Very often, basic information on what NSK is, when it was founded, what the NSK philosophy is and the like are required. To put it in a nutshell, NSK in its structure is a simple and yet complex mechanism which makes any precise explanation in a few words practically impossible. NSK began operating in 1984 as a large collective, an organisation, a union of various groups brought together by their shared way of thinking and similar style of expression through different media. The main NSK groups are: Laibach, Irwin, Noordung, New Collectivism Studio and Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy. There are also a number of flexible subdivisions which emerge as the needs arise and dissolve under their own inertia. Each of the groups primarily works within its medium, nevertheless their bonds are firm and fruitful. Members of the groups meet on a regular basis, they talk, discuss and plan major common campaigns, test aesthetic and other preferences, exchange ideas and contexts, travel together, etc.
Laibach began working in 1980 and was mainly oriented to popular music media, although it was associated with different levels of work from the beginning, including gallery and theatre installations. The resume and chronology of Laibach are diversified, as well as its records, and its philosophy is a complex one and may be easily called untranslatable, which of course means that it is understood by those who understand it and which can be interpreted in a number of ways. We could assume despite this that Laibach was the ideological foundation of NSK, while the Irwin artists group formed themselves within the function of NSK biographers, recording NSK archetypes on canvas and in history. The Noordung Theatre (formerly Red Pilot, and the Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre before that) assumes ritualistic NSK contexts and operates through religious patterns above all.
Besides these three groups the most active within NSK are the New Collectivism Design Studio and the Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy. The former obviously works with design (posters, record covers, books, etc.), and the latter mainly with critical aspects of classic philosophy. The Department treats philosophy as its subject matter and medium, which does not imply that this philosophy is entirely relevant to other NSK groups or to NSK as a whole.
In spite of links each of the group works according to its internal logic, its rules and principles of work, whereas they are connected by a certain contextual and formal aspect, and this aspect is what forms NSK.