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...

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 .

This spring sees the largest concentration of NSK-related activity in London since July 1987 - symposia, two exhibitions, a Laibach concert in Tate Modern and more. For more information on these events and news on how I'll be participating check the new Retrogarde London blog .

Thanks to all who attended the event, to the Horse Hospital and to my co-presenters Avi Pitchon and Alexander Nym. There were many new faces, some completely new to NSK and some very interesting discussions. We also premiered the latest edition of NSK State News . All photos courtesy of Vera Bremerton. Reading from State Of Emergence The audience Discussions at the information point. Alexander Nym  Avi Pitchon, Alexei Monroe, Alexander Nym, Ursula Avi Pitchon

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