein 15jäh- riger in den USAmit seinem Flugzeuginein Bürogebäude krachte, verstanden es wieder 80% der noch anwesenden Zuschauer und empfandendas Geräusch interessant und aufrichtig”] (Schlingensief 2002:48–49). The megaphone is thus the medium of ametacommunication, which is not used to conveya message,but rather to eliminatethe possibility of an unambiguous,supposedly correct recep- tion. “[…]umLücken für die Wahrnehmung zu erzeugen, Leerstellen zu produzieren, die die Re- zipienten irritieren. Die Verzögerungdes Sinns öffnet den Text für eine andereRezeptionshal- tung.” 296 Lars Koch
social system that is […]structured by the reciprocal perception of those present […]and thus,typicallyoscillates between the acclamation of warmth and proximity on the one hand, and the criticism of confinement and violenceonthe other.¹⁷ (Baecker 2003:16)
This givesrise to acommunicatively and atmosphericallycreated communality in the form of an event,which as atransient phenomenon initiallyresists herme- neutic interpretation, and is onlyretrospectively interpretable as afissure, dis- ruption, or division: “Art is thus no longer viewed as ahermeneutic undertaking but becomes instead an arena of aesthetic experience that invariablyforestalls hermeneutic understandingand enables experiences that initiallyelude logical categories of thought.”¹⁸ (Steiner 2012: 461) Athird aspect,which places Schlingensief in the tradition of Joseph Beuys, the founder of anti-elitist “social sculpture” [soziale Plastik](Harlan 1986), is the recurringuse of amateur actors,some of them with physical and/or mental handicaps. In their supposed otherness, these actors unsettle customary social viewing habits and, through theirphysical presenceand habitual non-conform- ity,bring out into the open the latent mechanisms of social exclusion, generally concealed by the self-imageofanopen, democratic society. “Their lack of a guise,” writes Catherina Gilles,
allows them to break into our standardized image of humanity like apieceofreality,a truth, likeLacan’s a,the small other […]. This makesapoint beyond all theatrical, demon- strative effects and makes the events atouch moreunpredictable than is generallythe case in the theater.¹⁹ (Gilles 2008:93)
Thus, it is understandable thatSchlingensief’sart,ascomposed as it is, neces- sarilyretains elements of experimentation and improvisation. Even if the public discourse about his work is stronglyconfiguredbyhis personality and, especial- ly duringthe final creative phase, in the confrontation with anxiety,illness, and death, it becomes akind of “cross-fade” of social and biographical problems,
“[…]sozialen System,das […]durch die wechselseitige Wahrnehmung der Anwesenden strukturiert ist […]und daher typischerweise zwischen Akklamation vonWärme und Nähe einer- seits und Kritik vonBeengung und Gewaltandererseits hin und her oszilliert.” “Kunst wirddamit nicht mehr als hermeneutische Aufgabe betrachtet,sondernKunst wird zum Austragungsort eines ästhetischen Erlebnisses,das dem hermeneutischen Verstehen stets zuvorkommt,das Erfahrungenmöglichmacht,die sich den logischen Denkkategorien zunächst entziehen.” “Das Unverstellte an ihnen lässt sie in unser genormtes Menschenbild hineinbrechen wie ein Stück Realität,eine Wahrheit, Lacans a, das Andere[…]. Das trifft einen Punkt jenseits aller the- atralen Vorführungseffekteund macht das Geschehen eine Spur unberechenbarer als im Theater üblich.” Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 297
Schlingensief’sperformances are unmistakablydecentralized in theirorganiza- tion, perhaps most clearlysointhe mid-phase of his career,around the turn of the millennium.²⁰ Where the performance takesoverpublic spaceand extends the circle of possibleactors far beyond the readilydiscernible rangeofinformed participants, an unpredictable dynamic comes into play. This dynamic results in an experi- mental opening,becomingpoliticallymoreresourceful thanks to the experimen- tal arrangement,inwhich, through the conceptual disruption of hegemonic im- ages, zones of spontaneity are created. Schlingensief is well aware thatimages are “not awindow on reality” [kein Fenster zur Wirklichkeit] (Belting2006:7), but rather,asaproduct of acomplex chain of signification involvingmanifold selection processes, they constituteamerely “tendentious version” of reality.Ac- cordingly,Schlingensief describes his art as “an imagedisruption machine” [Bil- derstörungsmaschine]. What he means by this in concrete terms willnow be dis- cussed in detail, on the basis of several of his works.
