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Notes

I should like to thank Dr Geoff Westgate for his help reading and revising the translations for this article.

Corinna Schulz, ‘Knasttheater – Morden mit Applaus’, Spiegel Online, www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,392655,00.html, 29 December 2005 [accessed 21 March 2006].

Rainer Stache, ‘Tegel – Strafgefangene brillieren mit Müller-Stück’, Berliner Morgenpost, 5 November 2005, ‘Bezirke' section, p. 20.

Tina Hüttl, ‘Kunst im Bau’, die tageszeitung, 28 October 2005, Berlin lokal, p. 23.

Schulz, ‘Knasttheater – Morden mit Applaus’.

Katja Oskamp, ‘Täter ist nicht gleich Tat’, Berliner Zeitung, 2 November 2005, Feuilleton, p. 24.

‘Die Entwicklung und Verbreitung innovativer Methoden und Praktiken von Gefängnistheater in Europa’, Report of the EU-Project Theater und Gefängnis in Europa, Socrates Nr. 116571-CP-I-2004-I-IT-GRUNDTVIG-G1, Section 5.1. p. 8.

See ibid.

‘Die Entwicklung und Verbreitung innovativer Methoden und Praktiken von Gefängnistheater in Europa’, Section 5.4. p. 11.

‘Episches Theater’, Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, ed. by Klaus Weimar (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter: 1997), p. 469.

Müller, Werke 4, p. 80.

Heiner Müller, Werke 4, ed. by Frank Hörnigk (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2001), pp. 73–85 (p. 77). English quotations of the play from the translation by Marc D. Silberman, Helen Fehervary, and Guntram Weber, Minnesota Review, 6 (Spring 1976), 40–50.

Ibid., p. 84.

Ibid., p. 80.

Horatier 1. Programme of the aufBruch KUNST GEFÄNGNIS STADT production at the Tegel Correctional Facility. Berlin, October 2005.

See ‘Das Tagebuch zur Produktion des neuen Theaterstücks von “aufBruch” und dem Inhaftierten-Ensemble der JVA-Tegel’, www.kunstprojekt-aufbruch.de/horatierTagebuch/horatierTagebuchIndex.htm, 31 August–28 October 2005 [accessed 15 August 2007].

*All attempts have been made to secure permission from the copyright holders of the images contained in this essay.

Christoph Schlingensief, ‘Wir sind zwar nicht gut, aber wir sind da’, in Schlingensief! Notruf für Deutschland. Über die Mission, das Theater und die Welt des Christoph Schlingensief, ed. by Julia Lochte and Wilfried Schulz (Hamburg: Rotbuch Verlag, 1998), pp. 12–39 (p. 12).

See the interviews with Schlingensief about the event contained in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus. Bitte Liebt Österreich, ed. by Matthias Lilienthal und Claus Philipp (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000).

According to Liesbet van Zoonen, the first season of Big Brother to air on German television (between March and June 2000) ‘received a unique market share of 28 percent’. Moreover, she claims that the Big Brother web page ‘received an average of 3.5 million visitors a day […] peaking at 5 million on some days, making it the most visited web site in Europe’. Liesbet van Zoonen, ‘Desire and Resistance: Big Brother in the Dutch Public Sphere’, in Big Brother International: Formats, Critics and Publics, ed. by Ernest Mathijs and Janet Jones (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2004), pp. 16–24 (p. 17). The German channel which screened the programme (RTL II) is also broadcast in Austria, so Austrian viewers would have been familiar with the programme as well.

Thomas Mießgang, ‘Im Land der Lächler. Über Jelinek, Wuttke und Schlingensief, über Salzgurken und Sachertorten: Sittenbilder aus dem Künstlerkampf gegen die neue Regierung in Wien’, Die Zeit, 29 June 2000: http://www.zeit.de/archiv/2000/27/200027.jelinek_.xml[accessed 14 May 2007].

