Void, Lack and Destruction. Black Metal and Negativity
International Black Metal Theory Symposium
The inflation of the cosmos
Receive the world
Larva formed in glorious negativity
Another form readying the destroyer
⸺ Leviathan, "Receive the World, Massive Conspiracy Against All Life"
The inflation of the cosmos. In the last decade, the speculative resurrection of non-conceptual negativity on a cosmic scale is taking place.
Receive the world. Blame philosophy, blame science, blame technology, blame politics. As a probably most completed (sonically, aesthetical, metaphysical, political and cryptic) form of negativity, black metal was soon, yet with considerable historical latency, established as a theoretical forefront of such a resurrection. blame black metal. Blame black metal as a form of thinking, which at the same time establish and eliminate the contradiction of contemporary historical conjuncture. Also, blame black metal for its truth of extinction and numerous ontological and political consequences that follow.
Larva formed in glorious negativity. Between the years of 2009 and 2015, several Black Metal Theory Symposiums were conducted, which foregrounded the subterranean world of interconnected forces of theory and black metal, both in the widest possible terms. Our aim is to resurrect such a glorious and larval (non)connection once again, especially in our regional context of a theoretical tradition that was fully preoccupied with a limited conception of negativity on the one hand and analytical preoccupation with other, more affirmative subcultural tendencies on the other.
Another form readying the destroyer. We also believe – what an inappropriate word – we could create an opportunity to critically reflect on black metal theory, especially in the context of further penetration of black metal in (popular) culture and often contested multifarious nature of black metal, but also to reflect on a wider epistemical, historical and para-institutional conditions for the constitution of black metal theory. Perhaps the time is right for the second wave of black metal theory or perhaps it is time to put black metal theory in oblivion to resurrect in another time and another place.
Thursday, 18 April 2019
I. 13.00 - 14.15
1. Simon Smole - Walter Benjamin’s Satanic Smile
2. Georgios Karakasis - The »Black« Revolt Against the Modern World
3. Marko Rusjan - The passage into the unknown: emancipatory potentials of Black metal
II. 14.45 - 16.00
1:Adin Crnkić - »Crimes of Capital, Crimes of the State«: Red and Anarchist Black Metal and its impact
2.Jasna Babić - 'Too Old and Too Cold': Black Metal and Contemporal Subcultural Theory
3. Matej Trontelj - Analyses of Themes of Misogyny and Racism in Music of Type O Negative
III. 16.30 - 17.45
1. Mirt Bezlaj - Of Torture and Despair
2. Camille Bera - Why does it sound so gloomy? A musicological approach to Black Metal’s negativity
3. Primož Krašovec - Black Metal as Anti-Metal
Friday, 19 April 2019
I. 13.00 - 14.15
1.Ondřej Daniel - I am Satan. I am Lucifer. I am [the] Devil.”: Ecstatic practices of Czech and Slovak black metal
2. Yiren Zhao - The Chinese Identity in the Chinese Black Metal
3. Adrien Nonjon - Restoring the power of Darkness and opening the gates of Chaos in Europe: Intellectual origins, political practices, and dynamics of the «Militant Black Metal»
II. 14.45 - 16.00
1. Robert Bobnič - Phosphene: Non-Di-Visions in Black Metal
2. Lukáš Makovický - Ad Inhominem: Totalitarianism and Transcendance
3. Boris Ondreička - “Actually, the Living Are Not Living” (La promesse de bonheur)
III. 16.30 - 17.45
1. Lexi Turner - “Despite being chained to the festering corpse”: putrefaction and preservation in black metal xenochronic temporality
2. Mark Horváth & Ádám Lovász - Uninhabiting the Gaping Black Night: Gravitational Distortion and the Truth of Extinction
3. Matija Potočnik Pribošič - The Dark Sublime And The End Of All Things
IV. Concluding rituals, black metal concert, Ater Era and Ways of a Heretic at Menza pri Koritu.
Organised by Študentsko Filozofsko Društvo, KUD Anarhiv (Škratova čitalnica), Zavod Radio Študent (RKHV)
In collaboraton with Moderna galerija.
