The NSK State was created in 1992 by the groups comprising the Slovene arts collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). Amongst others these included the groups Laibach, IRWIN, Noordung, New Collectivism and the Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy. Neue Slowenische Kunst was founded in Ljubljana in 1984 as socialist Yugoslavia began to fracture. By the end of that decade the NSK groups had gained a reputation across Western Europe, America and Japan. NSK works and actions have commented on many of the political events of the last two decades and NSK is now widely acknowledged to have played a key role in the political and cultural history of Slovenia and former Yugoslavia, even being credited with playing a role in the pluralisation of society and culture in 1980s Slovenia.
The NSK State was created in the aftermath of Slovene independence. It has carried out a series of temporary ‘Embassy’ and ‘Consulate’ events in locations including Moscow, Ghent, Berlin and Sarajevo plus other collective actions. The State is conceived as a utopian formation which has no physical territory and is not identified with any existing national state. It is inherently transnational and describes itself as ‘the first global state of the universe.’ It issues passports to anyone who is prepared to identify with its founding principles and citizenship is open to all regardless of national, sexual, religious or other status. It now has several thousand citizens across numerous countries and all continents, including a large number in Nigeria. The NSK State itself is a collective cultural work, formed by both the iconography and statements of its founders and its citizens’ responses to these and to the existence of the state. It is also part of the wider ‘Micronations’ movement which has grown increasingly visible and received growing critical and theoretical attention in recent years.
www.times.nskstate.com
The Virtual State of NSK