2 Chance2000 as acode collapse
Aspectacular action, with which Schlingensief caused asensation farbeyond the field of artistic discourse, was the founding of the Chance 2000 political party in March 1998, with which he intended to stand for elections to the German Bundestag the following September.The party’sdeclared goal was to give avoice to “the socially invisible” [den Unsichtbaren]. (Schlingensief and Hegemann 1998:18) The political initiative was accompanied by alarge number of corre- sponding actions – for example, ashopping expedition togetherwith unem- ployed and handicapped people in the luxury department store “Kaufhaus des Westens” in Berlin,oranexcursion involving group bathing at Helmut Kohl’sfa- vorite holidaylocation, Lake WolfganginAustria – which wereintended as acri- tique from different perspectivesofthe fiction of afullyopen, participativeGer- man society. With regard to the question of the aesthetics of disruption, Chance 2000 is interesting for two reasons.Onthe one hand,Schlingensief givesthe principle of social sculpture asignificantlybroader basisbyradicallyreinterpretingthe
Ihaveinmind aboveall the actions My Fat, my Felt, my Hare – 48 Hours (Kassel 1997), Pas- sion Impossible – 7Day Emergency Callfor Germany (Hamburg1997), Schlingensief’sdecon- structions of the talk show Talk 2000 (RTLand Sat1 1997) and U3000 (MTV 2000), the founding of the political party Chance 2000 (1998), the container action Please LoveAustria! (Vienna 2000) and his stagingofHamlet in Zurich (2000). 298 Lars Koch space of art as apublic space of social action, with the intention of disrupting perfect “staged performances” of everydaylife and reallocating social roles.By applauding all visitors as they entered and left the Kaufhaus des Westens,Schlin- gensief and his companions wereable to revitalize the concept of “breaching ex- periments” [Krisenexperimente] (Mehan and Wood 1975:24),²¹ which originates from ethnomethodology, “in which abreak in reality is generated which forces one to examine self-evident assumptions and perceptions” ²² (Albers1999).
While Garfinkel disrupts social order in order to investigateit, and provokesa“breach” in order to examine the hidden “routines of everydaylife,” Schlingensief’stheatrical actions and experiments – aided by his intrudingasadilettanteand outsider on a ‘perfectlystaged event’–consist in breakingopen familiar social and medial scenarios,smugglinginthe invisible and the non-representable,whateverisheld to be other or excluded by the prevail- ing order.²³ (Albers 1999)
It is no longer aquestion of sabotaging or setting fire to the department store(as was the case in the days of the Rote Armee Fraktion) –“resistanceisover, they have to produce inconsistency,contrariness”²⁴ (Schlingensief 2000) – but rather aquestion of renderingvisible, of an alienationeffect,which functions as an imagedisruptor. Chance 2000 works against the invisibility of so-called “marginal” social groups such as the unemployed and people with disabilities,aninvisibility based on insidious mechanisms of selection, and thus promotes anew regime
“People interact without listingthe rules of conduct.Continued reference is made to this knowledge nonetheless.This referencing is not ordinarilyavailable as long as the reality work continues normally. When the reality is disrupted, the interactional activity structuring the real- ity becomes visible” [“Personen interagieren, ohne die Verhaltensregeln genauzuverzeichnen. Trotzdem wirdständigauf dieses Wissen Bezuggenommen. Solange Realitätskonstruktionen normal verlaufen, ist dieses Bezugnehmen üblicherweise nicht statthaft.Sobald die Realität zer- brochen ist,wirddas Interaktionshandeln, welches die Realität strukturiert,sichtbar”](Mehan and Wood 1975:24). “[…]bei denen ein Realitätsbruch erzeugt wird, der zur Überprüfung selbstverständlicher Annahmen und Wahrnehmungen zwingt.” Thus Irene Albers in her very clever essay, largely ig- noredbytheresearch on Schlingensief. “Während Garfinkel die Ordnung stört, um sie zu erforschen, die Krise provoziert,umder verborgenen ‘Routine des Alltags’ nachzugehen, bestehen Schlingensiefs Theateraktionen und Experimente darin, mit Hilfe der Intrusion als Dilettant und Außenstehender in eine ‘perfekte Inszenierung’ vertraute soziale und mediale Szenarios […]aufzubrechen, das jeweils Andere und Ausgegrenzte der Ordnung,das Unsichtbareund Nichtrepräsentierbare einzuschleusen.” “Widerstand ist vorbei, sie müssen Widersprüchlichkeit erzeugen.” See the interview with Christoph Schlingensief in the materials accompanyingthe DVD “AusländerRaus! Schlingen- siefs Container” (Ausländer raus! 2000). Christoph Schlingensief’sImageDisruption Machine 299 of visibility that calls for the articulation of non-hegemonic positions and at the same time attempts to laybare the power of the social mainstream to muzzle, to render mute. By creatingconfrontationalsituations in which the participants (for example, the employees of the security service, who initiallylookonhelplessly at the humorous goings-onatthe Kaufhaus des Westens)lose their sense of as- suredness and effectivelyfall out of their social role, aspace of possible re-ne- gotiations opens up. The disruption resulting from the supposedout-of-place- ness of the handicapped people and the unemployed, categorized as “other,” suspendsthe invisibility of the normal.²⁵ The physical presenceofthe otherwise marginalized social groups creates anon-discursivefissure in the normality of the capitalist temple of consumption, afissure that rejects²⁶ the “hitherto pre- vailingconfines of the visible” [bis dato maßgeblich sichtbar] (Diederichsen 1998:119). The second,evenmoresignificant function of Chance 2000 consists in its exploration of the relationship between authenticity and staged performance in the field of politics on different political,social,and aesthetic levels. In a way, the founding of Chance 2000 is aform-oriented response to the thesis re- garding the completevirtualization of reality,transmuted into hyper-reality, which was much discussed in the 1980s and 1990s.²⁷ Schlingensief reactsto the disappearance of the category of “truth” from political debate by deliberately merging art and politics. In the ensuing uncertaintyabout the nature of Chance 2000 – is it art or is it politics?²⁸ – Schlingensief is aiming to draw attentionto
