Laibach in North Korea — A Journey to the East (from the Slovene Perspective)
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Laibach in North Korea — A Journey to the East (from the Slovene Perspective) Irena šentevska ABSTRACT In summer 2015 for the first time in its history the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea welcomed awestern rock band, making an unexpected gesture of inviting the Slovene art group Laibach. Laibach’s credentials for this type of cultural diplomacy may be best observed in the sociopolitical context of the 1980s, when they operated within abroader alternative cultural scene of civil society movements in Slovenia (then socialist Yugoslavia). Laibach have since uniquely employed different media and approaches to inspect relations between art, politics, processes of nation-building and popular culture. In the Western media they are mainly presented as ahighly controversial music group originating from the former communist East and disturbing the audiences with their totalitarian imagery and ambiguous political messages. Across the globe they were seen as going to North Korea to entertain abrainwashed and utterly unpredictable audience in the most totalitarian and isolated society in the world. This unusual and well documented journey to the far end of what has remained of the former communist East provides interesting material for analyzing the media interpretations of the East/West divide in the contemporary context. However, this paper focuses on the media debate in Slovenia informed by the local knowledge of Laibach’s significance and history which was largely lacking in the international coverage of this out-of-the-ordinary voyage. KEYWORDS Laibach, North Korea, Slovenia, media controversy, cultural exchange In summer 2015 the whole world was made aware that for the first time in its history, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would invite awestern rock band to play in the country and that it would be no other act than Laibach, “probably the most recognizable pop-cultural phenomenon” of Slovenia.1 They would perform as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule (15August 1945), and their performances were scheduled for August 19 and 20. Laibach’s credentials for this type of cultural diplomacy may be best observed in the sociopolitical context of the 1980s, as the existing Cold War order was facing its demise and the all-encompassing system of global capitalism was starting to come 1 V.NJEGOVAN, Laibach vsoočenje sKorejo, in: Mladina, 10July 2015, https://www.mladina. si/167863/laibach-v-soocenje-s-korejo/, accessed 8.7.2021.
IRENA šENTEvSKA 87 into its own. The Laibach phenomenon is rooted in the context of the (f)ailing socialist Yugoslavia and its version of socialism. Since their beginnings in the early 1980s, Laibach had been emphasizing both socialism’s subordination to Western culture and the logic of capital in which socialism was trapped. Hence their simultaneous fascination with, and distance from, the North Korean political utopia, evident in their interviews and extensive media coverage of their Korean tour. This unusual and well documented journey to the far end of what has remained of the former communist East (as the last and ultimate outpost of the Cold War) serves as agood case study for analyzing the contemporary media interpretations of the East/West divide in the context of the “New Cold War”. Apart from the stereotypes in representations of North Korea and former communist East (and stereotypes in presentation of Laibach, for that matter) to ageneral audience, what complicates this picture is the group’s ambiguous identity. Namely, their origins may have been “Eastern” (and even communist), but they have been for several decades coopted by the global music industry and, at least in North Korea, they perceived themselves as “Westerners”. This paper focuses on the media reception of Labach’s North Korean expedition in their home country, Slovenia, where it stirred apublic debate about the band’s “moral compass”, informed by local knowledge of their history and strategies of artistic provocation (which was largely lacking in the media coverage from the restof the world). LAIBACH IN THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Laibach was originally amember group of the interdisciplinary artistic collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK),2 acommunity which operated within abroader alternative cultural scene of civil society movements in Slovenia (then Yugoslavia), engaged in the critique of the established socialist order and working towards the overall democratization of the society. Laibach was among the three founding members of NSK— together with the theatre group Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre (1983–1987) and the visual arts group IRWIN (1983). Later in 1984 the three groups founded the NSK design department New Collectivism, followed by other subdivisions, including the theoretical Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy lead by philosopher Peter Mlakar. The complex discourse of Mlakar’s speeches as prologues to Laibach concerts was politically charged, specific to the performance locations, and in itself highly provocative for regular “rock” audiences. NSK collectives employed different media and approaches to transcend the boundaries of inveterate understanding of art and spotlighted the relations between art, politics and processes of nation-building. The name Neue Slowenische Kunst re2 See NSK (eds.), Neue Slowenische Kunst, Los Angeles, 1991; A.MONROE, Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK, Cambridge MA, 2005; B.BORČIČ, Celostna umetnina Laibach: Fragmentarni pogled, Ljubljana, 2014; Z.BADOVINAC— E.ČUFER— A.GARDNER (eds.), NSK from Kapital to Capital, Cambridge MA, 2015; D.KIRCHSTEIN— J.G. LUGHOFER— U.SCHŰTTE (Hrsg.), Gesamtkunstwerk Laibach: Klang, Bild und Politik, Klagenfurt, 2018; among many other titles discussing Laibach within/and NSK.
