Ausländer Raus! Schlingensiefs Container

For his documentary film Ausländer raus! Schlingensiefs Container, Paul Poet followed Schlingensief’s project Bitte liebt Österreich – Erste österreichische Koalitionswoche (Please Love Austria – First Austrian Coalition Week, 2000). This was one of Schlingensief’s most controversial artistic actions, which made him known to a wider audience. He set up a shipping container in a central square in Vienna, Opernplatz, in which “asylum seekers” lived under permanent camera surveillance. Members of the public could vote online to “deport” two people each day. This initiative was in direct reaction to the inclusion of the right-wing populist FPÖ party, led by Jörg Haider, in Austria’s governing coalition.

Schlingensief combined strategies from the then-emerging format of reality TV, especially Big Brother, with the very real mechanisms of political exclusion. Between art installation, media spectacle and political intervention, the action provocatively mirrored the contemporary debate over migration and right-wing extremism. Schlingensief brought the aggressive language of the tabloid press – slogans like “Ausländer raus!” (Foreigners out!) – into public space, confronting Austrian society with its own prejudices and right-wing ideology.