Plural Machine

LIVE Sz. Berlin (Extreme electronics from the Warsaw Pact) www.virb.com/szberlin Graan (Granular synthesis meets ritualistic droning ambience) www.graan.org.uk DJ’s: Codex Europa (Dark Electro Industrial) Kriegslok (Power Electronics) Floressas (Esoteric/ritual dark ambient) Stage times: 2000 - 2030 - Codex Europa 2030 - 2100 - Floressas 2100 - 2145 - GRAAN 2145 - 2215 - Kriegslok 2215 - 2245 - Floressas 2245 - 2330 - SZ BERLIN 2330 - 0000 - Codex Europa FREE Thursday July 2nd, 20.00 – 00.00 Top Floor, 6 - 8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington London N16 5SA

I will be giving a talk on ‘Laibach Kunst and the Art of Total Non-Alignment’at the exhibition on June 23 rd at 6pm. Codex Europa and Wiktor Skok will DJ in an industrial vein afterwards. This Polish site has a short film which has a clip from the opening performance , similar to the one given at I.C.R.N.’s RoTr event in 2006. Read more here about this major exhibition, which presents the most comprehensive overview of Laibach Kunst works yet staged.

17 year ago this evening Laibach's Kapital tour reached London. Of the many shows I've seen, this was one of the most memorable. Tonight two audience members from the show will be performing in a less grand venue, but seeing that show was certainly a formative influence on their work: Sz. Berlin live at No Signal tonight!

A 2009 follow-up piece to the orginal Deca-Disco text, (see previous post). The original Deca-Disco piece was written in 2003, just after the start of the war on Iraq and although there was no shortage of reasons for cynicism at the time and I was not exactly an optimist, I had no idea of the scale of greed, deception and incompetence that was to follow. Compared to political and economic developments since 2003, even the sleaziest and most consciously cynical electroclash now comes across as prim and repressed. As I said then, such tracks were and are examples of klepto-realism , palely reflecting and often supporting the kleptocratic order which remains entrenched even now (maintained by apathy and the real threat of violence in its defence). Now the zeitgeist is infinitely more decadent and authoritarian than it was even then. Although the word ‘electroclash’ is rarely heard now, its attitudes and textures still mark the present. There are at least as many people now who identify ...

An archive lecture text given at the Musical constellations in the digital age event hosted at mama as part of the Zagreb Music Biennale in March 2003. Secret Militant History “Disco rhythm as a regu lar repet ition is the purest/most radical form of the militantly organised rhythmicity of technicist production, and as such the most appropriate means of media manipulation. As an archetypal structural basis of the collective unconscious in a worker, mass, it stimulates automatic mechanisms and shapes industrialisation of consciousness, which is necessary in the logic of massive-totalitarian industrial production… Disco rhythm stimulates automatist mechanisms and co-forms the industrialization of consciousness according to the model of totalitarianism and industrial production” [1] LAIBACH This statement was made by the Slovene group Laibach, which made notorious appearances at the Zagreb Biennales of 1983 and 1985. Its radical ambivalence illustrates one of the two p...

J.M. Bowers is a well respected sound/noise producer who gave a very memorable performance at the Noise=Noise event at The Foundry last autumn. I have just discovered this intriguing free release for download. The source is a heavily rendered recording of Edison's famous 'Mary had little lamb' test recording. The result is a very tactile audio landscape, full of rich and uncanny detail. Recommended.

In October 2010 the First NSK Citizens Congress will be held. The event will explore citizens' attitudes to and ambitions for the NSK state and their citizenship. 30 citizens will be selected as delegates who will discuss the past, present and future of the NSK State. NSK members will be present throughout the event and all delegates will be presented with a limited edition NSK object at the end of the event. Besides the private congress debates there will be a full programme of NSK-themed events including a seminar, exhibition and screenings. Details of the public events will be announced nearer the time. Although nskstate.com has now entered a period of hibernation you can still apply for selection as an NSK citizen delegate here .

