Performing Overidentification: Laibach

Joshua Rosenthal

Performance has long been a way for musical groups to convey their political ideas or subvert existing systems. However, the Slovene art-punk band Laibach, takes the use of performance by musicians too a new extreme, such that many cannot tell where the performance ends and reality begins. We are going to look at what Laibach is all about and see how their aesthetics and politics are reflected in their performance.

Laibach is a band that seems to many to be promoting fascism and authoritarianism, to a point where it even has convinced even one of America’s most beloved late-night hosts:

However, Laibach isn’t necessarily criticizing authoritarian features by being ironic. As Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek explains, the true purpose of Laibach is to exposes the presence of totalitarian ideas throughout society:

According to Žižek, Laibach achieves this through overidentification. Essentially, this means taking modern ideologies, which depend on individuals not taking them too seriously, much more seriously than they takes themselves as a means to subvert them. Therefore, Laibach isn’t supporting or making fun of authoritarianism, but rather bringing to light the authoritarian features present in every society through their performance of “overidentification.”

So, how does this play out in musical performances? To analyze this, let’s look at one of Laibach’s early music videos, “The State”:

One of the first things to note is Laibach’s use of the Nazi aesthetic known as the “complete work of art” in which one art form contains within it several more forms of art. In this music video, this is achieved by having music, theater, traditional art, and ballet, all present within one work of art. Clearly, “The State” is meant to draw direct comparisons to Nazi Germany. Furthermore, some of the lyrics are taken from a speech by Tito, the founding father of socialist Yugoslavia, while rest of the lyrics are espousing the virtues of the powerful state. In this way, Laibach is making a parallel between the authoritarianism of Nazi Germany and that of their own country. Thus, this performance is being used to reveal the authoritarian features of their own society and to draw a comparison between the authoritarian aspects of Nazi Germany and then Yugoslavia. Lastly, notice that the movements of all of the musicians are extraordinarily mechanical, almost like an animatronic robot seen in a fair ride. Just as the reproduction of authoritarianism is mechanical and automatic, so the reproduction of these totalitarian aspects in society is also exposed as mechanical through this performance. So, with the music video for “The State,” Laibach has used in overidentification in its performance to reveal authoritarian characteristics in society.

Overall, it is clear that overidentification as a form of performance was used by Laibach not to promote authoritarianism, but to subvert it.

Bibliography

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Motoh, Helena. ""Punk Is a Symptom": Intersections of Philosophy and Alternative Culture in the 80's Slovenia (ENG) | Helena Motoh." Academia.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2017.

Mulej, Oskar. "A Place Called Johnny Rotten Square: The Ljubljana Punk Scene and the Subversion of Socialist Yugoslavia." A European Youth Revolt (2016): 189-202. Web.

What the Hell Is Laibach All About? Perf. Slavoj Zizek. Youtube. N.p., 11 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.

Wolfson, Richard. “Warriors of Weirdness.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 4 Sept. 2003, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3601856/Warriors-of-weirdness.html. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.