Plural Machine

Pluralni Monolit/WAT launch event, Vila Bled, 07.09.2003 The first edition of my book on Laibach and NSK was launched exactly 10 years ago to the day at Vila Bled, Slovenia, in a hall used by Tito for diplomatic receptions. This is an edited version of my presentation at the launch events in Bled and Ljubljana... This all began twenty-three years ago in Trbovlje when posters briefly appeared with a black cross and the word “Laibach”. No-one then could have imagined we would be here today, presenting this , but in the end time always catches up with itself. What would the former resident of this place have made of this gathering and his place on the cover of the book? Perhaps the situation seems even stranger because this book is not by a Slovene author. What right does a foreign author have to come here and present your history? The same right that Laibach and NSK had to respond to the cultures and symbols that intruded on their space. These artists took for themselves a rig...

I'l be giving a talk entitled From Electronic Terror to Electronic Terrorism: Dr. Who Soundtracks and Industrial Music as Sonic Dystopianism . This is a sequel to the Doctor Who and The Death Factory talk from last year and will include new audiovisual examples and other material. You can view the programme of the conference here . There are papers on preserving electronic music, classic equipment, the work of Daphne Oram and more. The event will conclude with a concert marking the 80th birthday of EMS pioneer Peter Zinovieff. Doctor Who and The Death Factory is an evolving project and I've created a youtube playlist to demonstrate its arguments. More news on this work will follow...

Pri zeleni zajec, Ljubljana. Photo by A.M. After a long hiatus I've re-activated my Stag research blog , images and leads are welcome...

Kraftwerk in Tate Modern. Photo by A.M. I've seen Kraftwerk four times. Firstly in 1991 on The Mix Tour at Brixton Academy. Next in 1992 at a “secret” warm-up gig at Norwich University before the Greenpeace show in Manchester. Then at the epic midnight show at Brixton in 2004 and (possibly but not necessarily) finally at Tate Modern.   In the aftermath of David Cameron's speech on the European question and open discussion of a British exit from the E.U., the high-profile arrival of an explicitly European German group with a futuristic vision couldn't have been more timely. The Robots . Photo by A.M. All the Tate Modern shows opened with The Robots , possibly because the 3D effects are amongst the most impressive (at least on this particular night). The figures looked colossal and the monstrous, slowly rotating robot hands were both ridiculous and threatening. I had never imagined I would see the majority of the Radio-Acti...

Istanbul Brutalism. Photo by Alexei Monroe. Architectures against Strategy is a new base for my expanding work around architecture. The page will initially be more focused on architectural photographs and links but I'll also be developing some of the concepts presented at my recent talk in Maribor dealing with monumental London architecture as an ambivalent setting for the unfolding of cultural and political forces. This in turn was a sequel to my Tate Modern presentation discussing monumentalism and the work of the NSK architecture section Graditelji (The Builders).

The revised and expanded German translation of  Interrogation Machine will be published by Ventil Verlag this Spring. It contains much new material on the activities of NSK groups and citizens in the last decade as well as exclusive new photos. Further information on the release date and special events in March and May will follow, to keep up to date following the book's German language tumblr page .