Nonbinary : A Memoir

A revealing memoir from a pioneering industrial musician and visual artist who inspired generations of outsiders, rebels, and risk-takers
 
In a memoir spanning decades of artistic risk-taking, Genesis P-Orridge, the inventor of “industrial music,” founder of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and world-renowned fine artist takes us on a journey through creativity and destruction, pleasure and pain. Genesis’s unwillingness to be stuck―in one place, in one genre, or in one gender―will be an inspiration to the newest generation of trailblazers and nonconformists. It’s for an audience that cannot and will not be ignored. Nonbinary has far-reaching potential because of Genesis’s remarkable body of work. It is full of great stories about Genesis’s experiences with icons like William S. Burroughs and Ian Curtis.

GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE (February 22, 1950–March 14, 2020) was a legendary singer-songwriter, musician, writer, occultist, cultural engineer, and visual artist. P-Orridge rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions art collective, which operated in Britain from 1969 to 1976. P-Orridge cofounded and fronted the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle and the experimental multi-media outfit Psychic TV, paralleled by P-Orridge’s cofounding of the communal network Temple Ov Psychick Youth. In 1996, P-Orridge and partner Lady Jaye embarked on the Pandrogyne Project, a living art concept that blended physical and psychological mediums, creating the unified “Breyer P-Orridge.” In recent years, P-Orridge performed with their spoken word project Thee Majesty, which in the past included such collaborators as William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Monte Cazazza, Aaron Dilloway, Merz-bow, Tony Conrad, and countless others. P-Orridge also continued perform-ing sold-out shows all over the world with PTV3, an iteration of Psychic TV that spanned almost two decades. Over the past fifty years, P-Orridge’s art-works have been exhibited in hundreds of museums and galleries across the world, cementing P-Orridge’s prolific career of contributions to Fluxus, mail art, collage, sound poetry, and conceptual art. The archives of Genesis P-Orridge were acquired for the permanent collection of London’s Tate Britain in 2010.

GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE (February 22, 1950–March 14, 2020) was a legendary singer-songwriter, musician, writer, occultist, cultural engineer, and visual artist. P-Orridge rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions art collective, which operated in Britain from 1969 to 1976. P-Orridge cofounded and fronted the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle and the experimental multi-media outfit Psychic TV, paralleled by P-Orridge’s cofounding of the communal network Temple Ov Psychick Youth. In 1996, P-Orridge and partner Lady Jaye embarked on the Pandrogyne Project, a living art concept that blended physical and psychological mediums, creating the unified “Breyer P-Orridge.” In recent years, P-Orridge performed with their spoken word project Thee Majesty, which in the past included such collaborators as William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Monte Cazazza, Aaron Dilloway, Merz-bow, Tony Conrad, and countless others. P-Orridge also continued perform-ing sold-out shows all over the world with PTV3, an iteration of Psychic TV that spanned almost two decades. Over the past fifty years, P-Orridge’s art-works have been exhibited in hundreds of museums and galleries across the world, cementing P-Orridge’s prolific career of contributions to Fluxus, mail art, collage, sound poetry, and conceptual art. The archives of Genesis P-Orridge were acquired for the permanent collection of London’s Tate Britain in 2010.

GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE (February 22, 1950'march 14, 2020) was a legendary singer-songwriter, musician, writer, occultist, cultural engineer, and visual artist. P-Orridge rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions art collective, which operated in Britain from 1969 to 1976. P-Orridge cofounded and fronted the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle and the experimental multi-media outfit Psychic TV, paralleled by P-Orridge's cofounding of the communal network Temple Ov Psychick Youth. In 1996, P-Orridge and partner Lady Jaye embarked on the Pandrogyne Project, a living art concept that blended physical and psychological mediums, creating the unified 'Breyer P-Orridge.' In recent years, P-Orridge performed with their spoken word project Thee Majesty, which in the past included such collaborators as William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Monte Cazazza, Aaron Dilloway, Merz-bow, Tony Conrad, and countless others. P-Orridge also continued perform-ing sold-out shows all over the world with PTV3, an iteration of Psychic TV that spanned almost two decades. Over the past fifty years, P-Orridge's art-works have been exhibited in hundreds of museums and galleries across the world, cementing P-Orridge's prolific career of contributions to Fluxus, mail art, collage, sound poetry, and conceptual art. The archives of Genesis P-Orridge were acquired for the permanent collection of London's Tate Britain in 2010.