88 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2020 ferred to “Junge slovenische Kunst”, the title of a1929 special issue of the German avant-garde journal Der Sturm featuring young Slovene art. The collective’s German name challenged the trauma of more than one thousand years of German political and cultural hegemony over the small Slovene nation. With its eclectic iconography, largely borrowed from the past (from Eastern and Western European avant-garde movements to socialist and national-socialist realism), NSK called attention to asociety of discipline and collectivism which was dying out together with its apparatus, only to fall prey to the far superior forces of capital with its all-encompassing technological control. NSK differed from the Western “appropriation art” in that it appropriated the state itself (its official institutions) with its events. According to NSK both the state and its institutions needed to be constructed (anew), which in reality happened in Slovenia with the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991. The more the state is failing as apublic authority, the stronger the various nationalisms and neoNazi-fascisms which spread on the both sides of what was once the Iron Curtain. The more the real power of global capital grows, individual states cling more desperately to their national symbols. Laibach and NSK underscored this, using totalitarian imagery to assert that Nazi-fascism had never been conquered on the symbolical level. Nation-states are left to hold the symbols of authority as empty signifiers of abygone era. Accordingly, after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the ensuing establishment of the independent Slovene state, the NSK groups joined forces in founding the NSK State in Time (1992). Since then, the NSK State in Time has issued passports, had its own visual identity and symbols, opened embassies and consulates in countries all over the world, and has far surpassed the Vatican in the number of citizens. Members of Laibach were among the first holders of its passport. Laibach’s symbolically charged language of visual communication encompasses an eclectic assemblage of artistic, totalitarian and religious visual references, as arule, provocative and perplexing. Laibach have used them throughout their career while exploring the relationships between art and ideology, more often than not relying on their shock value. In socialist Yugoslavia in the 1980s, the black “Malevich” cross was arecognizable symbol for Laibach’s core audience, but also something that the wider part of the population was coming to know and, in many cases, genuinely fear. On the album Nova akropola (1986) Laibach’s “militant classicism” combined with industrial noise and samples from contemporary, classical and film music induced asublime terror. Laibach were invoking demonic totalitarian forces and resurrecting past terrors as a“retroactive” warning of things to come. The group was formed on June 1, 1980 in the small industrial town of Trbovlje. As starting points for their work Laibach cited the modes of industrial production and totalitarianism, collectivism and member anonymity. Their industrial aesthetics gave prominence to the group’s origins, referring to the working-class and revolutionary traditions of Trbovlje. Laibach returned to the industrial era and used its almost archaic iconography to deconstruct the post-industrial nature of the contemporary cultural industry. In accordance with the practice of the contemporary industrial music bands, in their early works they used sounds and images as tools to provoke fear and fascination. With Laibach, industry appeared as aspecter from anightmarish, archetypal past, rather than the promise of agleaming technocratic future. When asked why they were wearing Yugoslav army uniforms and using means of combat (smoke
IRENA šENTEvSKA 89 bombs) at their concert in Zagreb in 1982, Laibach answered that “they were working on war-related subject matter”.3 Another well remembered concert, in Ljubljana in the same year, was introduced with the words coming from one of the many protest letters expressing outrage at the group’s German name— “Is it possible that ayouth band in Ljubljana— the first Hero City of Yugoslavia— has been permitted to wear aname that forces us to recall the bitter memories of Laibach!”4 The name Laibach first appeared in 1144 as the original name of Ljubljana, then in the era of the Austrian Hungarian monarchy, and finally in 1943, at the time of the German occupation of Yugoslavia. The controversy around the name and the group’s provocation reached its peak in 1983, when they appeared at the program “TV Weekly”. They staged acontroversial television appearance, after which the host journalist (successfully) called for apolitical lynching of the group. Eventually, the presidency of the Ljubljana City Committee of the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia passed aresolution to the effect that the German name of the group was inappropriate, that the group’s use of it had no legal basis and contravened the ordinance on the proper use of the coat of arms, the flag and the name of the city of Ljubljana. Aformal ban of all public presentations of the group under the name Laibach, registered in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, remained in effect until February 1987. After an exhibition of Laibach Kunst in Zagreb in 1983 the members of Laibach were escorted to the railway station by the police and asked to