Empty Gallery is pleased to present Tailwhip, a historical overview of the activities of Cantonese artist, noise musician, organiser, and raconteur, Xper.Xr.

Comprising performance documentation, archival photographs, scores, props, and other ephemera, Tailwhip attempts to pull back the curtain on this obscure yet vital presence within the counter-cultural history of Hong Kong. Coming of age in the 1980s – and finding his way to experimental music only after extended dalliances with BMX biking, drag racing, and general juvenile delinquency – Xper.Xr released his first cassette in 1989, quickly establishing himself as one of Hong Kong's first industrial noise musicians and joining a burgeoning international network of like-minded protagonists including the likes of Merzbow, Emil Beaulieau, and Masaya Nakahara. However, noise would ultimately prove too narrow a category to contain a practice which so thoroughly courted misappropriation, failure, self-satire, and entropy as strategies for artistic resistance. Embodying a congenital disregard for authority in all of its forms – from police and copyright law to notions of avant-garde 'good taste' – Xper's performances would often leave audiences both at home and abroad mystified – as ersatz covers of popular tunes shared space with aggressive vocal exorcisms, comic interludes, and blasts of distortion.

Gallery address: 18th and 19th Floor Grand Marine Center, No. 3 Yue Fung Street, Tin Wan