Austländer Raus! Christoph Schlingensief's Container
“Ausländer raus! (Foreigners out), Schlingensief’s Container” Amid intense public interest, twelve participants introduced by Christoph Schlingensief as asylum-seekers spend one week in a cordoned-off, CCTVed shipping container complex next to the Vienna opera house. Blue flags representing Austria’s far-right populist FPÖ party are hoisted on top of a container. As onlookers applaud ambiguously, a sign bearing the slogan “Ausländer raus” (“Foreigners out”) is unveiled and then attached to the container together with the logo of the Kronenzeitung, Austria’s biggest-selling tabloid. Excerpts from speeches by FPÖ chairman Jörg Haider resound across Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz. With clear references to the BIG BROTHER TV show, the Austrian population are asked to phone in and vote out inhabitants, the two least popular of which are ejected each day. Votes can also be cast via the Internet, where Webfreetv broadcasts events from the container live – 24 hours a day for a period of six days. A screening of Paul Poet’s film introduced by Christina Linden and followed by conversation with Andrew Weiner and Deniz Göktürk. Reception at 6pm Thursday, November 8, 6:30pm “Crackle of Time: Christoph Schlingensief and His Opera Village in Burkina Faso” Christoph Schlingensief, the German film, theatre and opera director had a vision for an opera village in Africa. Despite cancer, he made trips to Burkina Faso, such was his devotion and conviction. “Crackle of Time” tells the story of the impossible project: To build an opera village in Burkina Faso, a space combining art and life, with a school, theatre, hospital, living quarters, a football field, a lunchroom. Schlingensief wanted everything what it needs to live and survive. Everything in one place. From the initial location search in May 2009 and the groundbreaking in February 2010 to the emergence of the school the documentary take us up close to the German artist Christoph Schlingensief and his architect Diébédo Francis Kéré who originally comes from Burkina Faso. But then everything changed. Christoph Schlingensief died in August 2010, but his dream stayed alive. Goethe-Institut San Francisco Auditorium 530 Bush Street, Street Level Link: Goethe Institut website