leave and display their art elsewhere. The appearance at the Zagreb Music Biennial in the same year meant another large-scale inter-republic scandal for Laibach followed by amedia witchhunt, because during the performance apornographic scene was repeatedly projected over images of Josip Broz Tito, the leader of socialist Yugoslavia. The organizers of the festival, police and even soldiers rushed into the hall and attempted to end the concert. Some months later Laibach’s first album was supposed to be released by the public broadcasting organization ZKP RTV Ljubljana, which did not happen due to the Zagreb scandal. In 1986 Laibach were invited by the renowned British dancer and choreographer Michael Clark to collaborate on the production No Fire Escape in Hell. When it was performed at the BITEF festival in Belgrade, Laibach were not allowed to perform live. The production was staged with recorded music, and the video recordings of apatriotic speech by Josip Broz Tito used by Laibach were censored. In 1987, at the invitation of Peter Zadek, the intendant of Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, Laibach participated in the production of Macbeth directed by Wilfried Minks. Laibach’s contribution of oppressive, martial music divided opinion amongst the German audience and media, with some interpreting the group as neo-fascist, despite the theatre’s radical tradition. In Slovenia, Laibach’s public image began to change after their contribution to the theatre production Krst pod Triglavom (Baptism under Triglav), conceived and per3 NSK from Kapital to Capital— Neue Slowenische Kunst: An event of the final decade of Yugoslavia, Exhibition Guide, Curator: Zdenka Badovinac, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, 2015, p.43. 4 Ibid., p.42.
90 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2020 formed by various branches of the NSK. They were invited by the foremost Slovene convention, congress and culture center Cankarjev dom (Cankar Hall) to mark the national cultural holiday in 1986 with astaging of the central modern national myth of Slovenia, France Prešeren’s lyrical poem Krst pri Savici (Baptism at the Savica). Initially, this costly and subsequently highly influential production was not received with great enthusiasm by theatre critics but nevertheless received the Zlata Ptica (Golden Bird) for exceptional achievements in art awarded by the League of Socialist Youth of Slovenia (ZSMS). The support of ZSMS largely helped the normalization of Laibach’s legal status in Slovenia. To celebrate the first legal Laibach concert in Ljubljana in 1987, after the ban, they played recorded partisan songs outside the hall and German songs from the same period inside. In 1989 Laibach tested the Yugoslav audience’s patience again with cultural (political) provocations such as recorded excerpts from nationalist speeches by Serbia’s strongman Slobodan Milošević and sounds of gusle (folk instrument holding adistinct place in the cultural heritage of Serbia) played at aconcert in Zagreb (Croatia). In Belgrade (Serbia), Peter Mlakar would address the audience in German and Serbian, paraphrasing Slobodan Milošević, while aThird Reich film entitled The Bombing of Belgrade ran in the background. The year 1986 was amomentous year for Laibach when their growing success abroad culminated with the backing of Mute Records, aleading British independent record label, alongside such renowned music acts as Depeche Mode or Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Signed for Mute, Laibach were able to record their breakthroughalbum Opus Dei (1987) in the most important studio in Slovenia (Studio Tivoli). This album marked ashift from industrial sounds and militant classicism to amore communicative and apparently populist sound. “It was also the first Western Laibach release to be released in Yugoslavia. The ZKP RTV Ljubljana version appeared in the autumn and included anumber of reprinted reviews, including one from Britain’s Communist newspaper, The Morning Star, calling Laibach ‘The Soldiers of Freedom’”.5 At the time when Laibach discretely started to show their humorous side, other parts of the British media focused on Laibach’s “new originals” (re-Germanised cover versions of songs by Queen and Austrian pop-rock group Opus). The bombastic arrangements thereof and Laibach’s totalitarian imagery and posturing were largely seen as parody undeserving of serious discussion. In the new context of capitalist music industry Laibach faced acontinuing challenge: atendency on the part of international media to deflate their critical complexity to the acceptable standards of the global entertainment industry. Accordingly, even after their North Korean tour, the group was described as “high-kitsch Slovenian art-metal veterans best known for their doomy neo-classical covers of such pop cheese nuggets as ‘Live is Life’ and ‘The Final Countdown’”6 or as “mildly notorious for flirting satirically with fascist imagery”.7 Such reception of Laibach was voiced again by British comedian John Oliver 5 Ibid., p.59. 6 G.LODGE, IDFA Film Review: ‘Liberation Day’, in: Variety, 20November 2016, https://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/liberation-day-review-1201923274/, accessed 8.7.2021. 7 P.BRADSHAW, Liberation Day review— the hills are alive as North Korea embraces rock’n’roll, in: The Guardian, 22November 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/22/ liberation-day-review-north-korea-laibach-documentary, accessed 8.7.2021.
