A spring and summer tour starting in April 2012, featuring Laibach live, presenting and promoting the science fiction dark comedy, film Iron Sky. Laibach has composed the soundtrack for this film and will perform selected songs from it live in concert, along with other material including some preview songs from their two forthcoming albums and a set of classic Laibach songs spanning from the early 80’s to today.

Iron Sky is a dark science fiction comedy about Nazis escaping to the dark side of the Moon in 1945 and returning to Earth in 2018. Towards the end of World War II the Nazi scientists made a significant breakthrough in anti-gravity. From a secret base built in the Antarctic, the first Nazi spaceships were launched in late ‘45 to found the military base Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) on the dark side of the Moon. This base was to build a powerful invasion fleet and return to take over the Earth once the time was right. Now it’s 2018, and the Nazis are returning…

Iron Sky is one of the most anticipated films coming out of Europe in 2012. The film was inspired in part by Laibach and especially their 2006 album VOLK (Mute/EMI), therefore from very early on the film’s director Timo Vuorensola wanted to have Laibach create the music for it. When both the band and the filmmakers connected, the vision started to become a reality.

Laibach’s involvement is a match made in heaven. Their music for this film is loaded with references to Wagner (as is the whole film) and was created very carefully with the unique Laibachian style, sense of humor and dark tone, and it works perfectly with the noir/steampunk look of the film. A release of an album with the film score on Mute will follow later this year.

Iron Sky is a Finnish-German-Australian co-production of about 7,5 million € budget, to be released worldwide in 2012. It’s directed by Timo Vuorensola and produced by Tero Kaukomaa (Blind Spot Pictures), Samuli Torssonen (Energia) as the visual effects producer, Oliver Damian (27 Films Production), Cathy Overett & Mark Overett (New Holland Pictures), with San Fu Maltha as the executive producer. The cast includes Julia Dietze (1½ Ritter), Götz Otto (Tomorrow Never Dies, Schindler’s List, Downfall), Christopher Kirby (The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions, Daybreakers, Space: Above and Beyond), Udo Kier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark), Peta Sergeant (Satisfaction), Stephanie Paul (Separation City, Film School Confidential) and Tilo Prückner (The Neverending Story, Die Fälscher).

What makes Iron Sky especially unique is the wide ranging collaboration with fans and community: the fanbase was able to join in creating ideas and content for the movie in a collaborative movie making platform called Wreckamovie. They were also able to give the film added publicity by sharing information online and even fund the movie by designing and buying merchandize and by other means.

Iron Sky premieres at the Berlinale on 11.2.2012 and will be released on the 4th of April 2012.

IRWIN – NSK Passport Office, New York

Print Studio, in Conjunction with the Exhibition Print/Out
Museum of Modern Art
The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building Lobby
4 West 54th Street Entrance,
New York, NY 10019

Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 12:00–4:00 PM
Thursday, February 2, 2012, 12:00–4:00 PM
Friday, February 3, 2012, 12:00–4:00 PM

Originally founded by a collective of artists, musicians, and philosophers, the NSK State in Time came into being in 1992 shortly after Slovenia’s independence from the Yugoslav Federation. Its declaration of existence was accompanied by the issuing of passports at various temporary embassies, which operated alongside NSK exhibitions and events. Led by the Slovenian artists’ collective IRWIN, Print Studio will host the NSK Passport Office, New York for three days and issue a limited number of passports. A concurrent series of presentations, discussions, screenings and a culminating NSK State Citizens’ Rendezvous offers a forum to engage the public with ideas central to the NSK State and what it means to be a citizen of this non-territorial entity. For more information about the program schedule and updates, please visit MoMA.org/learn .

A limited number of passports will be printed during IRWIN’s NSK Passport Office, New York.

Admission to the NSK Passport Office New York is free. Passports will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis. Open to all ages. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

Print Studio Inauguration & NSK State Citizens’ Rendezvous

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012, 6:00-9:00 PM

Print Studio’s opening program begins with an NSK State Citizens’ Rendezvous, featuring presentations by:

- Miran Mohar, founding member of Slovenian art collective IRWIN.
- Gediminas Gasparavicius, Charles Lewis, and Conor McGrady, NSKNY Organizing Committee members.

After the presentations, Ana Janevski, Associate Curator of Performance, MoMA, moderates a discussion and Q&A. A reception follows, and participants are invited to engage in Print Studio’s activities: apply for citizenship at IRWIN’s NSK Passport Office, New York; view works of NSK Citizen generated Folk Art; make a print using visual resources found in the Reanimation Library: Mid-Manhattan Branch; or respond to a re-imagined task from the ongoing Collective Task project adapted for Print Studio.

Admission to the NSK State Citizens’ Rendezvous is free, but tickets are required and can be reserved online .

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Print/Out , Print Studio is an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print.

Galerija Gregor Podnar is pleased to announce Was ist Kunst Hugo Ball, an exhibition by the artist group Irwin in collaboration with Bishop Metodij Zlatanov, Metropolitan of the Christian-Orthodox Church in Macedonia, in the Project Space of Galerija Gregor Podnar on Kolodvorska 6 in Ljubljana.

Was ist Kunst Hugo Ball will confront Greek-Orthodox icons with IRWIN-framed Dada works, complying with Dionysius’ invocation. This is the exhibition’s second presentation after it was conceived for and shown at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich in 2010. In Ljubljana Irwin will be showing the magazine Dada 4-5 of 1919, as well as the famous photograph of Hugo Ball as magical bishop dressed in a Cubist costume. Furthermore, there will be a large-scale photograph of Bishop Metodij Zlatanov, Christian-Orthodox Metropolitan of Macedonia, produced specifically for this exhibition and showing him holding in his hands an original Dada work from the Kunsthaus Zürich as if it was an icon in a procession.

