Plural Machine

I feature on today's episode of A Colder on Resonance 104.4 FM in London and online elsewhere at resonancefm.com . This is a special editin of the show dedicated to Slovenia and ex-Yugoslavia. The show features Nico, 300 000 V.K., Abbildungen Variete, Electric Fish, Autopsia, Borghesia and Laibach and I discuss with ACC host Flora Pitrolo the musical and cultural history of the period between 1983 and 1987.

The excellent Bio-Mechanics site invited Codex Europa to produce their latest podcast and the result is available now here . This is a harsh experiemental sequence taking a range of harsh and radical electronics that parallel or negate techno "proper."

I'll be giving a presentation entitled The NSK State in Time: Beyond Micrnational? at this event at Chelsea Old Town Hall. Registration is free via the Pollinations website ...

Montage by Vera Bremerton.  Next Friday I'll give an experimental presentation at Noise=Noise on the strange parallels between the sonic and conceptual dystopianism of Doctor Who and first generation British industrial music. Dr. Who exposed mass audiences (often very young) to a combination of experimental electronic sound and dystopian themes, a combination that could also summarise industrial music. Dr. Who frequently presented post-apocalyptic scenarios of mutation, mind control and para-militarised societies and, in the process, at least implicitly criticised actual political and technological developments of the time, particularly those associated with the Cold War arms race. Due to budgetary constraints these visionary scenarios were often realised in a rudimentary ad hoc fashion; an approach that also applies to industrial. The early industrial groups highlighted the most serious social and political themes using very primitive electronic equipment, creating a kind of...

Image by Novi Kolektivizem This Thursday I will be speaking at a special three-part event taking place in the framework of the Trans-Europa festival... 1) Lecture: On the the Future of European Culture by Alexei Monroe 2) Alexander Nym: Address to Europa 3) Codex Europa Alter-Europa DJ Set. European Electronic sounds: EBM, Electro, Synth, Techno, Industrial ABSTRACT: Alexei Monroe will discuss the current plight and possible (but far from certain) future of European culture. He will analyse the ways in which various artists and musicians have envisioned Europe and its troubled history and the political and cultural consequences of the almost total failure of the European political class to build a visionary trans-European culture. This failure has left Europe at the mercy of "Euro-cidal" forces on both the right and the left. The cultural question is not the added or unaffordable luxury that authoritarian Marxists and neoliberal ideologues would have us...

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.

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 .

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...

I'll be introducing a screening of Johnny Yes No at The Horse Hospital this Friday night from 7.30, details here . The event is to mark the release of a Mute DVD/CD box set containing both the original and new versions of the film and soundtrack plus extensive sleeve notes. There's a timeless quality to CV material and I still find the scratchy, grimy bleakness of the early works strangely uplifting, even if so much has changed over three decades. After all, back then Britain was in the midst of a recession and was governed by an authoritarian clique of free market fundamentalists...

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

Ploettner Verlag and Poison Cabinet Press will shortly release the book “State of Emergence” which explores what did happen, what could have happened and what may happen following the Congress. The book comprises 250 pages and includes images from the Congress as well as the accompanying NSK Folk Art and Congress Poster Competition exhibition, as well as documentation of the first post-Congress citizen-organised events. Also included are a range of eye-witness accounts from delegates, facilitators, observers and others, giving multiple perspectives on the events. In addition, there are essays on the Congress and the NSK State from a range of theorists including Eda Cufer (NSK founding member & international curator), Regina Roemhild (Institute for European Anthropology, Humboldt University Berlin), Yannis Stavrakakis and Kostis Stafylakis.
 As is the case with many of NSK’s works, the true meanings and significances of the Congress may not be clear for some time, but “...

A year ago the Red Districs, Black Cross event ended memorably in Trbovlje. One of the highlights was the visit to Termoelektrarna Trbovlje, iconic site of the tallest chimney in Europe. Here are a few souvenir shots taken on my mobile phone when the camera battery died...

This deluxe box of rare archive audio and video is available now from Vinyl on Demand . Besides the five LPs, DVD and deluxe artwork there is an extensive booklet which I edited. Besides my own text there are exclusive texts from Donald Campbell, Igor Vidmar, Michael Goddard and  Aleš Leko Gulič.

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...

My reaction to the London disturbances, which I witnessed first hand, is online at Trebuchet Magazine . To some on the left it will be heretical, yet I don't believe this is the time for self-censorship or keeping diplomatically silent about what you see happening in front of you. The fact that England's public institutions are rotten, corrupt and violent doesn't mean that what happened wasn't at its heart an ultra-Thatcherite kleptocratic insurgency rather than the liberating revolution some would like it to be...

My review of this year's Sonar festival is now online. Although there were some great performances they were stranded in a sea of mediocrity and complacent regression. See Trebuchet for the full story.

I'll be giving a talk on the strategies of Laibach Kunst in the context of the exhibition at UGM Maribor, April 7th at 18.00. Entrance is free, more details here .

At 15.30 on March 18th I'll be giving a talk on the work of Autopsia and at 20.00 taking part in a panel on 'the dark scene' in relation to the German publication Schillerndes Dunkel. Full venue and other details here .

The first post-Congress citizen-organised event took place in Lyon last night. RDV#1 went very well. The crowd was engaged and responsive and there were some interesting discussions. This was followed by an impromptu passport-stamping session. The event augurs well for future NSK-related events in Lyon. Congratulations to Bertrand Thibert for his hard work and for taking this initiative.

NSK Congress delegate Bertrand Thibert has organised the first in a series of planned NSK events in Lyon. This will be the first self-organised NSK event following the Congress. I'll be opening the event and giving a presentation. This will be followed by discussion and a screening of Predictions of Fire. The event takes place at 19.00 on January 25th at Cafe de La Cloche, Lyon.