Nicolas Ballet's "Shock Factory" (2023/2025)

Bristol, England: Intellect (book), 2025 (after a 2023 French edition).

9.875" x 7" x 1.625", 587 pages, hardcover in pictorial binding, no dust jacket as issued, ISBN 978-1-83595-075-3.

Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music by Nicolas Ballet, as published in a hardcover English-language edition by Intellect (Bristol, England, and through The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, US) in 2025. This was also published in softcover (which is more common), following a 2023 French-language edition by Les presses du réel. This is an exploration of musical, visual, multimedia and performing arts of the “industrial scene”.

This book contains many references to William S. Burroughs as well as reproductions of photographs and Burroughs-related items. This book also contains multiple excerpts of letters from Genesis Breyer P-Orridge to William S. Burroughs.

Chapter 3 is entitled “‘Persuasion’: Burroughsian Strategies of Reversing Mind Control”.

Contents:

• Pascal Rousseau: foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction:
• Alternative Postmodernity
• Graphical Perspectives
• Cultural Registers and Industrial Themes
• Artistic Hybridizations
• Notes
• Part I. The Last of England: Post-INdustrial Trauma and a Tradition of Subversion:
• Chapter 1. Dystopia for Utopia:
• 1. 'Proletariat & Industrie': Marginality and Post-Industrial Change
• 2. Transgression and Destruction: An Aesthetic of Change
• Notes
• Chapter 2. The Legacy of Modernity and Postmodern Challenges:
• 1. Informed, Marginalized Generation
• 2. Future Tense: Reinterpreting Futurism
• 3. L'Ordre par le Bruit: Constructivist and Suprematist Precedents
• 4. Dadaist Offensive
• 5. Imaginary Surrealists
• 6. The Neo-Avant-Gardist Factory
• Notes
• Part II. Nothing Short of a Total War: Industrial Dissidence and Shock Tactics:
• Chapter 3. 'Persuasion': Burroughsian Strategies of Reversing Mind Control:
• 1. 'Spread the Virus': Electronic Revolution and Industrial Cut-Ups
• 2. Duty Experiment: Military and Civilian Scientific Experiments
• Notes
• Chapter 4. Symphony for a Genocide: Industrial Music and Totalitarianism:
• 1. Détournement of Trauma and Industrial Provocation
• 2. Industrial Catharsis: Psychological Mechanisms and Cognitive Tests
• 3. Industrial Excesses and Political Manipulation
• Notes
• Chapter 5. 'Suture Obsession': Aestheticization of Horror:
• 1. The Atrocity Exhibition: Anti-Psychiatric Interference and Tolerance Thresholds
• 2. Bleeding Images: Criminal Anxiety
• Notes
• Chapter 6. 'Prostitution': Sexual Reconfiguration and Industrial Feminism:
• 1. White Souls in Black Suits: Pornographic Abuse and BDSM Subculture
• 2. Brutality as a Masquerade
• Notes
• Part III. 'Body and Soul': Industrial Occulture:
• Chapter 7. Pagan Day: Occult Rituals and the Re-Enchantment of Reality:
• 1. Third Esoteric Revival
• 2. Crowleymass: Rehabilitated Contemporary Occultism
• 3. Zos Kia Cultus: The Legacy of Austin Osman Spare
• 4. The Process: Sectarian Systems and Informal Satanism
• 5. Modern Primitives: Neopaganism and Ritualized Body Modification
• Notes
• Conclusion
• Archives and Interviews
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author