IRENA šENTEvSKA 91 who raucously mocked the Korean mission in HBO’s Last Week Tonight, saying “North Korea seems like aterrifying place to visit. But if it is really true that that guy [Milan Fras, lead singer] is going to be singing The Sound of Music8— Ikind of want to go there.”9 THE SLOVENE DEBATE Back in Slovenia, the media closely followed each step of Laibach’s expedition, from the technical details of their performance to their sightseeing activities. Their coverage of Laibach’s visit occasionally included news about the strained situation at the border between South and North Korea, which added suspense to the story and made the Laibach expedition even more attractive to the general public.10 In addition to numerous articles which focused on the foreign media coverage of Laibach’s trip to North Korea,11 Slovene media put great emphasis on the episodes with the Korean censors. For example, the state-sponsored North Korean pop hit “We will go to Mount Paektu” in the Laibach version was not acceptable for the Korean censors and the song was eventually not performed in the respectable Ponghwa Art Theatre in Pyongyang. Nor did the hosts allow matching the song “Edelweiss” from the Alpine Hollywood musical The Sound of Music with images taken from the North Korean 1972 film classic The Flower Girl. The interventions on Laibach’s playlist and other aspects 8 In a2015 interview for the Belgrade political weekly Vreme Ihave asked Laibach spokesman Ivan Novak how Laibach conceived the “playlist” for the Pyongyang concerts and what kind of audience they hoped to address. He responded that the North Korean audiences “know well the melodies from the musical The Sound of Music, because in high schools they learn English from those songs. They are also familiar with some Beatles songs, so we are going to play for them our version of Across the Universe…” I. ŠENTEVSKA, Uspon na planinu Paektu (interview with Ivan Novak), in: Vreme no.1282, 30July 2015, p.41. 9 J.V. SIMOULIN and M.TRAAVIK, Liberation Days: Laibach and North Korea, Éditions Timeless, 2018, p.75. 10 S.U. STA, Obstreljevanje med Severno in Južno Korejo. Kje je skupina Laibach?, in: Slovenske novice, 20August 2015, https://www.slovenskenovice.si/novice/svet/obstreljevanje-med-severno-juzno-korejo-kje-je-skupina-laibach, accessed 8.7.2021. 11 A.LEBINGER, Severna Koreja ne razume skupine Laibach, in: Mladina, 23July 2015, https:// www.mladina.si/168157/severna-koreja-ne-razume-skupine-laibach, accessed 8.7.2021; M.MEGLA, Laibach: Etični problem je igrati vkaterikoli državi, in: Delo, 31July 2015, p.18; A.POTOČNIK, Kaj je skupini Laibach zares uspelo znastopom vSeverni Koreji, in: Dnevnik, 20 Avgust 2015, https://www.dnevnik.si/1042718905, accessed 8.7.2021; V.U., Poklon Severnih Korejcev Laibachu: “Svojsko petje, bogat glas in iznurjena izvedba”, in: Delo, 20August 2015, https://www.delo.si/kultura/glasba/poklon-severnih-korejcev-laibachu-svojsko-petje-bogat-glas-in-izurjena-izvedba.html, accessed 8.7.2021; B.GRADIČ OSET and A.ŽUŽEK, Tuji odzivi na Laibach: od subverzivnega repertoarja do fašističnega Disneylanda, at: SiolNET, 28August 2015, https://siol.net/trendi/glasba/tuji-odzivi-na-laibach-od-subverzivnega-repertoarja-do-fasisticnega-disneylanda-399025, accessed 8.7.2021; M.MEGLA, Tudi Ramones želijo vSeverno Korejo, in: Delo, 1September 2015, https://www.delo.si/kultura/glasba/tudi-the-ramones-hocejo-v-severno-korejo.html, accessed 8.7.2021.