Bitte Liebt Österreich is just one of a number of public performances devised by Schlingensief to mobilize debate about contemporary politics. For example, in an attempt to generate discussion about the 2002 federal election in Germany (and ideas espoused by the Free Democratic Party in particular), Schlingensief staged an election campaign entitled Aktion 18 – the impetus for which sprang from the very public criticisms of the Israeli government voiced by Jürgen Möllemann (the then deputy leader of the FDP) and, more specifically, Möllemann's perceived targeting of the far-right, anti-semitic vote. More detailed information on Aktion 18, and Schlingensief's work more generally, can be found on Schlingensief's official website: http://www.schlingensief.com/index_ger.html.

Ruth Wodak and Anton Pelinka, ‘Introduction’, in The Haider Phenomenon in Austria, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Anton Pelinka (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2002), pp. vii–xxvii (p. xv).

Haider quoted in Jörg Haider, Wofür ich mich meinetwegen entschuldige. Haider, beim Wort genommen, ed. by Hubertus Czernin (Wien: Czernin Verlag, 2000), p. 76. The book is a collection of quotations from Haider.

Ibid., p. 87.

Ibid., p. 94.

Lutz Musner, ‘Memory and Globalization: Austria's Recycling of the Nazi Past and its European Echoes’, New German Critique, 80 (Spring–Summer 2000), 77–91 (p. 79).

Ibid., p. 81.

Ibid., p. 83.

Walter Manoschek, ‘FPÖ, ÖVP, and Austria's Nazi Past’, in The Haider Phenomenon in Austria, pp. 3–15 (p. 8).

See ibid.

For a detailed analysis of the important role that the Kronen Zeitung has played in supporting Haider and the FPÖ, see David Art, The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 188–91.

Andre Gingrich, ‘A Man for All Seasons: An Anthropological Perspective on Public Representation and Cultural Politics of the Austrian Freedom Party’, in The Haider Phenomenon in Austria, pp. 67–91 (p. 83).

Haider, in Wofür ich mich meinetwegen entschuldige, p. 99.

Andre Gingrich, ‘A Man for All Seasons’, pp. 84–85.

In 2002, for example, Schlingensief produced a six-part television series entitled Freakstars 3000 – a programme that was modelled closely on the talent quest format of popular reality television programmes such as Popstars and Deutschland sucht den Superstar (Germany Searches for a Superstar). What distinguished Freakstars 3000, however, from these programmes was that it was structured as a singing contest for people with disabilities. The format enabled Schlingensief to explore the lack of visibility of disabled people in the German media, and to encourage audiences to reflect on the degree to which certain national socialist ideals could be said to persist in the contemporary media and popular cultural spheres.

Daniël Biltereyst, ‘Big Brother and Its Moral Guardians: Reappraising the Role of Intellectuals in the Big Brother Panic’, in Big Brother International, pp. 9–15 (pp. 9–10).

Merlin Luck quoted in Anonymous, ‘Merlin Breaks Silence on Big Brother Protest’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 2004.

‘Freiheit für Alles, 1. Teil. Gespräch zwischen Alexander Kluge und Christoph Schlingensief’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, pp. 136–49 (p. 137).

For a discussion of the reasons for this change, see Anon, ‘Keine Wiener “Konzentrationswoche”’, Die Presse, 7 June 2000.

Stefan Lätzer and Jakob Buhre, ‘Die Ursache liegt in der Zukunft’, Planet Interview, 27 February, 2001: http://www.planet-interview.de/interviews/pi.php?interview=schlingensief-christoph[accessed 18 May 2007]. See also Schlingensief's discussion of the ‘kühl’ (cool), distant spectatorial relationship cultivated by such performance practices in Schlingensief, ‘Wir sind zwar nicht gut, aber wir sind da’, p. 22.

Alexander Kluge, ‘Theater der Handgreiflichkeit/Christoph Schlingensiefs Wiener Container’, News and Stories, SAT 1, 22 October 2000.

Heidemarie Unterrainer in Paul Poet (director), Ausländer Raus. Schlingensiefs Container (2005).

