In the Artemic series, Zdenka Badovinac presents the NSK Organigramme, 1986 (−1992), devised by Neue Slowenische Kunst; layout by Laibach and New Collectivism.

“In 2005, I curated NSK from Kapital to Capital. Neue Slowenische Kunst – an Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia, the first retrospective exhibition of this highly important 1980s art movement in Slovenia. Among others, I was intrigued by the question which image best captured the NSK spirit, especially since the NSK groups did not really do projects together. Collective NSK works are quite rare, there are hardly any, at least not in the sense of being signed by the collective author of Neue Slowenische Kunst. In fact, the only true collective NSK work is the NSK Organigramme from 1986 (its layout by Laibach and New Collectivism). It is a visualization of collectivity, which is one of the key principles of work with all the NSK groups. The organigram includes all the eight NSK groups and departments, comprising together more than twenty people. In its form, it reflects a rigid hierarchical structure with the NSK founding groups (Laibach, IRWIN, the Sisters of Scipio Nasica Theater) on top and the NSK departments (New Collectivism, The Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy, Builders, Film, and Retrovision) below them. The organigram includes more departments than actually operated at all times, creating a sense of power and of the expansion of the NSK spirit. This spirit is represented in its essence with the enigmatic inscription above the organigram: The Immanent, Consistent Spirit. What exactly is that supposed to mean? This question can be answered in all seriousness and the answer supported by some fancy theoretical footwork, but on the other hand it can also be understood in the spirit of typical Laibach humor. While the NSK artists did cultivate an image of stone-faced solemnity, they had great fun in whatever they did. Their internal bylaws are in reality copied almost word for word from a hunting club regulations. There seems to be no good art without at least some humor, which gives one that all-important and necessary distance to oneself. On the other hand, NSK was not just fun and games – it was also very earnest. All of us who had learned the boring diagrams of the socialist self-management system in school immediately recognized their lack of practicality and functionality and the high degree of bureaucratization also in the NSK Organigramme. And all who are seeing the NSK Organigramme for the first time today can recognize in it the complexity of the corporative systems of our time. In their organigram, NSK captured their Austro-Hungarian past, their then socialist present, and their future in the capitalist division of labor. The NSK groups divided the symbolic order between them, with Laibach taking ideology, the SSNT religion, and IRWIN the role of chronicler, thus taking over the domain of history. The NSK departments were in charge of individual ‘branches’ of work: design, film, television, philosophy, and construction. At first blush, the NSK organigram seems like any other organigram excessively cementing certain operations and suffocating spontaneity and vitality. While the principle of NSK’s work, and of that of all of its groups and departments, was indeed quite meticulous or even rigorous, it was at the same time also and above all a product of a completely free imagination and creativity. A testimony to that is that little header on top, The Immanent, Consistent Spirit, which is actually the empty center as the space of imagination, the empty sign to be filled at will.”