“Due to its lesser significance, the normal eludesrepresentation. It becomes visible either in the abstractforms of mathematical visuality or indistinct symbolism,orevenbyremaining in- visible itself, namelyinthe stagingofwhat is opposed to it,wherethe normal then appears as the latter’sother.” [“Das Normale entzieht sich aufgrundseiner geringenSignifikanz seiner Re- präsentation. Sichtbar wirdesentweder in den abstrakten Formen mathematischer Visualität bzw. unscharfer Symbolik oder eben, indem es selbst unsichtbar bleibt,nämlich durch Insze- nierungenseiner Gegenteile, als derenAnderes das Normale dann erscheinenkann.”](Cuntz and Krause 2012: 197) Schlingensief’srepeatedlycriticized collaborations with physicallyormentallyhandicapped people arealso to be understood in this sense, namelyasanimage disruption arisingfroma kind of social interaction that is often perceivedasunsettling. The facial expressions of the handicapped actors, for instance, areparticularlyimportant, sincethey perturb standardview- ing habits: the less premeditated playoffacial expressions,the fractured staging of unfamiliar affective images, brings the grimaceasaborderline case of the semiotization of affects into the foreground. This provokesadisruption of signifying practices in the sense that the hermeneutics of communication – which is still largely verbal – is renderedmorecomplex (see Löffler 2003). See for example Baudrillard1993. Chance 2000 fulfilled all the formal criteria requiredofapolitical party:ithad aproper ex- ecutive committee,aset of policies,etc.(Schlingensief and Hegemann 1998). 300 LarsKoch the staged character of “real” politics: “We’re being perfectlyserious. The really frivolous partiesare sitting in the Bundestag.” ²⁹ (Schlingensief in Albers 1999) In line with this, in the “electioncampaign circus,” the official founding event of Chance 2000 in the Berlin Prater,the prevailing thesis was that atotal- ization of the stagingofreality on all levels had takenplace and that the staged event could be understood as aproblematization of distinctionbetween art and politics. Chance 2000 is aproject that functions as areflexive stagingof–and a staged reflection on – the permanently(unreflected) staged forms of everyday life, of social life and politics. ForJean-Francois Lyotard – whom Schlingensief could have invoked as aphilosophical authority –“mise-en-scène […]isnot an “artistic” activity,itisageneral process affecting all fieldsofactivity,apro- foundlyunconscious process of selection, exclusion and effacement.” (Lyotard 1978:56) In order to expose this latent staged character, Chance 2000 refuses all attemptsatcategorization,which would inevitably produce areductive,pi- geonholing effect.Onthe contrary,Schlingensief is concerned with maintaining the tension that resultsfrom aconstitutive undecidability by making the disrup- tion of order-imposing discursive patterns aparadoxical principle of his political actions: “Theater todayispolitics. Politics has long been theatrical. And politics is even in the process of becomingbetter at theater thanthe theater itself […] Learningfrom politics means learning how to stageanevent.”³⁰ (Schlingensief 2003) What is interesting here is that Schlingensief bids farewell to the old position from the sociologyofart – manipulative politics on one side, critical theater on the other – and instead introducesanew distinction derived from the position of asecond-order observer:
What up to this point sounded like an accusation directed exclusively against the pseudo- reality of politics has now become acomplaint directed at the very beingofcontemporary theater,its retreat to the stage,intofiction, atheater that contents itself with allusions.[…] Politics and the media arereallymuch better at this now! Isn’tthis what makes the theater trulyoutrageous?Withdrawing into itself and contenting itself with aesthetic commentary over aniceglass of sparklingwine at apremiere?³¹ (Schlingensief 2003)
“Wirmeinen es erst.Die wahren Spaßparteiensitzen im Bundestag.” “Theater heute, das ist Politik. Politik, das ist schon lange Theater.Und sie schickt sich an, sogar das besserevon beiden zu werden. […]Von Politik lernen,heißtInszenieren lernen.” “Wasbis hierhin wie ein ausschließlicher Vorwurf an den Wirklichkeitsschein der Politik klang, das ist jetzt bereits eine Klagegegen das Sein des aktuellenTheaters, seinen Rückzug aufdie Bühne, in die Fiktion, die sich mit wortwörtlichen Anspielungenbegnügt.[…]Das kön- nen Politik und Medien nun wirklichbesser! Ist das nicht das tatsächlich Unfassbare am Thea- Christoph Schlingensief’sImageDisruption Machine 301
Based on this critique of the theatrical status quo, which is derivedfrom asen- sibility for the sedative effect of the bourgeois reception of art, Chance 2000 de- velops asocial experimental arrangementthat forestalls all forms of the self-as- sured distance and the comfortable setup behind the fourth wall separatingthe stagefrom the auditorium, and seeks to replace passiveconsumption with an in- sistenceonself-positioning responsibility:
We carry out our actions seriouslyand with gusto. Everybodycan participate, we don’twant to be perceivedasanart party,where System 1can then simplytalk its wayout again, claimingit’sall onlytheater after all. And the unemployed, whoshould actuallybeat the center of our efforts,fall by the wayside yetagain. (Schlingensief and Hegemann 1998:52)³²