92 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2020 of the performance were reported in depth by Slovene journalists,12 including other forms of restrictions imposed on Laibach by their hosts. The reason for such attention paid to the issue of censorship was perhaps best described by journalist Jure Tepina: “Censorship is part of their stage performance, their work, their essence.” In other words, the more the apparatchiks watch their steps, the happier Laibach are. “Finally, someone started to take them seriously again, [because] in a‘democracy’ it is rather difficult to offend anyone and get censored”.13 On August 14 Delo, the major Slovene daily newspaper, published an article by Slavoj Žižek14 where the famous philosopher with quite an autonomous position in Slovene culture and society at large mildly criticized the band whose “relentless affirmative interpreter” he had been “ever since the beginnings of the group”.15 This contribution based on fragments of texts published in several Žižek’s books was re-published by the German daily Die Welt five days later, on the day of Laibach concert in the “world’s most gruesome dictatorship”.16 In this article Žižek refers to the film The Sound of Music as “ridiculous” and “one of the worst cases of Hollywood kitsch”, noting that its kitsch imagery is not Austrian but belongs to “Hollywood and, more generally, Western popular culture”. Namely, “the paradox is here that it is as if, in the last decades, Austrians themselves started to ‘play Austrians,’ i.e., identified with the Hollywood image of their own country.” However, Žižek finds that “the power of the film resides in its obscenely-direct staging of embarrassing intimate fantasies”, such as “resolving the problem stated by the nuns’ chorus in the introductory scene: ‘How do you solve aproblem like Maria?’” with aproposed solution “mentioned by Freud in an anecdote: ‘Penis normalis, zwei mal taeglich…’”17 Žižek points to “arguably the most powerful scene” in the film where Mother Superior summons Maria and delivers her message in the “weird song ‘Climb every mountain!’” Thus, citing an old ironic review of the film, Žižek described it as “amovie about astupid nun who would be allowed to lead her happy monastic life if her Mother Superior were not to invite her to her room and start to shout at her hysterically about the need 12 See, for example, J.TEPINA, Laibach se privajajo na Severno Korejo, cenzorji prepovedali tri pesmi, at: 24UR.com, 17August 2015, https://www.24ur.com/ekskluziv/glasba/foto-laibach-se-privajajo-na-severno-korejo-cenzorji-prepovedali-tri-pesmi.html, accessed 8.7.2021. 13 J.TEPINA, Komentar: Laibach so združevalci, at: 24UR.com, 25August 2015, https://www.24ur.com/novice/slovenija/komentar-laibach-so-zdruzevalci.html, accessed 8.7.2021. 14 S.ŽIŽEK, Josef Fritzl, Moje pesmi, moje sanje in Severna Koreja, in: Delo, 14August 2015, https://www.delo.si/sobotna/josef-fritzl-moje-pesmi-moje-sanje-in-severna-koreja.html, accessed 8.7.2021. 15 Ž.LEILER, Kdaj iz konja postaneš trojanski konj (interview with Morten Traavik), in: Delo, 17March 2017, https://www.delo.si/sobotna/kdaj-iz-konja-postanes-trojanski-konj.html, accessed 8.7.2021. 16 S.ŽIŽEK, What Laibach should know when playing in Pyongyang’, in: Die Welt, 19August 2015, https://www.welt.de/kultur/article145381503/What-Laibach-should-know-whenplaying-in-Pyongyang.html, accessed 8.7.2021. 17 On Laibach’s album The Sound of Music the cover version of this song is titled Maria / Korea (“How do you solve aproblem like Korea?”).
