Plural Machine

A network is being formed for those engaged in serious research on industrialised culture, primarily industrial music and culture, but also related forms and issues. More details here: http://icrn.blogspot.com

On Friday 19th November Sašo Podgoršek’s Divided States of America tour documentary will premiere at the Ljubljana International Film Festival: http://www.ljubljanafilmfestival.org/index.php?menu_item=lifMovieDetail&event=572 Showings are at 16.45 and 21.30. At 18.00 a joint press conference will be held at Cankarjev dom to promote Divided States of America and Interrogation Machine.

Interrogation Machine has now been published in North America and is also available online as an import for those elsewhere. It will be available in Europe and elsewhere from around November 19th. For further information contact me: sodbaveka [at] yahoo - co - uk

Slovak techno, Dutch electro, EBM, experimental and more... http://sonocentric.blogspot.com/

The book will be available from end September in North America and in Europe during November. Check here for further updates. Latest features: Morgenbladet, Norway: http://www.morgenbladet.no/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050819/OKULTUR/108190036&template=printart Novopress, Romania: http://ro.novopress.info/?p=354

The book is now expected to be available at the end of September. There is a review in the current print issue of Prague Literary Review.

Tanz mit Laibach Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK By Alexei Monroe MIT Press, 400 pages Central Europe’s most notorious musical agents provocateurs are the subject of an intriguing new study by cultural theorist Alexei Monroe. Founded in the early ’80s, industrial mavericks Laibach have been controversial from the get-go for adopting the German name of their hometown, Ljubljana, not to mention their appropriation of Nazi and totalitarian aesthetics in their albums, concerts and statements. At home in Slovenia, veterans of the World War II partisan movement succeeded in banning public use of the name “Laibach” from 1983 to 1987; the band continued to perform and release music anonymously at home while touring under the name abroad. Laibach is but one branch of the Gesamtkunstwerk known as Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), a complex network consisting of the art group Irwin, the Department of Applied and Pure Philosophy, the theater group Noordung, and the design collaborative Novi Kol...

In Spring 2006 Maska will publish a updated and expanded second edition of Pluralni monolit. PM2 will feature a revised design as well as some exclusive new material. More details will follow nearer the time.

The first review was published by Simon Reynolds on his blog and can be found here (18/6/2005): http://blissout.blogspot.com/ The second review was published by the Czech Business Weekly on 27/6/2005: http://cbw.cz/phprs/view.php?cisloclanku=2005062733

1) Laibach and NSK: “Industrial Diagnoses of Post-Socialism”, M’ARS Ljubljana VIII/3-4, 1996. 2) “Činiti nepopularno vidljivim: nominalizacija v popularnoj muzici” (Making Visible the Unpopular: Nominalization in Popular Music) in Dimitrejević, B. (Ed.), “Pop Vision”, Vršac/Belgrade 1996. 3) “Art & Strategy: Laibach versus Turbo”, New Moment No. 9/10, 1998. 4) “Thinking About Mutation: Genres in 1990s Electronica” in Blake, A. (Ed.) “Living Through Pop”, Routledge 1999. 5) “Balkan Hardcore: Paramilitarism and Pop Culture”, Central Europe Review (http://www.ce-review.org), June 2000. 6) “20 Years of Laibach, 20 Years of?…”, Central Europe Review, September 2000. 7) “Deleuzoguattarian Praxis and Electronic Music”, British Postgraduate Musicology (www.bpmonline.org.uk) Vol. 4, 2001. 8) “Critical Frequency”, (review of “This is Serbia Calling”, by Mathew Collin) Central Europe Review, May 2001. 9) “Office Politics”, (interview with Slovene NGO) Central Europe Review, June 2001. 10) “Th...

Welcome to Plural Machine, a centre for bulletins and background on contemporary cultural topics. Information on the forthcoming book Interrogation Machine and other activities will be found here, alongside a profile, texts, and details of lectures and publications.

Alexei Monroe's book "Interrogation Machine - Laibach and NSK" , with particular focus on the performances and productions of Laibach, will be published by MIT Press on July 31st 2005. Published in MIT's "Short Circuits" series, the book is an updated English language version of the best-selling Slovene book "Pluralni monolit - Laibach in NSK" (Maska in 2003), supplemented with additional material, colour illustrations and a foreword by series editor Slavoj Zizek.More details and pre-order [here]