Verbatim transcription of comments made by Schlingensief during a television debate about the event: ‘Zeit im Bild 3, ORF, 13. 6. 2000’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, pp. 98–110 (p. 99).

Kluge, ‘Theater der Handgreiflichkeit/Christoph Schlingensiefs Wiener Container’.

Ibid.

Manoschek, ‘FPÖ, ÖVP, and Austria's Nazi Past’, p. 6.

Paul Poet, Ausländer Raus. Schlingensiefs Container.

Schlingensief, quoted in Karin Cerny, ‘Wien, erster Tag’, Berliner Zeitung, 14 June 2000.

Anon, ‘Die Touristen sind entsetzt und empört’, Die Presse (15 June 2000).

Schlingensief, ‘Containerreport (I)’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, p. 49 (p. 49).

‘Freiheit für Alles, 1. Teil’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, p. 140.

‘Freiheit für Alles, 2. Teil’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, pp. 191–205 (p. 191).

For an overview of Kluge's film and television work, see Peter C. Lutze, Alexander Kluge: The Last Modernist (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998). See also Alexander Kluge, ‘On Film and the Public Sphere’, trans. by Thomas Y. Levin and Miriam B. Hansen, New German Critique, 24–25 (Fall/Winter, 1981–82), 206–220.

Jan Dawson, ‘But Why are the Questions so Abstract: An Interview with Alexander Kluge’, in Dawson, Alexander Kluge and the Occasional Work of a Female Slave (New York: Zoetrope, 1977), pp. 26–42 (p. 37).

Edgar Reitz, Alexander Kluge, and Wilfried Reinke, ‘Word and Film’, trans. by Miriam Hansen, October, 46 (Fall 1988), 83–95 (p. 87).

Schlingensief, ‘Wir sind zwar nicht gut, aber wir sind da’, pp. 27 and 35.

Paul Poet, Ausländer Raus. Schlingensiefs Container (2005).

‘Freiheit für Alles, 1. Teil’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, p. 148.

Kluge, ‘Theater der Handgreiflichkeit/Christoph Schlingensiefs Wiener Container’.

Ibid.

Schlingensief quoted in anonymous, ‘Keine Wiener-“Konzentrationswoche”’.

Kluge, ‘Pact with a Dead Man’, in West German Filmmakers: Visions and Voices, ed. by Eric Rentschler (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1998), pp. 234–41 (p. 236). These ideas are discussed in more detail in Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere, trans. by Peter Labanyi, Jamie Owen Daniel, and Assenka Oksiloff (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

Quoted in Helmut Schödel, ‘Die Ausländer-Beschwörung’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, pp. 154–55 (pp. 154–55).

Quoted in Helmut Schödel, ‘Die Indianer von Wien’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, pp. 170–73 (pp. 170–71).

‘Bürgerkrieg im Organismus. Peter Sloterdijk im Gespräch mit Christoph Schlingensief’, in Schlingensiefs Ausländer Raus, pp. 224–31 (p. 228). For a more detailed discussion of this protest, see Helmut Schödel, ‘Die Indianer von Wien’, pp. 170–73.

Schlingensief, ‘My work always has something to do with a change of perspective’ (interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist), in AC: Christoph Schlingensief: Church of Fear, ed. by Alice Koegel and Kasper König (Köln: Museum Ludwig and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2005), pp. 17–23 (p. 22). I have altered the English translation of ‘Ausländer Raus!’ from ‘Foreigners go home!’ to ‘Foreigners out!’ See the original German text on p. 14.

Schlingensief, ‘Wir sind zwar nicht gut, aber wir sind da’, p. 12.

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. by Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 7.

See Peter Fuchs, Max-Leo Schwering, Klaus Zöller, Wolfgang Oelsner, Kölner Karneval: Seine Bräuche, seine Akteure, seine Geschichte; 175 Jahre Festkomitee des Kölner Karnevals von 1823 e. V. (Cologne; Greven Verlag, 1997), p. 163. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the German and Kölsch (Cologne) dialect are my own.