IRENA šENTEvSKA 93 to climb every mountain…”)18 noting that in the late 1960s, when The Sound of Music was shown in (socialist) Yugoslavia, “THIS scene— the three minutes of this song— was the only part of the film which was censored (cut out). The anonymous Socialist censor thereby displayed his profound sense for the truly dangerous power of Catholic ideology.” As for North Korea, Žižek thinks that the country is “closest we get today to Shangri-la” from James Hilton’s novel The Lost Horizon, “an isolated valley in Tibet where people live happy modest lives totally isolated from the corrupted global civilization”. He quotes apopular North Korean political song which includes the lines: “Ah, Korean Workers’ Party, at whose breast only my life begins and ends” and two entries (“mother” and “father”) from the North Korean Dictionary of the Korean language published in 1964. Whereas the former is more elaborate and has at least four19 main definitions of the word “mother”, “father” is only defined as “the husband of one’s birth mother”. In Lacanian terms Žižek accordingly sees aNorth Korean leader as “hermaphroditic with the dominance of the feminine features”. In this essay Žižek does not, in fact, discuss Laibach or their motives to perform in North Korea. With this article, somewhat ironically, he wishes them “all the best” when they play their music “for the big happy family headed by the well-caring” Kim Jong-un. However, in the interview promoting Uģis Olte and Morten Traavik’s documentary film Liberation Day (2016) Žižek referred to Labach’s North Korean tour as “the most fascinating cultural and ideological political event… of the 21st century”, concluding his statement as follows: “Laibach is not simply making fun of totalitarianism. Laibach is bringing out, let’s call it the ‘authoritarian feature’ which is present in all societies, even the most democratic… So, you see, it’s not about North Korea. You will not learn alot from Laibach about North Korea. You will learn alot about our own anxieties and hypocrisies”.20 As aperson “responsible” for the whole business of shipping out Laibach to North Korea, Norwegian theatre and film director Morten Traavik was prominently present in the Slovene media by way of interviews and reports on his previous activities21 in this country and the history of his collaboration with Laibach. In the interviews he often assumed the role of the spokesman for the whole expedition who had to justify his personal and Laibach’s motives to perform in Kim Jong-un’s “grue18 Aspecial place among Laibach’s visual references is claimed by the symbolism of Mount Kum and Mount Triglav as the highest peak and national symbol of Slovenia. Laibach used the number “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” to associate the Slovene Alpine imagery with the symbolism of the volcanic Mount Paektu, “sacred mountain” of the North Korean revolution, mythical place of origin of Kim Il-sung’s socialist state and alleged birthplace of his son and successor Kim Jong-il. 19 For example: “3) Ametaphor for being loving, looking after everything, and worrying about others: Party officials must become mothers who ceaselessly love and teach the Party rank and file, and become standard-bearers at the forefront of activities.” 20 J.V. SIMOULIN and M.TRAAVIK, Liberation Days: Laibach and North Korea, Éditions Timeless, 2018, p.189. 21 In May 2012 Traavik organized the first Norwegian cultural festival in Pyongyang, invited by and in close collaboration with North Korean cultural authorities. His first film about his experiences in North Korea was titled Yes, We Love This Country (which is the title of the Norwegian national anthem, Ja, vi elsker dette landet).