Codex Europa plays in the Ill FM room at this major night. Noise, industrial, stormcore, breakcore and more... TERRADISCO with ILL industries, Abacus and Disjunkt. 21/02/09. Featureing: REMARC, PARASITE, ELY MUFF, KOVERT, ALEX B, STIVS, ILL FM Djs, THE HEATWAVE, BEN UFO b2b with UNTOLD, ZAN LYONS, JULIEN OTTAVI (the NOISER), ZERO POINT ENERGY, KONSTRUCT recordings, FZV, CODEX EUROPA and PATRACIDE. £8. Hidden, Vauxhall (100 Tinworth Street)

I'll be giving a brief talk on NSK related to the question "Can artists deny their political references?" This will be part of a panel discussion on the topic taking place at Camden Arts Centre from 7 - 8.30. The event is free and all are welcome. The event is organised by Ruth Beale . Location details here .

I'll be giving a lecture on the NSK State after the opening of Irwin's State in Time exhibition at the Aarhus Art Building . The opening takes place at 5pm, lecture at 6.30pm.

At 20.00 (21.00 CET) on 3rd January, Codex Europa will play a live set on Ill FM . The set will feature a selection of Russian and ex-Yugoslav industrial music interspersed with avant-garde composition from the region.

For an even more dynamic year...

The Jelenometry publication is now available from Kabinet or via the DDR site. The exhibition is open Tuesday - Sunday from 12am-8pm, closed on Mondays and holidays.

Jelenometry is a collaborative research exhibition produced by the Slovene collective DDR (Domestic Research Society) and cultural theorist Alexei Monroe, author of the book Interrogation Machine (MIT Press 2005). Monroe is currently researching a book project based on the cultural history of the Stag as a symbol. The exhibition title is a neologism based on the Slovene word for the Stag - jelen. The stag as a symbol is omnipresent in contemporary and urban culture, yet remains elusive and unexplored. One of the objectives of Jelenometry is to test whether the »symbolic Stag« can withstand the intensive repetition and abuse it is subject to in visual culture and other fields. Jelenometry is the result of one year of joint research conducted via the internet, specialist publications and field visits. Meetings and research trips took place in various locations including Ljubljana, Trbovlje, Rogaska Slatina, Kocevje, Vitanje and Berlin. The project represents a hunt for the symbolic...

The text Laibach: Made in Yugoslavia? appears in Portuguese and English in this new bilingual Brazilian publication. Other authors include Anselm Jappe, Nicolas Bourriaud, Charity Scribner and Earl Miller. The book is based on the recent music video focussed exhibition which included videos by Laibach.

My review of Edwin van der Heide's installation at the Singuhr sound gallery Berlin is in the October issue of The Wire.

The research exhibition Jelenometry will open at Kabinet Ljubljana on October 4th. Realised in collaboration with the Slovene collective DDR the project deals with representations of the Stag as a symbol in contemporary and traditional culture. Further details to follow.

I will be giving the opening lecture at NSK Embassy Iceland on March 22nd. This is the anniversary of Laibach's first performance in Rejkjavik and the organisers have declared this the national holiday of NSK in Iceland. As well as the lecture there'll be screenings of rare footage, image projections and presenations of Volk and East Art Map . The event takes place at the Rejkjavik Academy. More details soon...

" Tracks of the Stag" c. A. Monroe In preparation for autumn 2007: an exhibition tracking the symbolic stag - the creature that constantly recurs in contexts from cave art to retrogardism, advertising to politics and beyond. More details on the project here . Greetings for 2007 to all friends and allies!

Laibach live in London 25.11.06 Following the Laibach Kunst performance at RoTr in Birmingham this September, the full new Laibach line up played in London on 25th November. This was the only second date of Laibach's Volk tour following the opening concert in Ghent the previous night. The general view of the shows so far seems to be that the album works much better live, and the enhanced versions seem able to impress even Volk-sceptics. Certainly, Slovanija and particularly Nippon generate new interest in the live setting. Although some people become restless, the lengthy Nippon is very atmospheric. This is also due to the subtle and intricate background video. There are videos for each song, and they vary in style widely, some using more archive footage, some being entirely digital. Other impressive videos include Germania, Turkije and NSK (seen in the first photo here) . Italia uses "found footage" to make a very black joke - watch the text on the screen carefully. I...