These opening events are broadcast annually by the television network Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), and, more recently, by the Cologne-based cable station centre.tv.

See Hildegard Brog, D'r Zoch kütt! Die Geschichte des Rheinischen Karnevals (Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag, 2000), p. 316.

See Fuchs et al., Kölner Karneval, p. 219.

See Stunksitzung, ed. by Reiner Rübhausen and the Stunksitzung Ensemble (Cologne: Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch (Kiwi), 2004), pp. 7 and 13.

See Wolfgang Schmitz, Zwischen Stunk und Prunk (Cologne: Volksblatt Verlag, 1991), pp. 44–46.

Ibid., pp. 5–6.

Bakhtin, Rabelais, p. 5.

Ibid.

Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 2.

Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 3.

John Storey, Inventing Popular Culture (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p. 91.

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 33.

Brog, Zoch, p. 62.

Ibid., pp. 63–64.

See ibid., pp. 64–70.

See Fuchs et al., Kölner Karneval, pp. 173–74.

See ibid., pp. 178–79.

See Rübhausen et al., Stunksitzung, p. 13.

See ibid., p. 61.

Schmitz, Zwischen Stunk und Prunk, p. 8. The use of Stunk goes deeper than ‘romp’, however, cheekily implying, as it would in English, a bad smell. See Schmitz, Zwischen Stunk und Prunk, p. 14 and Rübhausen et al., Stunksitzung, pp. 13–14.

Bakhtin, Rabelais, pp. 11–12. Emphasis added.

Barbara Babcock, Introduction to The Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 14. Also quoted in Stallybrass and White, Transgression, p. 17. Emphasis added.

The regional traditional beer carries the same name as the dialect.

See Rübhausen et al., Stunksitzung, p. 133.

The subject of patriarchy in the Cologne Carnival is itself an enormous topic to which Brog devotes an entire chapter of her study. See pp. 139–64.

See Stunksitzung Ensemble, Stunksitzung 2006 script, (unpublished), 14 January 2006, pp. 49–57. The date is also a joke, in that no Vereine existed before 1823.

Ibid., p. 52.

Ibid., p. 57.

See Stallybrass and White, Trangression, pp. 17–18.

See Brog, Zoch, pp. 261–62.

Anja Katzmarzik, ‘Ermittlungen gegen die Stunksitzung’, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger,15 February 2006, p. 29.

The following episode is documented in ‘Ermittlungen,’ p. 29, and Rübhausen et al., Stunksitzung, p. 77.

See Rübhausen, p. 78.

See ibid.

Quoted in Katzmarzik, ‘Ermittlungen,’ p. 29.

See ibid.

Willibert Pauels, Büttenreden, in Große ARD-Fernsehsitzung des Festkomitees Kölner Karnevals von 1823, e. V., WDR production, Das Erste network broadcast, 27 February 2006.

Bhabha, Location, pp. 51–52. Emphasis added.

See Rübhausen et al., Stunksitzung, p. 87.

See Brog, Zoch, pp. 262–63.

See Brog, Zoch, p. 263.

Quoted in Rübhausen et al., Stunksitzung, p. 88.

The ‘ghost parade’ is a grassroots, neighborhood parade, held one night during Carnival. Because it is not ‘official’, it has been considered ‘alternative’. See Brog, Zoch, p. 261.

See Brog, Zoch, pp. 268–69.

Bakhtin, Rabelais, p. 10.

Ibid.

Stallybrass and White, Trangression, p. 201.

The research for this article was generously supported by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of Kent. I would like to thank Rimini Protokoll for granting me access to their performances and rehearsals: of Wallenstein in Berlin, May 2006, of Das Kapital in Frankfurt/Main, April 2007, and of Uraufführung: Der Besuch der alten Dame in Zürich, May 2007.

A longer version of the interview, in the German original, will be published in the electronic version of this journal issue. More information and a full documentation on the group's work, in German as well as English, can be found on their website http://www.rimini-protokoll.de