Laibach, the Slovenian techno-band, became instant provocateurs in 1980 when they adopted the German name for Ljubljana, capital of the nation. Going one step further, these agit-popists then surrounded themselves with the iconography of totalitarianism. Was this spectacle a prescient critique of the coming breakup of Yugoslavia? Or demagoguery posing as industrial music? Benson's supremely fascinating Predictions of Fire goes beyond this dilemma to the more intricate relationship of art and the state. Appropriating the model of state authority, Laibach was joined by Irwin, an artist collective, and the theatrical company Red Pilot to form the quasi-bureaucracy NSK (New Slovenian Culture). Organized as a mock nation, NSK inverted the function of politics-art was now served by the state apparatus. Using terrific performance sequences, archival footage from Slovenia's tumultuous history, and interviews with critics such as Slavoj Zizek and Kim Levin, Predictions of Fire explores a subversive strategy in which the ideology of state power is exposed through the unnerving exaggeration of its images. Blank-faced in their challenge to authority, Laibach might utter: Irony is dead. Long live irony.-Steve Seid