In concrete terms, Chance 2000 is thus an experimental arrangement composed in apoly-perspectival fashion, which endeavors to establish aposition from which to observethe latent stage-managed character of media scripts and polit- ical-culturalroutines.Because actors and spectators encounter each other direct- ly,orrather because under the motto “failureasanopportunity” they become functionallyequivalent,leading to asystem-amalgamating border transgression, an infringement of otherwise neatlydistinct spheres of action: “Schlingensief’s actionscounteract the fundamental ‘impotence’ of the aesthetic, by collapsing the boundaries between art and non-art,aswell as generatingdouble binds, un- decidability,paradoxes, thus exposing the hidden rules of hermeticallysealed systems such as politics, economics and art,ortaking them to absurdextremes.” ³³ (Schößler 2006:270) Chance 2000 is thereforetobeunderstood as abreaching
ter? Der Rückzuginsich selbst und die Genügsamkeit des ästhetischen Kommentars bei einem Gläschen Premierensekt?” Hans-Thies Lehmann makes it clear that Chance 2000 can indeed be characterizedaspost- dramatic art: “Instead of the deceptively comfortingduality of hereand there, inside and out- side, [post-dramatic theatre] can shift the disturbingly mutual implication of actors and specta- tors in the theatrical productionofimages into the center of things and thus make visible the broken threadbetween personal experience and perception.” [“An Stelle der trügerisch beruhi- genden Dualität vonHier und Dort,Innen und Außen kann […das Theater] die beunruhigende wechselseitige Implikation vonAkteurenund Zuschauern in der theatralen Bilderzeugung in den Mittelpunkt rückenund so den zerrissenenFaden zwischen Wahrnehmung und eigener Er- fahrungsichtbar werden lassen”](Lehmann 2006:185 – 186). “Die Schlingensiefschen Aktionen begegnen der grundsätzlichen ‘Impotenz’ des Ästheti- schen, indem sie die Grenzen zwischen Kunst und Nicht-Kunst kollabieren lassen, zudem double binds,Unentscheidbarkeiten, Paradoxa generieren und so die verborgenen Regeln der vielfach hermetisch abgeschotteten Systeme wie Politik, Wirtschaft und Kunst kenntlich machen bzw. ad absurdum führen.” 302 LarsKoch experiment with the principle of democratic representation, which creates avor- tex of oblique representations through the mutualdisruption of events, situa- tions and actions, whereby the aesthetic strategyof“taking thingsliterally” is repeatedlydeployed as amode of languagecriticism. Forexample, the metaphor of the “tugofwar” loses its apparent political harmlessnesswhen, on an evening of the “election campaign circus”,two groups enter into an actual physical con- test,and the antagonism of theirexchangeofpolitical views acquiresaviolent, physical dimension.Schlingensief thus proves to be adestroyer of languageim- ages, the hegemonic power of which is exercized in the form of performative speech acts and thereby obscured.³⁴ Apart from the disruption of set phrases, Chance 2000 also works in other respects with the performative enactment of abstract concepts. Forinstance, in response to heckling from the audience,anevening of the “election campaign circus” is interrupted (the ensemble withdrew backstagefor half an hour), thus countering the monologic political flow of television with aconfrontational, dialogical situation in which the political – properlyspeaking – can actuallytake place. In the feedback loop that is thereby induced between the actors and the audience, in adramaturgy that uses the out-of-control situation and the mount- ing excitement curveasaway of rendering aporia visible, aself-provocation oc- curs that bringstolight the conditions of possibility of political opinion: “What we’re doing here is aself-provocation – an empty space on which to project your image – your film – and youcontinuallyhavethe problem that the images turn against themselves.”³⁵ (Schlingensief in Lilienthal and Philipp 2000:100) Juliane Rebentisch, drawingonAdorno, notes that “the social potential of art […]” con- sists preciselyinthe fact that “it interrupts an immediate, ‘practical impulse’ in favorofareflective distantiation […]” (Rebentisch 2012: 265). Martin Wuttke’sre- sponse to this comes when, during the party launch wherethe audience is com- fortablyaddressed as “we,” Wuttkeruptures the consensual community of feel- ings, insultingthe party supporters in awild litany, and starts addressingthem as “you.” This thematization of the affective dimension of the political is also pursued in other contexts – for instance,italways eventuateswhen the question of the limits of the representable and the sayable arisesinresponse to the intru- sion of individual vulnerability into the smoothsurface of the media world: “The
Schlingensief works with the same effects of ambivalence, for example in his stageplay Atta Atta,which playfullydraws on the phantasm of cleansingand its underlyingxenophobic resent- ment in connection with the figure of the 9/11 terrorist,Mohamed Atta. “Das,was wir machen, ist eine Selbstprovokation – eine leereFläche, aufdie projizieren Sie Ihr Bild drauf – IhrenFilm –,und Sie habenpausenlos das Problem, dass sich die Bilder gegen sich selbst kehren.” Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 303 whole project is embarrassing.Read what our candidates are proclaiming as their program. It’sembarrassing in the positive sense because it is honestand not functional.”³⁶ (Schlingensief in Albers1999) Focusing on the thresholds of embarrassment helps to subject the political-medial “pathos inventoryofour times” [Pathos-Inventar der Gegenwart] (Schößler 2006:290) to acritical revision and thus to delineate the objectivesofimagedisruption. This is then developed further,especiallyinhis Viennese Container Action,which took place two years later,and in Schlingensief’sconfrontations with the reality-constituting drama- turgy of the talk show.The fact that,ultimately, Chance 2000 was not elected to the Bundestag prevented it from being corrupted by the so-called “System 1,” the political establishment that subscribes to market conformity.The slogan of the electioncampaign encapsulates the fact that,for programmatic reasons alone, it would not have been possible to make it into the Bundestag: “failureasanop- portunity” [Scheitern als Chance].
