Elfriede Jelinek
Writing
Biography
Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004. Jelinek's output has included radio plays, poetry, theatre texts, polemical essays, anthologies, novels, translations, screenplays, musical compositions, libretti and ballets, film and video art. She has also appeared in a couple of feature films. She is probably best known for her novel "Die Klavierspielerin/The Piano Player" published 1983.
Born: October 20, 1946
Place of Birth: Mürzzuschlag, Styria, Austria
Known For
Elfriede Jelinek: Language Unleashed
Wunderkind, scandalous author, traitor to the fatherland, fury of the theater, feminist, fashion-lover, communist, pessimist, language terrorist, rebel, enfant terrible, nest fouler, brilliant, vulnerable artist, Nobel laureate. This film about Elfriede Jelinek, who in 2004 became the first Austrian author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, focuses on her artistic approach to language. The montage of archive material with voiceovers and interviews, some of them recently recorded, is told from Jelinek’s point of view.
Foreigners Out! Schlingensief's Container
FOREIGNERS OUT! SCHLINGENSIEFS CONTAINER is a thrilling, insightful, funny chronicle and reflection of one of he biggest public pranks and acts of art terrorism ever committed. Austria 2000: Right after the FPÖ under Jörg Haider had become part of the government, the first time an extreme right wing party became state officials after WW2, infamous German shock director Christoph Schlingensief showed a very unique form of protest. Realising public xenophobia and the new hate politics in the most drastic ways possible, he installed a public concentration camp right in the middle of Vienna's touristic heart, right beside the picturesque opera where hundreds of tourists and locals pass by daily. And it was no concentration camp you had ever feared to return from the old times, but one that cynically reflected our new multimedia culture. Satirising reality TV shows, "Big Brother" especially, a dozen asylum seekers were surveilled by a multitude of cameras, could be fed and watched by.
The Excluded
Die Ausgesperrten revolves around an unlikely group of 4 youths in Vienna who band together, each for different reasons, to mug people. Two are fraternal twins, the third a blue-collar worker, the fourth the privileged daughter of wealthy parents who "needs a little dirt in her life". The story provides penetrating insights into the Austria of the 50s, in which some enjoyed the benefits of the "Economic Miracle", while others were shut out. It repeatedly references Austria's Nazi past and the numerous ways in which it influences the present despite the conspiracy of silence which surrounds it.
Valie Export - Icon and Rebel
She is the godmother of performance art. With her shocking public actions she created in the late 60s images that have burned into the general visual memory until today. The life and work of the Austrian artist Valie Export exemplify a development in art history in which women sought and found new ways and means of expression. Her work provides a feminist counterpart to the Viennese actionism of her time, which has influenced numerous artists of subsequent generations. The innovative diversity of her artistic approaches makes Valie Export an icon of 20th century art history.
Valie Export - Icon and Rebel
She is the godmother of performance art. With her shocking public actions she created in the late 60s images that have burned into the general visual memory until today. The life and work of the Austrian artist Valie Export exemplify a development in art history in which women sought and found new ways and means of expression. Her work provides a feminist counterpart to the Viennese actionism of her time, which has influenced numerous artists of subsequent generations. The innovative diversity of her artistic approaches makes Valie Export an icon of 20th century art history.
What the Night Speaks – a Story
Two women communicate in a language of art, working men in a pub speak in their Viennese idiom, patients of a psychiatric hospital arrive at speech through improvisation – all these diverging portrayals do not merge into one another but communicate by their proximity.
Chance 2000 - Abschied von Deutschland
Using rich archive material, this documentary looks back at Christoph Schlingensief and his cross-border art project for the 1998 Bundestag elections.
Elfriede Jelinek: Nobel Prize Lecture
Elfriede Jelinek’s Nobel Lecture. Pre-recorded, and shown on video on 7 December 2004, in Börssalen at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.