![]() | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(June 2015) |
This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2015) |
Predictions of Fire | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Directed by | Michael Benson |
Written by | Michael Benson |
Starring | Laibach (band) Peter Mlakar Slavoj Žižek |
Release date |
|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Predictions of Fire or Prerokbe ognja is a 1996 documentary film by American filmmaker Michael Benson about Neue Slowenische Kunst.
In 1991, SR Slovenia's violent secession from SFR Yugoslavia marked the first spark in the Yugoslav Wars that defined the first chapter of the post-cold war era. Using an inventive combination of reportage, dramatization, archival footage, animation and miniatures, Predictions of Fire is a revealing study of the controversial and internationally acclaimed Slovenian arts collective NSK, as seen through the lens of 20th century Central European history. Shot in Ljubljana, Moscow, New York City, Belgrade, and Athens, this visually arresting film offers a portrait of a culture suspended between East and West. By documenting NSK, Predictions of Fire holds a mirror up to Europe and the world, analyzing the way nations are brought into conformity with ideology.
The film won the National Film Board of Canada's Best Documentary Award at the 1996 Vancouver International Film Festival. The jury issued a statement: "Predictions of Fire is intellectual dynamite. It explodes the icons and myths of communism and capitalism. Out of the shattered history of Slovenia, this film constructs a new way of looking at art, politics, and religion."
In the early 1980s, an industrial rock band named Laibach emerged from SR Slovenia, a Yugoslav constituent republic. Incorporating what many took to be fascist imagery in their performances, they shocked this small Balkan republic and, after signing a recording contract with London's Mute Records label, went on to shock the rest of the world as well. Laibach was soon joined by a painting group, IRWIN, and theater group, Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, at the helm of one of the most ambitious and cutting-edge arts collectives in the world. Modeled after a socialist state bureaucracy, and calling themselves Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Arts, or NSK), these three groups became the titular heads of a micro-state within the independent republic of Slovenia. NSK recently began issuing its own passports and opened embassies and consulates in Moscow, Berlin, Ghent, Florence, and in the US.
Although Predictions of Fire documents the NSK collective, positioning their work within the history of ex-Yugoslavia, the film emerges as much more than an arts documentary. Predictions of Fire offers surprising insight into the Yugoslav conflict and the ongoing trauma experienced by generations of Eastern Europeans raised in totalitarian regimes. Variety wrote that the film "uses a postmodern, quasi-Godardian sensibility to show how politics invades every facet of artistic creation and how integral ideology is to the understanding of the structure and signification of images... An extremely rich tapestry of historical events and their mythic implications in both art and politics unfolds onscreen." [1]
Laibach is a Slovenian avant-garde music group associated with the industrial, martial, and neo-classical genres. Formed in the mining town of Trbovlje in 1980, Laibach represents the musical wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) collective, a group which Laibach helped found in 1984. "Laibach" is the German historical name for the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, itself an oblique reference to the Nazi occupation of Slovenia in World War II.
Neue Slowenische Kunst is a political art collective that formed in Slovenia in 1984, when the Socialist Republic of Slovenia was part of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NSK's name was chosen to reflect the theme in its works of the complicated relationship Slovenes have had with Germans. The name of NSK's music wing, Laibach, is also the German name of the Slovene capital Ljubljana. The name created controversy because some felt it evoked memories of the Nazi annexation of Slovenia during the Second World War. It also refers to Slovenia's previous seven centuries as part of the Habsburg monarchy.
The acronym NSK has several meanings:
In the minds of many foreigners, Slovenian folk music means a form of polka that is still popular today, especially among expatriates and their descendants. However, there are many styles of Slovenian folk music beyond polka and waltz. Kolo, lender, štajeriš, mafrine and šaltin are a few of the traditional music styles and dances.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yugoslavia occurring as a consequence of the Yugoslav Wars. Spanning an area of 255,804 square kilometres (98,766 sq mi) in the Balkans, Yugoslavia was bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Italy to the west, by Austria and Hungary to the north, by Bulgaria and Romania to the east, and by Albania and Greece to the south. It was a one-party socialist state and federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and had six constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Within Serbia was the Yugoslav capital city of Belgrade as well as two autonomous Yugoslav provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Noordung are a Slovenian theatre group; founded in 1983 under the name of Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre they were, in 1984, a founding member of the Neue Slowenische Kunst collective. They were also known 1987–1990 as Red Pilot Theater.
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart, but the unresolved issues caused bitter inter-ethnic Yugoslav wars. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of Croatia and, some years later, Kosovo.
IRWIN is a collective of Slovenian artists, primarily painters, and an original founding member of Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK).
New wave in Yugoslavia was the new wave music scene of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As its counterparts, the British and the American new wave, from which the main influences came, the Yugoslav scene was also closely related to punk rock, ska, reggae, 2 Tone, power pop and mod revival. Some of its acts are also counted as belonging to the Yugoslav punk scene which already existed prior to new wave. Such artists were labeled as both punk rock and new wave.
The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, known simply as the SANU Memorandum, was a draft document produced by a 16-member committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) from 1985 to 1986.
Daniel Landin BSC, is a British cinematographer.
Volk is the seventh studio album by Slovenian industrial group Laibach, released in 2006. The word "volk" means "people" or "nation" in German and "wolf" in Slovene. The album is a collection of thirteen songs inspired by national or pan-national anthems, plus the anthem of the NSK State, a virtual state to which Laibach belong. The album is a collaboration with another Slovenian band, Silence.
Popular music in Yugoslavia includes the pop and rock music of the former SFR Yugoslavia, including all their genres and subgenres. The scene included the constituent republics: SR Slovenia, SR Croatia, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Montenegro, SR Macedonia and SR Serbia and its subunits: SAP Vojvodina and SAP Kosovo. The pop and rock scene was a part of the general Music of Yugoslavia, which also included folk, classical music, jazz etc. Within Yugoslavia and internationally, the phrases ex-YU or ex-Yugoslav Pop and Rock both formally and informally refers to the SFRY period, not including Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992–2003).
The Relay of Youth was a symbolic relay race held in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia every year. The relay carried a baton with a birthday pledge to Josip Broz Tito ostensibly from all young people of Yugoslavia. The race usually started in Tito's birth town Kumrovec and went through all major towns and cities of the country. It ended in Belgrade at JNA Stadium on May 25, Tito's official birthday and Day of Youth, a national holiday.
Mladina is a Slovenian weekly left-wing political and current affairs magazine. Since the 1920s, when it was first published, it has become a voice of protest against those in power. Today, Mladina's weekly issues are distributed throughout the country. Mladina is considered one of the most influential political magazines in Slovenia.
Igor Vidmar is a prominent Slovenian and former Yugoslav journalist, rock music promoter and manager, music producer and political activist.
Inke Arns is a German curator and theorist known for her works focusing on media arts.
Charles Wing Krafft was an American painter and ceramicist whose later work incorporated traditional ceramic decorative styles to produce works commemorating modern disasters. In 1998, he was called "the dark angel of Seattle art" by the art critic of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In early 2013 it was revealed that he participated in white nationalist and Holocaust denial websites, which led to a re-evaluation of his artwork.
Subversive affirmation is an artistic performance that overemphasizes prevailing ideologies and thereby calls them into question. Simultaneously with affirmation, the affirmed concepts are revealed, and artists distance themselves from those concepts. Strategies of subversive affirmation include "over-identification", "over-affirmation" and "yes revolution".
The Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre was founded on 13 October 1983 in Ljubljana by Eda Čufer, Dragan Živadinov and Miran Mohar, three Slovenian students.