3The talk show as afiction of authenticity
While Chance 2000 focused aboveall on the stage-managed character of poli- tics, in the essentiallysimultaneous actions Talk 2000 and U3000,Schlingensief subjectedthe simulation of authenticity and consternation in the genre of the “talk show” to asimilarlybiting critique.Aswas the case with Chance 2000, Schlingensief in his own version of the talk show soughttosubvert the format from within, aformat which in the 1990s had reached inflationary proportions, especiallyonprivatetelevision stations, selling the voyeuristic “view through the keyhole” as an opportunityfor self-expression for the audience. Through his ap- propriation of the established dramaturgies of the genre, Schlingensief brought to light the aporias in its professed authenticity. Talk 2000 and its successor The Pilots: 10 YearsofTalk 2000 (2008), function as adisruption of the purported discussion platform, which conceals its own commercial, constructed character and its pornographic economybehind the aggressively promoted offer of discur- sive participation by the television audience.³⁷ Schlingensief counters anysug- gestion of an authentic program taking agenuine interest in the stories of the talk show guests by deploying an aesthetics of exaggeration, of framework rup-
“Das Projekt ist peinlich. Lesen Sie mal nach, was die Kandidaten als ihr Programm verkün- den. Es ist im positivenSinne peinlich, weil es ehrlich ist und nicht funktional.” Ironically, in accordancewith legal stipulations, Talk 2000 was broadcast on Channel 4, a special interest television channel that had to be operated by Sat1 and RTLdue to aprovision in the StateBroadcasting Agreement. 304 LarsKoch ture or technical failure, repeatedlymaking it clear thatthe talk show in com- mercial television has to meet certain requirementsofthe medium and the ad- vertisers,and is thus far from open or spontaneous.³⁸ The dramaturgy of Talk 2000 is characterized by aformal design that seeks to attain acomic book-like, flagrant quality in order to point up the commercially conditioned nature of the talk show format,which it achieves by accelerating the succession of edits and topics,thus creatinganimpression of superficiality and agitation. In the first episode, for example, Schlingensief remains demonstrative- ly silent over alongperiod, but on the otherhand continuallyinterrupts his guests and on other occasionshebreaks the flow of conversation with the slogan “Kill HelmutKohl!” [Tötet Helmut Kohl!] His guests, such as HildegardKneef, Rudolf Mooshammer,and Ingrid Steeger,find themselvesconfronted with ques- tions that forcethem to make political statements.³⁹ In the final episode, entitled “[A Matter of]Lifeand Death” [AufLeben und Tod], Schlingensief even gets into afight when taken to task for the superficiality of his show –“it’sjustfaked shit, an exercise in brainlessness” [Fake-Scheiße, eine Verblödungsmaschine] – by a supposedmember of the audience,the actor Bernhard Schütz. The paradox of his own role is thus symbolically underscored: atalk show in which disputes are settled not with arguments but with brute physical strength is an indication of the overall violent natureofthe genre, agenre that is not even remotelyinter- ested in establishing adiscourse relatively freeofdomination, but solelyingrat- ifying asensation-seeking curiosity.The implicit corequestion regarding the au- thenticity of the content broadcast in the media – which is also the object of a similar discussion in Schlingensief’spersiflageofacasting show, Freakstars 3000 (2002onViva) – is explicitlyanswered by Schütz when he hits Schlingen- sief in the face, accompanying his action with the words, “Here, this is real!” [Da, das ist echt!] This form of self-referentiality – irritating preciselybecause it openlystates what one has long known but,inkeeping with the format,generallysweeps under the ruginfavor of the “normal” pleasure of media consumption – is
This deconstruction of talk show normality was in turn productively takenupbythe televi- sion talk show Roche and Böhmermann (2012–2013 on ZDF-Kultur). Here, too, it was aquestion of establishinganother form of the talk show,which constantlyfed its format-bound character reflexively back into the content it produced, for example through the fact that,atthe end of each episode, the two moderators stood in front of the camera and presented apreliminary cri- tique of the program’smachinations. With quiteembarrassingconsequences in the case of Mooshammer in episode 2: following an absurd dialogueonhappiness,workand money,Mooshammer expounds on the pleasure that one can also takeinarainbow,addingthat this kind of happiness is free of charge. Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 305 also at workinthe 2008 sequel, ThePilots,⁴⁰ which was produced in cooperation with the Berlin Academyofthe Arts. The forms of self-destruction that were de- velopedinTalk 2000 are re-deployed here, although with an additional aspect, since the production focuses less on Schlingensief himself and instead leaves more room for the invitedguests. Preciselybecause they are all media professio- nals and behave accordingly, in the slightlydisplaced frame of reference of the “Pilots” they come across as remote-controlled, uncannyghosts from “real” life. This is preciselythe case, for example, with the involuntary self-destruction of the journalism of solicitude and dismayembodied by the TV pastor Jürgen Fliege, whereSchlingensief creates asituation on the stageinwhich the typical exploitation routines of simulated solicitude are onlyostensiblyoperative. Fliege, whose great popularity resulted from the authenticity and attention-gain- ing he offered, is exposed in his calculated media-resonance, solelybecause, when confronted with amother and her mentally handicapped adultson in the context of the meta-talk show,hedoes what he always does, namelyask sim- ple questions thatare meant to signal empathy. Fliegedoes not realize thathe has thereby falleninto the trap of unmasking himself, but it does not elude the audience. Schlingensief producedasimilar disruption of the talk show’simpression of authenticity when on another evening he agreed to the Green politician Claudia Roth’srequest to join her in drinking aglass of red wine in honor of her friend, Hrant Dink, who had been shot dead that sameday in Turkey.Contrary to Roth’s expectation thatthe thematization of death would induceanappropriate degree of concern and compassion, Schlingensief had the live scene replayed, referring to apoorlydone transition to the next wide-angle shot,and thus essentiallyhad it re-enacted. The repetition of the pathos-filled in memoriam gesture makes it clear that emotions on television are always subjecttoamediatization effect. Death is no laughingmatter,this much becomesevident, but this certainly does not put an end to the work of stagingemotionsinatelevision show. The end of the openingepisode of the Pilots makes it clear thatthe standards of so-called “political correctness” are not part of an ethical or political debate, but rather as preset breakingpoints of discursive normalization they are meant to prevent the quality standards of television from being scrutinized. Here, too, Schlingensief is principallyconcernedwith seeing,with visibility,and rendering
The show,which was supposed to consist of eight episodes,was abandoned after 6episodes duetothe serious illness of Schlingensief’sfather.These episodes aredocumented in a90mi- nute condensed version producedbythe directorCordula Kablitz-Postunder the title “The Pi- lots – Christoph Schlingensief.” 306 Lars Koch visible. After commentingonA4-size medical images of his inner eyeand de- scribing his fear of going blind in his lateryears due to ahereditary defect,as his father did, Schlingensief directs his attention to awoman in the audience wearingaBurka, with the words “Itake this masquerade as apersonal of- fense”⁴¹,and rips the veil from her head. In the ensuing turmoil, which, along with Schlingensief, involves the actor Rolf Zacher,another spectator and a voice-off comingfrom the studio technicians, it remains completelyunclear whether the scene is to be taken as staged, partlystaged, or as agenuine scan- dal. It is preciselythis liminalityofanaesthetics of disruption that reveals that political confrontation onlybegins when one oversteps the boundaries of the sayable. All in all, Schlingensief’stelevision projects are in keepingwith his entire œuvre: the disruptive potential of his actions results from the undecidability concerning the sphere of encodingand decodingofthe event in question. It is never quite clear whether we are dealingwith authentic emotions or staged feel- ings; the comprehension of reality develops into acrisis thatopens up the pos- sibility of reflecting on modes of medial world-making.With its claim to “reality content,” the talk show becomes afield of experimentation for puttingmere re- ality effects to the test.When in his TV hybrid U3000,produced for MTV, Schlin- gensief has the actor Peter Kern collapsefrom aheart attack, the distinction be- tween actor and role collapses along with the cardiovascular system of the person concerned. In U3000,produced three years after Talk 2000,Schlingensief travels on aspecial underground train through Berlin,atnight.Next to a “talk” carriage, there is a “dressing-room” carriageand a “music” carriage, in which in each show adifferent prominent band performs. As aresultofthe constant shuttling back and forth between the “talk” carriageand the “music” carriage, the communicational connections are constantlyinterrupted, thus making it clear –“in vitro, underground” (Schlingensief 2011:430) – that television is aboveall basedonkeepingaflood of images and sounds in incessant motion, and which do not necessarilyhavetobebound to anyactual prior content. The guests selected from the typicalcelebrity repertoirealso contribute to the sit- uational artificiality of this anti-show,just as Schlingensief himself does by re- peatedlychangingcostumes before introducing his guests and by reproducing the exaggeratedprocedures characteristic of television entertainment – for ex- ample when he “slaughters” asoft toy (in this case, acat) or reflectswith his
“[…]diese Maskerade empfinde ich als persönlicheBeleidigung.” Christoph Schlingensief’sImageDisruption Machine 307 guests on the social function of rituals.⁴² Overall, the composition of U3000 is governedbythe principle of incessantinformation and stimulus overload, which creates aform of whitenoise, thus rendering visible the latent social function of television as adebilitatingflow of images and feelings(Williams 1974).
