In 1984, three groups – the multimedia group Laibach (established 1980), the visual arts group IRWIN (1983), and the theatre group Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre (SNST) (1983–1987) – founded the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) art collective. That same day, the three groups founded a fourth group, the design department New Collectivism. Later NSK established other subdivisions: the Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy, Retrovision, Film, and Builders.
NSK built its artistic concept on the “retro” method, for which each of the three founding groups coined its own name: Laibach called it the “retro-avant-garde”, the SNST the “retrogarde”, and IRWIN the “retro principle”. After the breakup of Yugoslavia and the establishment of an independent Slovenia, the NSK groups invested their common ideas in founding the NSK State in Time in 1992. Since then, the NSK State in Time has issued passports, had its own visual identity and symbols, and opened embassies and consulates in countries all over the world.
