Beijing Project n.09 Xiao Rong 肖容

Xiao Rong 肖容 and his band Brain Failure are founding figures of the Chinese punk-rock scene, which they practically started almost twenty years ago.

His intervention is one of the programme’s “short-time projects”. When an artist wants to take part but does not have two months, or does not wish to commit for several weeks because of the way he or she works, a one-off event in the factory is possible, as long as it stays conceptually linked to the aims of the programme.

At the very beginning of the programme, Alessandro Rolandi recorded the noise of the factory during an ordinary working day, meaning to give it to musicians and sound artists to see whether it inspired them. Xiao Rong accepted, and a week later came back with this original piece. He tried to compose something that could be played in the factory during working hours, an unusual soundtrack in which familiar and unfamiliar noises mix – almost as if the ordinary routine of the factory became a staged situation, letting the workers observe themselves and their movements from a certain distance. The piece was given to everyone at Bernard Controls.

Brain Failure, Revolution Song, on YouTube