4 Container Aktion as abreaching experiment
It was in the context of the Container Aktion that Schlingensief mounted in 2000 on the occasion of the Vienna Festival and in the context of the verification of the E.U.’scompliancewith European civil rights, that the formulation “imagedisrup- tion machine” (Schlingensief in Ausländer raus!)emerged, aformulation that deftlyencapsulates Schlingensief’saesthetics. In the process of imagedisrup- tion, the approaches to the critique of the staged character of politics and the simulationofauthenticity in the media convergeand amalgamatewith an awareness of the effects of “imaging” [Bildgebung⁴³]⁴⁴ into atwo-level strategy of communicative disturbance, which simultaneouslyinvolvesthe destruction of the sociallyand politicallyself-evident.With the Viennese container action, Schlingensief undertook aradical political action in the mediumofart in the sense that,inthe course of the several days that the action lasted, he managed to produce aform of publicness in which conflicts in all their antagonistic explo- siveness managed to be articulated.⁴⁵ Giventhe large number of participants and
As aconsequence, one finds alot of background information, historical documents,etc., but no videos on the documentation pageU3000 (Schlingensief 2000). “Imaging” [Bildgebung] is to be understood hereinabroad,non-technical sense, onlyloose- ly referring to terms such as “medical imaging” and “digital imaging” (translator’snote). Schlingensief could have gained theoretical reinforcement of his position from Hans Blu- menberg, whoinhis Metaphorology points out: “It is not just languagethat thinks ahead of us and backs us up, as it were;inour view of the world we aredetermined even morecompel- lingly by the supplyofimages available for selectionand the images we select,which ‘channel’ what can offer itself for experienceinthe first place” (Blumenberg2010:63). “What is decisive is that public art is not ‘public’ simplybecause it is placed in a ‘public space’ defined as urban instead of in the semi-privatespaceofagallery.Rather,art is public when it takes placeinpublic, that is, in the medium of antagonism. […]Onlywhenaconflict flares up and is actuallyplayedout is apublic created […]Publicness is nothingbut the collision itself.” [“Entscheidendist,dass Public Art nicht deshalb ‘öffentlich’ ist,weil sie ihrenOrt in einem urbanistischzubestimmenden ‘öffentlichen Raum hat’ statt im semi-privaten Raum einer Galerie. Sondern Kunst ist öffentlich,wenn sie im Öffentlichen stattfindet, d.h. im Medium des Antagonismus.[…]Erst in dem Moment,indem ein Konflikt ausgetragen wird, entsteht über dessen Austragung eine Öffentlichkeit […]Öffentlichkeit ist nichts als der Aufprall selbst”] (Marchart 2007:239–241). 308 LarsKoch the prolongedduration of the action, Schlingensief was no longer alone in delib- erately targeting and interruptingcommunicative routines. Rather,triggered by the imagepolitics of the Container Aktion,apolitical dynamic developed that in turn disrupted the routines of media regulation. “The antagonistic public al- ways has something disruptive about it with respect to the logic of the institution and the ruling ideology: it interruptsregulated processes, responsibilities, hier- archies.” (Marchart 2007:243) Schlingensief’spolitical actions, especially Please Love Austria – TheFirst AustrianCoalition Week and Chance 2000,mainlymake use of techniques of “embodiment and visualization, in order to concretize abstract political speech in the form of liminal images, which disrupt the evidential effect of the visual” (Schößler 2011:118). In this action, Schlingensief used the Internet as aforum to allow people to vote on the deportation of the “interned” [in the container] asy- lum seekers,thus making tangible the practical consequences of the national- conservative policies of the FPÖ-ÖVP [Austrian Freedom Party-Austrian People’s Party] coalition by personalizing the fate of those concerned. Theaction, which not onlydrew on the (at the time) highlypopularTVshow, BigBrother,but at the same time invoked the camp as abio-political paradigm of modernity,was a “complex playwith discursivepositions, forms of address and the implications of appropriation and demands for solidarity” (Hochreiter 2011:444), in which the FPÖ and the [right-wingtabloid] Kronen Zeitung werealsoinvolved, as were passers-by,Internet users and Schlingensief himself. The “happening”,which highlighted its own character as an event through the use of spotlights and a brass band, was disruptiveinthe sense that,while all forms of media entertain- ment wereinvoked, they werenot presented within the framework of acoherent overall tableau-image[Gesamtbild]. Usingthe strategyof“deliberate affirma- tion”–as Dietrich Kuhlbrodtdescribed Schlingensief’sstrategy with regardto the similarlycommotion-filled production of Hamlet in Zurich – ,itbecomes pos- sible “to gain access to the political and social stageand to disrupt from within the powerful or feeble workbeing staged there, and to steer it in the desired di- rection” (Kuhlbrodt2002: 142).Atthe center of this parallax-likeimagedisrup- tion, however,standsthe container,sporting abanner on its roof with the slogan “Ausländer raus” (“foreigners out”) – an extreme, heterotopic siteinthe middle of Vienna,renderingvisiblethe boundaries between inside and outside, between issuing and obeying orders,between decision-making power and thoseatthe disposition of this power.⁴⁶
Dirk Rustemeyer,for example,argues along similar lines: “Camps and prisons can them- selvesbecome symbols that mark cultural differencesand can occasion conflicts or stories,if Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 309
