Smash hit

Works will be shown in this long, dark space on single and multi-screens, and will include work by artists including Wang Jian Wei (whose works contrast old-style epic narratives with modern China), Kan Xuan and Yang Fudong, who will premiere a new work before it is shown at the Venice Biennale. The videos are influenced by electronic advertising, Taiwanese and Hong Kong TV, pop music, rap and Japanese manga, as well as emerging digital technologies.

“When I first came here, my first thought was video art,” says Obrist. “There is a tremendous appetite for it, and we’ll be making parts of the artists’ work available for download on to mobile phones.”

Peyton-Jones points to the pigeon droppings on the girders. “It’s not really a place where you could put paintings.”

But the strange interventions of nature on a derelict space are all around. When we were there, birds flew past the slit-like windows and a fox scampered among the grasses. So, besides the video work, the architect Yung Ho Chang will also create a series of viewing platforms opening up “unusual vistas” of the power station. The final floor is a huge space (quadruple height ceilings, seven windows, smudged with dirt), with views over the scarred wasteland of the area around the power station. Here Cao Fei, whose pieces bring together photography, film and theatre, will perform an original work. There will be some pieces of installation art and more video. “I expect people will come to see the site and then the art,” admits Obrist, “and that’s OK.” Also on site will be a Chinese bookshop, a “concept store” selling Chinese music, fashion and design, and a café or restaurant.

What about the chimneys? At the end of this year the steel-reinforced concrete rings will be taken down (the steel inside is dangerously corroded) and rebuilt using the same materials. Obrist says he has invited a number of the artists to stage non-invasive “interventions” on them — projecting images or text, or lighting. Peyton-Jones reveals there are plans to signal the Serpentine’s residency on the outside of the Grade II-listed building itself, again using lighting. The show will close on Bonfire Night with “a spectacular”.

As we walk away, we muse on the power station’s potency. Hwang first fell for it when, at the age of 12, he played in Battersea Park and became fascinated by the chimneys. “You just don’t see things like that in Taiwan,” he once recalled. He insisted that his father buy the site from the funfair magnate John Broome in 1993.

“This is one of the great icons of London,” Peyton-Jones says. “It is so modern as a design and yet completely and utterly mysterious. In terms of scale it’s like being in the best cathedral: you’re in this unbelievably large space but you don’t feel dwarfed.” The awe-inducing size matches the power station’s intentions to become a prime mover on the London arts scene.

BATMAN TO CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

As a film location, the interior and exterior of Battersea Power Station have been used in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983), Aliens (1986), Batman (1989), Richard III, starring Ian McKellen (1995) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). Stanley Kubrick used it to double as a setting for Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket (1987) while Hitchcock used it as a backdrop in Sabotage (1936). In 1997 the power station was used as the setting for an 18-day rock and pop festival, while in 2000 the Cirque du Soleil company performed their show Quidam there. This summer, the 40ft “Sultan’s Elephant”, created by the French theatre company Royal de Luxe, was constructed in front of the power station. Doctor Who has used it many times, most recently this year.

China Power Station will run from Oct 8 to Nov 5, Thurs-Sun, 12-7pm, £5 entry. The entrance will be on Battersea Park Road. Tickets and information from 020-7402 6075