Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK

(Paperback)

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NSK is considered by many to be the last true avant-garde of the twentieth century and the most consistently challenging artistic force in Eastern Europe today. The acronym refers to Neue Slowenische Kunst, a Slovene collective that emerged in the wake of Tito's death and was shaped by the breakup of Yugoslavia. Its complex and disturbing work - in fields including experimental music and theatre, painting, philosophy, writing, performance and design - has an international following but a powerful and specific cultural context. Within the NSK organisation are a number of divisions, the best-known of which is Laibach, an alternative music group known for its blending of popular culture with subversive politics, high art with underground provocation - reflecting the political and cultural chaos of its time. In Interrogation Machine, Alexei Monroe offers the first critical appraisal of the entire NSK phenomenon, from its elaborate organisational structure and its internal logics to its controversial public actions. The result is a fascinating portrait not only of NSK but of the complex political and cultural context within which it operates. Monroe analyses the paradoxes, perplexities, and traumas of NSK's work at its deepest levels. His investigation of the relationships between conceptual content, stylistic method, and ideological subtext demonstrates the relevance of NSK in general and Laibach in particular to current debates about culture, power, war, politics, globalisation, the marketplace, and life itself. As Slavoj Zizek writes in his foreword, "Today, the lesson of Laibach holds more than ever." Monroe uses a variety of theoretical and historical approaches, as is appropriate to the shifting and elusive nature of his subject. The use of theory reflects NSK's own theoretical engagement; it is also a valuable way to read the issues raised by the work. Neither oversimplifying nor uncritically mystifying, Monroe leaves intact the "gaps, contradictions, and shadows" inherent in his subject, demonstrating that "It should still be possible to appreciate the works as art that moves, confuses, agitates, or fascinates.

Reviews

Are you a totalitarian or do you just play one on TV It's a question that's long plagued the NSK art collective. It's brilliantly answered by critic Alexei Monroe in Interrogation Machine, the first substantial English work on the collective.... Monroe's writing is accessible and potent, making for the best and most thought-provoking art book of the year so far.

Author Bio

Alexei Monroe received a PhD from the University of Kent. He has published many articles on contemporary music, culture, and politics and is the author of the http-//pluralmachine.blogspot.com/ Plural Machine blog. Slavoj Zizek, a philosopher and cultural critic, is Senior Researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London. He is the author of more than thirty books, including Looking Awry- An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture, The Puppet and the Dwarf- The Perverse Core of Christianity, The Parallax View, The Monstrosity of Christ- Paradox or Dialectic (with John Milbank), and Zizek's Jokes (Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation), these five published by the MIT Press.