Christoph Schlingensief and the Bad Spectacle

‘Truth’, technology and transmedial theatre in Europe

“…(2018,139). A substantial amount of additional scholarship has also engaged with this controversial event for example, in relation to: 'mobilizing public debate' around the FPÖ's far-right xenophobic populism (Forrest 2008); the 'politics of appearance' and the public sphere (Schmidt 2011); Brechtian aesthetics in relation to the connections between art and politics (Varney 2010); and the utilization of asylum-seekers to achieve the 'hyper-authentic' (Jestrovic 2008). What has not been considered thus far is how Schlingensief's adept use of technology to mirror the FPÖ's 'strategies of provocation', together with the deployment of contemporaneous tropes from popular culture, was highly effective in maximizing the reach of his project to engage the Austrian public (Wodak 2014, 101).…”