Book tickets
Join us for the launch of Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music by Nicolas Ballet, in conversation with Stephen Mallinder.
This event explores industrial music not simply as a genre, but as a radical visual and cultural practice, examining how sound, image, performance and media experimentation intersected to challenge political power, mass communication and cultural norms from the 1970s onward.
Drawing on Mallinder’s first-hand experience with Cabaret Voltaire and Ballet’s in-depth research into the movement's visual strategies, the conversation will trace the emergence of industrial music and consider its enduring influence on aesthetics today.
This event explores industrial music not simply as a genre, but as a radical visual and cultural practice, examining how sound, image, performance and media experimentation intersected to challenge political power, mass communication and cultural norms from the 1970s onward.
Drawing on Mallinder’s first-hand experience with Cabaret Voltaire and Ballet’s in-depth research into the movement's visual strategies, the conversation will trace the emergence of industrial music and consider its enduring influence on aesthetics today.
Bios
Nicolas Ballet is an art historian and associate curator in the New Media Department of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. He specialises in research into alternative visual cultures, experimental art, sound studies and the avant-garde. He received his Ph.D. from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he teaches contemporary art history. He has written essays exploring the visual and sonic contributions of countercultures and experimental artistic practices. He is the author of two books on Genesis P-Orridge and has published in Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne, Octopus Notes, Marges, Optical Sound, Volume !, Revue & Corrigée, Klima, Cahiers du CAP, and Histo.art (Éditions de la Sorbonne) as well as in books devoted to the work of Nigel Ayers, John Balance, Zoe Dewitt and The Rita, and to the visual history of black metal (Analogue Black Terror, vol. I, 2019; vol. II, 2021 and Arma Christi: Black Metal Apparel from the 20th Century, 2024).
Stephen Mallinder is a founder member of pioneering electronic act Cabaret Voltaire, who are regarded as one of the key influences on contemporary electronic and popular music culture. The group’s first release, Extended Play in late 1978, represented the first domestic release for Rough Trade Records, the UK's foremost independent label followed by, A Factory Sampler, the debut release for the seminal British record label, Factory Records. The group went on to make over 30 albums, for labels including Virgin and EMI and has recently reissued a series of box sets though Mute Records all to critical acclaim.
He has collaborated with a host of artists and musicians including Afrika Bambaataa, Marshall Jefferson, Adrian Sherwood and worked with poet John Giorno and with William Burroughs at the Final Academy in the 1980s.
As an academic he has published a number of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and holds a PhD in popular culture. He is currently at the University of Brighton teaching on various arts and humanities courses and managing projects in the arts. In addition he does key notes, panels and guest lectures at a number of universities in the UK and conferences around the world.
To mark the 50th anniversary of their first live performance (April 1975) Stephen is currently playing as Cabaret Voltaire with dates around the world until Spring 2027, plus selective dates with Wrangler who will release their fifth studio album ‘Prey’ (Memetune Records) in summer 2026.
Until 2025 Stephen taught at the University of Brighton on the BA and MA Electronic Music & Sound (formerly Digital Music & Sound Art).
Book tickets
06:45 pm
Wed, 25 Mar 2026
Stage
Ticket information
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Stephen Mallinder.
Nicolas Ballet by Hervé Veronèse.
no. 236848.