The direct confrontation with Austrian asylum policy is constructed around arefined experimental arrangement,which usesimagedisruption as amethod of criticizing the Austrian self-imageofanopen, democratic society. “Schlingen- sief’simages are, to use Roland Barthes’ terms, ‘crazy’,not ‘tame’;inLacan’s sense, they are disquieting ‘trompe l’oeil’.”⁴⁷ They mark out awound in the order of representation and discourse which cannot be closed by means of sim- ple narrative operations. Schlingensief is aware of the power of “doing images,” (Burri 2008) of performative image-acts, which configure our conception of nor- mality by establishingregimes of visibility. His imagedisruption machine imple- ments asubversive counter-strategywhich sets in motion” an interplayofshifts of position and modifications of function.” (Foucault 1980:195) The container action is first of all adisruption of public order,but at the sametime it is adis- mantling of binary right-left codifications:the leftist demonstrators,who after several days of heated discussion end up destroyingthe “foreigners out” banner, are unwittingly improvingAustria’spublic image. By having the banner put in place and subsequently, using his megaphone,repeatedlygetting worked up about it,Schlingensief positioned himself as atrickster⁴⁸ in Canetti’ssense, as aparasite on the routines of sensation-seeking in the media (Serres 2007: 422– 423). It is not just aquestion of criticizing the right-wing populism of the FPÖ in asimplistic, didactic fashion. Rather,the container-action creates a new cultural and political forum in which acommunicative conflict about the actual meaning of “publicness” can take place. Accordingly,Schlingensief is not concernedwith an ontologization of concrete political content – on the con- trary,heaims to bring out the contingency of all political and social ordersand thus bringsabout aliquefaction of ideologically-hardenedstandpoints, which is the prerequisite for facilitating arenewal of politics. As Jacques Rancière has pointed out,the prevailing “post-democracy” has led to asituation of complete conformity between the forms of the state and the state of social relations,deter-
not myths.They aresites of surveillance, which can be the center of social awareness,even though – and because – they minimize the possibilities of observation.” [“Lager und Gefäng- nisse können selbst zu Symbolen werden, die kulturelle Unterscheidungen markieren, und zum Anlass zu Konflikten oder Erzählungen, wenn nicht Mythen werden. Beiihnen handelt es sich um Orteder Beobachtung, die selbst im Mittelpunkt gesellschaftlicher Aufmerksamkeit stehenkönnen, obwohl und weil sie die Möglichkeitender Beobachtung minimieren”](Ruste- meyer 2009:165 – 166). “Schlingensiefs Bilder sind im Sinne Roland Barthes’‘verrückt’,nicht ‘zahm’,sind im Sinne Lacans beunruhigende ‘trompe l’oeil’.” Elias Canetti writes: “[W]ievon keiner anderenFigur,die man kennt,lässt sich vonihm das Wesen der Freiheit ablesen. […]Erbelustigt[…die Leute], indem er ihnen alles durch Umkeh- rung verdeutlicht” (Canetti 2011:192– 193; see also Schüttelpelz 2010). 310 Lars Koch mined by aneo-liberal realism that has all the trappingsofanundisturbed pro- cessingofopinionformationbut in reality does not present anyalternativesand thus discredits utopias (Rancière 1999). To counter this kind of totalizingdiscur- sive homogenization, Rancière deploys – and Christoph Schlingensief’sperform- ance art follows Rancière here – the notionof“dissensus,” aprincipled dissent derivedfrom the margins and boundaries of the sayable and the visible that bringstothe fore the “part of those who have no part” (Rancière 1999:9)in the political process. It is preciselyhere that Schlingensief’scontainer action in- tervenes: by involving the mute asylum seekers in the artistic production, the possibilityofadifferent social and political communitarization emergesinthe aesthetic experience, which invokes anew partition of the sensuous and an al- ternative politics of the visible as a(utopian) possibility.
5Schlingensief’sradicality
Even in his earlyfilms, Schlingensief always refused the predictable narrative structures and aesthetic patterns that threaten to turn cinema into amerelyfunc- tional medium for exercizinginfluenceand hegemony. When GeorgSeeßlen speaksof“radical art” with regard to Schlingensief’sfilm œuvre, what he has in mind is preciselythe “critique of world-making” (Goodman 1978:94), which is being referred to here as an “aesthetics of disruption” in order to renderpro- ductive Schlingensief’sconfrontation with society’spowerfullyeffective self-de- scriptions. Schlingensief’saesthetics of disruption encompasses an aesthetic ex- perience thatdoes not primarilydepend on representation, but rather aboveall on exposing the different conditions of constitution that underliereferenceto what is usuallyknown as the “world” or “reality.” Starting from the “constitution of meaning as aprocess” (Lehmann 2006:102), Schlingensief took on the various communication systems of television, theater,film, and operawithout allowing himself to be compromised or appropriated by their symbolic routines.Hepro- duces “nomadic art,” which means that “an artist can wander through different artistic and social spaces,changethem, but alsoleave them again.”⁴⁹ (Seeßlen 2011:76) Schlingensief’spost-dramatic performances and actions operate “in the crisismode,” inciting acorresponding “intensification of extreme situations,
“nomadische Kunst [der es darum geht,dass] eine künstlerischePerson verschiedene Räume der Kunst und der Gesellschaft durchwandern,sie verändert,sie aber auch wieder verlassen kann.” Christoph Schlingensief’sImage Disruption Machine 311 border and threshold experiences” ⁵⁰ (Primavesi 2012: 147), and thus endeavoring to spread “active viruses” [aktive Viren] (Kuhlbrodt2002: 142),aprocess of con- tagion⁵¹ out of which anew politics and society is meant to develop. The meta- phor of the viral is cleverlychosen: if one follows Rancière’sreflections on the “aesthetics of politics” (Rancière 2009), then political art can onlyoccur in the contemporaryworld as apolitics of form. Contagion here means an activistart that realizes aesthetic experience in the mode of performance and feedback loops, as aprocess of contradictory participation in the temporal metamorphosis of social structures.The nucleus of Schlingensief’simagedisruption machine lies preciselyinthis functionality without apreciselydefined function. Or in the words of its creator: “What Iactuallywant to do is getback to, getinside the image. AndIcan’taccomplish thatwithout movement.Sowhat should I do?” (Schlingensief in Heinekeand Umathum 2002:5).
WorksCited
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