Shock Factory

Nicolas Ballet

ISBN 10: 1835950787 / ISBN 13: 9781835950784

Published by Intellect, GB, 2025

About this Item

Industrial music appeared in the mid-1970s, and far from being a simple sound experimentation phenomenon, it quickly spawned a coherent visual culture operating at the intersection of a multitude of media (collage, mail art, installation, film, performance, sound, video) and initiated a close inspection of the legacy of modernity and the growing, pervasive influence of technology. Originally British, the movement soon outgrew Europe, extending into the United States and Japan during the 1980s. The sound experiments conducted by industrial bands - designing synthesizers, manipulating and transforming recorded sounds from audio tapes, either recycled or laid down by the artists - were backed up by a rich array of radical visual productions, deriving their sources from the modernist utopias of the first part of the 20th century. Such saturated sounds were translated into abrasive images, manipulated through the détournement of reprographic techniques (Xerox art), that investigated polemical themes: mind control, criminality, occultism, pornography, psychiatry and totalitarianism, among others. This book introduces the visual and aesthetic elements of 1970s and 1980s industrial culture to a general history of contemporary art by analysing the different approaches taken and topics addressed by the primary protagonists of the movement, who perceptively anticipated the current discourse concerning the media and their collective coercive power.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781835950784

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shock Factory
• Publisher: Intellect, GB
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1835950787
• ISBN 13: 9781835950784
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 1243 grams

About this title

Synopsis

An exploration of the multidisciplinary creative culture encapsulated by the term industrial art, which spans musical, visual, multimedia, and performance arts.

Industrial music appeared in the mid-1970s, and far from being a simple sound experimentation phenomenon, it quickly spawned a coherent visual culture operating at the intersection of a multitude of media (collage, mail art, installation, film, performance, sound, and video), and initiated a close inspection of the legacy of modernity and the growing pervasive influence of technology.

Deriving their sources from the modernist utopias of the first part of the twentieth century, the sound experiments conducted by industrial bands, including designing synthesizers and transforming recorded sounds from audio tapes either recycled or laid down by the artists, were backed up by a rich array of radical visual productions. Such saturated sounds were translated into abrasive images, manipulated through the détournement of reprographic techniques (Xerox art), that investigated polemical themes: mind control, criminality, occultism, pornography, psychiatry, and totalitarianism, among others.

This book aims to introduce the visual and aesthetic elements of industrial culture to a general history of contemporary art by analyzing the different approaches taken and topics addressed by the movement and the artists who perceptively anticipated the current discourse concerning the media and its collective coercive power.

About the Author

Nicolas Ballet is an art historian and attaché de conservation at the Centre Pompidou in the New Media Department. He is the author of books and articles exploring the visual and sonic contributions of countercultures and experimental artistic practices.