Plural Machine

On November 14th I'll take part in an NSK seminar/Folk Art exhibition and club night taking place in Manchester. I'll be analysing NSK Folk Art and presenting key examples of the form. Speakers: Alexei Monroe – author of Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK Stevphen Shukaitis (University of Essex) – author of Imaginal Machines Ian Parker (MMU) – author of Slavoj Zizek, a critical introduction Michael Goddard (University of Salford) editor of Mark E Smith and the Fall: Art, Music and Politics Chair: John Robb (Membranes/Goldblade/Louderthanwar) Seminar in Lecture Theatre 5. Folk Art Exhibition in Geoffrey Manton atrium. Please arrive early to view the exhibition and receive passport authentication or temporary papers. This event is free, open to all and does not require pre-registration. For further information email Mike Tyldesley: M.Tyldesley[at]mmu.ac.uk The event will be followed by an evening club night 'Vade Retro' featuring a s...

The NSK Symposium and Laibach concert at Tate Modern are over and the Chelsea Space exhibition finishes on April 21st at 4pm but there is still a great deal of activity going on until late June. On May 14th I will give a talk at Marcus Campbell art books on the 20th anniversary of the London show of Laibach's Kapital  tour. See the flyer here . On June 7th at 7pm I will give a gallery tour of the Irwin/NSK Folk Art show at Calvert 22, discussing NSK aesthetics from Was ist Kunst? To NSK Folk Art.

So the year “everyone's been waiting for” has arrived and we can't ignore the fact that we're confronted by a pretty diabolical constellation of forces. The assault on/implosion of Europe, democracy, the welfare state, culture and the environment are all accelerating, generating new forms of resistance and despair in the process. It's a time of crisis and disintegration and much of this is going to become ever harder to ignore or deny – the phony war is over. A time of crisis demands an art of crisis and with luck the rediscovery of early 1980s art and music over the last decade may have proved a useful training in techniques for a similarly conflict-riven and potentially apocalyptic time. It's interesting to note how the still-developing NSK Folk Art movement has begun to flourish just as social and economic conditions have worsened since 2008. 2012 will see more exhibitions of NSK Folk Art and very probably more politicised responses like those of David K. Th...