Christoph Schlingensief’Simage Disruption Machine
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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