94 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2020 some dictatorship”. As aforeigner who had considerable previous experience with the country he was also one of the “experts” on daily life in North Korea invited to share their knowledge and observations with the Slovene public. In line with Žižek’s abovementioned statement he said that Laibach are not aband which communicates definite political positions, but questions our own attitudes or dispositions.22 In one of his interviews Traavik explained that, initially, he was not interested in North Korea per se, but in the media stereotypes and interpretations, in prejudice and opinions shaped before the fact.23 Accordingly, North Korea is acase study which unveils “our” own (that is, Western media and its consumers’) tendencies of oversimplification. In “our” perception, each “exotic” place, especially places which have amore authoritarian mode of government, like Russia or Turkey, is inhabited by victims and perpetrators. The dichotomy of perpetrator/victim is completely useless if one is to comprehend any repressive society. For Traavik North Korea is primarily ashowcase for demonstrating this. According to the Norwegian director, one of Laibach’s guiding principles is that true subversiveness always works on more than one level. The Pyongyang concert was conceived, on the one hand, as subversion of the North Korean regime but, on the other, as subversion of the expectations in the rest of the world about its meanings.24 In his public statements Traavik often addressed the argument that cultural exchange with North Korea solidifies the present regime. The implication of such criticism is that the only sound reason for visiting atotalitarian state is propagating “our own” way of life. Westerners often see cultural exchange as an opportunity to set out for some place to demonstrate their superiority. For Traavik, this is not cultural exchange. Exchange is when the both sides are open enough to learn from each other. Art is not about delivering asingle message or asingle conclusion. The members of his expedition did not visit North Korea in the capacity of human rights activists or politicians, although the tour, admittedly, included many political elements for those who saw them as such. In this interview for Delo Traavik compared North Korea with other “problematic” countries. When it comes to different aspects of daily life and human rights issues, Islamic State in Syria, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the world fare worse in different respects, but have afar better reputation then North Korea.25 There is an incredible amount of propaganda surrounding this country, claims Traavik. Most people still believe that Western press is more credible than North Korean. But sometimes it is not.26 Not that Traavik believes that North Korea is asocial democracy and afree state. Such as it is, distant and secluded, it has nevertheless become aconvenient playground for Western tabloids, an 22 M.MEGLA, Kdo je Morten Traavik, organizator Laibacha vPjongjangu?, in: Delo, 31July 2015, https://www.delo.si/kultura/razno/kdo-je-morten-traavik.html, accessed 8.7.2021. 23 M.MEGLA, Novinarska besedila oSeverni Koreji— zdijo se kot šala, vendar niso (interview with Morten Traavik), Delo, 14August 2015, p.16. 24 A.JURC, Izguba popkulturne nedolžnosti zLaibach je brutalna izkušnja (interview with Morten Traavik), MMC RTV SLO, 18March 2017, https://www.rtvslo.si/kultura/film/izguba-popkulturne-nedolznosti-z-laibach-je-brutalna-izkusnja/417562, accessed 8.7.2021. 25 M.MEGLA, Novinarska besedila oSeverni Koreji, p.17. 26 Ibid., p.18.
IRENA šENTEvSKA 101 especially Laibach— should not perform in any state, regardless of the level of democratic freedoms there. Political or civilian common sense does not apply here, simply because artists are not politicians and Laibach are not Karl Erjavec53, much less John Kerry.54 Returning to the 1987 “Poster Affair”, Crnkovič applied the logic of the right-wing critics (personified by “Maja Kim Il-Sunčič”) to that situation: according to them Novi kolektivizem should be scorned for their design of the Youth Day poster because their political provocation was merely an excuse for collaboration with the (communist) regime. This time, claims Crnkovič, Laibach were most successful in provoking the Slovene public, especially the Slovene media. The right-wing commentators use this backlash to assert that Slovenia (with Laibach as “state artists” and the overall left-wing camp) is on the way to becoming North Korea. At the same time, they impart ahigh level of aggressiveness and anxiety to the debate, much like their regime-friendly predecessors in the communist era. On the other hand, Laibach tricked the other side of the media camp (their supporters included) into showing mostly their fascination with the Supreme Leader of North Korea. According to Crnkovič, this only shows Slovene media’s considerable lack of talent for perceiving and interpretation of irony, and that is exactly why some of them presented this “spontaneous provocation” as acheesy joke. Namely, they demonstrated how easily even the obscure topic of North Korea leads to aquarrel about right-wing meanness and left-wing benevolence in the local political context.55 53 Then Slovene foreign affairs minister. 54 Then US Secretary of State. 55 M.CRNKOVIČ, Das ist Kunšt: Laibach bombardiral Pjongjang, preživel backlash SLO medijev, at: Fokuspokus, 22August 2015, https://arhiv.fokuspokus.si/article/831?=das-ist-kunst-laibach-bombardiral-pjongjang-prezivel-backlash-slo-medijev-2, accessed 8.7.2021.