On January 27, the Department of German, in cooperation with the IES Austrian Studies Program hosted Irina Simova of Princeton University to give a talk on Christoph Schlingensief’s performance of Ausländer Raus!. The event consisted of a presentation from Simova followed by discussion moderated by Professor Karen Feldman.
Simova began by contextualizing Schlingensief’s performance. In 2000, the Freedom Party of Austria, Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), became the first far-right political party to become part of a government coalition in Europe. As a result, the new Austrian government faced strong opposition, both internationally and internationally. Christoph Schlingensief’s performance of Ausländer Raus! (“Foreigners Out!”) was a form of provocative protest against the Austrian government and its strict asylum policy.
Throughout her talk, Simova explained how Schlingensief’s performance was a complex public performance in the format of the reality TV show, Big Brother. The performance consisted of 12 asylum seekers being put into a shipping container in front of the Vienna opera house in which they were filmed for six days for the chance at winning asylum. The viewers of the show were able to out their least favorite asylum seeker until only one person remained to win. The identities of the asylum seekers remain unknown and what happened to them after the performance is also unknown.
Simova’s analysis of this performance was structured through three main lenses: the container as political space, media architecture and aesthetics, and affect as a critical tool. Her explorations of these three dimensions led her to argue for contentions such as the public space not being the same as political membership, how gamification has become a part of daily life under capitalism, and that the mobilization of negative affect has become critical language. Ultimately, Simova explained, Ausländer Raus! brought the reality of xenophobic attitudes to Austrian’s attention as they were confronted with whether they were upset with the performance because of the migrants’ experience or because they had to see it.