Adrian Notz, co-producer of Was ist Kunst Hugo Ball and director of Cabaret Voltaire, describes icons as “ritualistic tools which do not represent holiness but are the substance itself, thus giving direct access to divinity. Their function as ritualistic tools brings icons very close to what Hugo Ball tried to achieve with Dada. Dada was neither a ‘style’ nor a ‘movement of art’, but a gesture Ball thought would help him obtain mystic insights. He conceived of this notion the night he was intoning phonetic poems in the guise and voice of a bishop. On 18 June 1921 Ball wrote in his diary Flucht aus der Zeit (1927): when I came across the word ‘Dada’ Dionysius called upon me twice. D.A. – D.A. He was not talking about Bacchus (Dionysus), but Dionysius Areopagita, a controversial mystic from the 5th century A.D. Ball had published a book about in 1923 entitled Byzantinisches Christentum.

IRWIN has dealt with the subject of icons in their series Was ist Kunst since 1984. In direct reference to the Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10, staged in St. Petersburg in 1915, IRWIN presents the pictures of their series in similar ‘Petersburg hanging’ fashion as the Suprematists did, Malevich’s Black Square hanging in the corner facing the entrance, the place where one would expect an icon to hang, thus turning it into an icon in its own right and becoming what this painting has been for years: the essential modern icon. IRWIN used Malevich’s Black Square, other Suprematist icons and other motives from the history of art and formulated them into a new whole. In 1995, when Was Ist Kunst was translated into icons, IRWIN selected a number of it’s own formulations out of the entire Was Ist Kunst body of works and started, following the tradition of icon painting, to copy them. Images from both series are connected by specific frames that are used to homogenize the diversity of aspects.”

The project is supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia

We would like to thank Ziva and Lazo Vujic from Visconti Fine Arts, Ljubljana, for their loan of Greek- Orthodox icons to the exhibition. We also would like to extend our thanks for their support especially to Adrian Notz, Cabaret Voltaire Zürich, Kunsthaus Zürich, and Geri Krischker.

During the exhibition, the gallery is open Tuesday–Friday, noon–6 p.m., and by appointment.

NSK State News for October, featuring retrospective coverage of citizen organized events in Leipzig and New York City.

To mark the publication of the book on the First NSK Citizens’ Congress, a series of events will be held in Britain, Germany and Slovenia with further dates to be announced. Join the editor and contributors to discuss the issues raised in the book and the ongoing development of the NSK State.

Confirmed Dates:

• 25.10 – London @ The Horse Hospital, 19.30
  Alexei Monroe, Avi Pitchon, Alexander Nym
• 28.10. – Leipzig @ Galerie KUB, 20.00
  Avi Pitchon, Alexander Nym
• 29. & 30.10. – Nuremberg @ Galerie Armer Teufel
  Avi Pitchon, Alexander Nym
• 31.10. – Munich @ Galerie traversée, 19.00
  Avi Pitchon, Alexander Nym
• 3.11. – Ljubljana @ Galerija ŠKUC, 19.00
  Alexei Monroe, Haris Hararis (Followed at 20.00 by the opening of the NSK Folk Art exhibition)
• 4.11. – Berlin @ Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, 21.30
  Alexei Monroe, Avi Pitchon (DJs: Codex Europa, Avi Pitchon)

Ordering information and a downloadable preview of the book can be found at  Ploettner’s website. There is a 10% discount for NSK Citizens on production of a valid passport number.

The Nuremberg events take place in the framework of a special exhibition by local NSK Citizens and activists and selected NSK Folk Art works will also be displayed at the Berlin event which will be followed by a party.

Ploettner Verlag anad 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 ca 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 “State of Emergence” will analyse and contribute to the interpretation and decoding of an event whose implications touch on the key artistic, political and social dilemmas of our time.

“State of Emergence intensively documents and analyses the unique NSK State in Time project, opening up radical new perspectives on the collectivity of NSK and on many of the key artistic and cultural questions of our time. This is an important collection of thought-provoking texts and artwork that is invaluable for navigating this evolving territory.”
Catherine Wood, Tate Modern Curator of Contemporary Art and Performance.

Ordering information can be found at Ploettner’s website.

This irwin work entitled State in Time, was installed on the façade of Museum of Modern Art  in Moscow some days ago as a part of exhibition Impossible Communities curated by Viktor Misiano. It was on the wall for few days but than museum director Vasili Tsereteli for some reason decided that it has to be taken down since they have no permission to put it on the building. Officially they are waiting for some permission to put it on. He also said that some people called the museum that the message on a poster is problematic.

The Laibach Division 300.000 VK will have a concert tomorrow (8.9.2011) in Ljubljana. 300.000 VK are currently preparing their new album “Dark Side of Europe“.

Screenings of rare NSK footage and progress report on NSK state.
Presentation by Alexander Nym (NSK state Lipsk | Germany)
“PANORAMA OF THE STATE MACHINE”

Tuesday, june 28th from 18:30 at xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ
Reservation only! Send a notice to: info@xero-kline-coma.com

The future of the NSK State is dependent on citizen involvement. Citizen involvement is dependent on communication. The NSK State News fulfills both these requirements. Using this framework the citizens of the state will now be able to communicate with each other, while maintaining a unified front to the rest of the world. This is just the beginning.