Join us to celebrate the launch of Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music, a richly researched exploration by Nicolas Ballet, art historian and associate curator in the New Media Department at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In this study, Ballet traces how industrial artists interrogated modernity, media, and the coercive power of images, connecting the multidisciplinary creative cultures that emerged with industrial music in the 1970s and 1980s to a contemporary art discourse.
‘A deep dive into the shock tactics and artistic hybridizations employed by Early Industrial musicians and the sources they drew from. One look at the table of contents makes you realise what a huge task Ballet has taken on here. […] Throughout I have struggled to sum up such a wide ranging and immaculately researched and executed book, one that explores, inspires and questions intelligently the concepts and influences behind Early Industrial music and culture, which was both fiercely independent and determinedly underground, yet worked hand in hand with the art establishment and followed in a long tradition of radical and deliberately shocking art that challenged the taboos of the day. Ballet has managed to crack this epic topic open as I have seen few others able to do, and my difficulty in boiling that down into a review is a testament to his diligence and tenacity. For anyone interested in how true underground culture can develop and grow by building on the foundations set by other art radicals and pioneers, then this is the book for you.’ – Alan Rider, Outsideleft