U3000
In the eight-part program U3000 (2000), broadcasted by the music station MTV, Schlingensief assumes the role of the presenter who hates himself for his self-love disguised as telegenic selflessness. Common broadcasting formats are all being ridiculed without exception. A socially needy family can qualify for participation by winning the always same outside bet, in order to make their private fate public in front of a running camera and in the presence of passengers in the moving subway. Childlike rounds of games give them the opportunity to improve social welfare, critically watched by a jury made up of the handicapped actors from Schlingensief's ensemble. Aged show stars like Maria and Margot Hellwig, Christian Anders or Roberto Blanco are used in a talk-show wagon as cheap fodder and are forced to show compassion with such victims of the market economy. The bands of the MTV generation (Atari Teenage Riot, Surrogat, Söhne Mannheims and others) play in the dance wagon.
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Opening episode of the talk show aboard a moving train on Berlin’s U7 underground line. Under the title “One Thousand Theories”, the show draws on a text by pop theorist Diedrich Diederichsen about children’s first attempts to explain the world, plus excerpts from Herbert Marcuse. Guests are Robert Stadlober, Maria and Margot Hellwig and the band Spezializtz; the contestant family is the Abels family. Recurring segments: the “Genome of the Week” (Rudolf Scharping), a self-accusation, the horoscope, the “Chromosome of the Week” and the call for donations.
The second episode is devoted to Joseph Beuys and India, with a small India glossary and digressions on Mahatma Gandhi and Beuys. Guests are Christian Anders and the Hamburg band Die Sterne; the contestant family is the Krishnamurty family. The “Genome of the Week” features Friedrich Merz, alongside Marcuse excerpts, the horoscope, the “Chromosome of the Week” and the call for donations.
The episode is about Rudi Dutschke, based on the organisational speech he gave at the 22nd SDS delegates’ conference in Frankfurt on 5 September 1967, complemented by a revolution glossary and a digression on the French Revolution. Guests are Rolf Zacher, the Jacob Sisters, Xavier Naidoo and Söhne Mannheims, and H.M.S.; the contestant family is the Magister family. “Genome of the Week”: Edmund Stoiber.
The fourth episode deals with the military, war and strategy, accompanied by an archive of wars and conflicts currently going on worldwide. Guests are retired Flotilla Admiral Elmar Schmähling, Funker Beyer, techno journalist Jürgen Laarmann, the band Surrogat, Bernhard Brink and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre; the contestant family is the Ehlert family. “Genome of the Week”: Rezzo Schlauch.
