Gen's upcoming events and Misc.upcoming projects...





GENS MISC. UPCOMING PROJECTS: Heartworm Press are publishing “Collected Lyrics and Poems of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge – Volume One 1961 to 1971. Later they will publish Gen's first novel, written in 1969, “Mrs. Askwith”. Other books will follow.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Excerpt from Process Mag issue #5 "On fear" which appeared as liner notes to Funkadelic's "MAGGOT BRAIN."




Fear is at the root of man's destruction of himself. Without fear there is no blame. Without blame there is no conflict. Without conflict there is no destruction. But there IS fear: deep within the core of every human being it lurks like a monster, dark and intangible. It's outward effects are unmistakeable. It's source is hidden.

It can be seen on one level in furtive embarrasment, argumentative protest, social veneer and miserable isolation. It can be seen on another level in the mammoth build-up of war machines in every corner of the world. It can be seen in the fantasy world of escapism known as entertainment. It can be seen in the riot-torn streets and campuses. It can be be seen in the squalor of ghettos and the prestigous elegance of "civilized" society. It can be seen in the desperate rat race of commerce and industry, the sensational slanderings of the press, the constant back-biting of the political arena, and the lost world of the helpless junkie who has passed beyond the point of no return.

The tight-lipped supression of the rigid moralist reflects it, as does the violent protest of the anarchist. But more starkly and tragically than anywhere else, it manifests in the pale grey shadow of the ordinary person, whose fear clamps down on all his instincts and traps him in the narrow confines of the socially accepted norm. Afraid ethier to step down into the darkness of his lower self or to rise up into the light of his higher self, he hangs suspended in between, stultified into an Alien pattern of nothingness.

But to a greater or lesser degree,and manifesting one way or another, all human beings are afraid. And some of us are so afraid that we dare not show our fear. Sometimes we dare not even know our Fear. For Fear itsef is a terrifying concept to behold.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Genesis And Marie Losier NBC interview

Tribeca Film Festival: The Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jaye
Marie Losier, Director of "The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye," and the subject of the film, performance artist Genesis P-Orridge discuss their movie.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

pleased to announce TOPI-network access point.

http://topinetwork.blogspot.com/

"The Topi network is an extension of the One true topi tribe, set up as a means to fund leaflet distribution and ongoing projects for the OTTT.The Topi network is an organization releasing multi-media art focusing on, but not limited to, many of the currents and ideas set into motion by Genesis Breyer p-orridge, who has not only inspired me, but countless others, to question everything and to "short circuit-contol." Beyond art, Topi-network believes in helping to release challenging ideas, in whatever form they may take, that represent a strong philosophy, or manifesto. With our unique network and the potential to combine online activism with some of the most influential cultural movements Genesis has been involved with since 1950 from Fluxus to Beatniks, from pop art to neo-decadent, we will be able to give worthwhile exposure to the true heart of underground creativity."


I am pleased to announce that Steven Johnson Leyba's UNITED SATANTIC APACHE FRONT has agreed to be one of the first releases! Check out the blogspot page to view the work Steven has done with Gen.

I have a few other projects in various stages of completion..let us discuss, what WE can do as a tribe. What can we do to be self-sufficent? How will we approach making the OTTT way of life a reality for us all?

Next COUM record out on DAIS this spring

Facebook post From Ryan Martin, Gen's management and head of Dais Records.

Ryan Martin

listening to the COUM Transmissions "Sugarmorphoses" masters from 1972 for the next COUM record out on DAIS this spring...could they get any weirder!!!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

THE LAST MUSEUM - A New Way On for art galleries and museums.

Circa 1999 post on gen's old "next-new-way-on" website announcing the "LAST MUSEUM" sub site.

THE LAST MUSEUM - A New Way On for art galleries and museums.


Brian damage has been working hard on realisation of our latest idea for the NNWO. We briefly had an art show by Skot Armstrong of Science Holiday on this site. That was just a taste. We have now decided to build and administer a full-on art gallery and museum, named after Brion Gysin's last "novel" and dedicated to the memory of his inspirations.

When you go to The Last Museum there will be a floor plan. On the firstfloor there will be two separate art galleries. An exhibition in each will last 8 weeks. There will be a museum shop. Even bathrooms! On the second floor will be the library and archives and the permanent collection. Benefactors will donate archive materials, or funds to maintain and run the museum so that as soon as possible we'll have a 24/7 staff expanding the database, limited editions and correspondence. As the Museum grows, new floors will be added.

One of the great things about this structure is that the museum curators will be able to exhibit previously unavailable or rare materials, images, texts, and photos. Animation, graphics, soundworks will be shown. Virtual and conceptual digitally site specific commissions will be given as funds allow.


Genesis P-Orridge & Miss Jackie Curators of The Last Museum.

Photo by Caresse P-Orridge February 2000. Copyright NNWO 2000.

The first exhibition in The West Gallery will be a new, improved, and expanded exhibition of Skot Armstrong's "LAS VEGAS" show with sound especially reconfigured by Skot after another research visit to the wonderland. Please check our site at NNWO regularly as, all being well, it will go up during September.


The first exhibition in The East Gallerywill be of "EROTIC MAIL ART COLLAGES FROM THE 1970's" by Genesis P-Orridge. These never before seen works have been kindly loaned by Jean-Pierre Turmel of Sordide sentimental, Miss Jackie, Monte Cazazza and others and has been curated by Ben Gala.

In the works are texts, images and photos by Brion gysin from the Genesis P-Orridge Archives; an exhibition of drawings by Timothy Wyllie; a new one-person show by Eric Heist who has been also collaborating with Genesis P-Orridge on an exhibition of paintings and installations that will begin February 15th 2001 in TEAM GALLERY in Chelsea, New York.

The Last Museum is fortunate in that it is run by artists who are still active and innovative worldwide in all media of arts and culture. With our unique network and the potential to combine online some of the most influential cultural movements since 1950 from Fluxus to Beatniks, from pop art to neo-decadent, we will be able to give worthwhile exposure to the true heart of underground creativity. So, watch these spaces!

Monday, April 11, 2011

2001 "Candy factory" interview saved from Gen's Next-new-way-on website

This Circa 2001 "Candy factory" interview was included in the "the last museum" sub-site section on Gen's Next-new-way-on website,which focused on Gen's visual art.

ERIC HEIST & GENESIS P-ORRIDGE


CANDY FACTORY


INTERVIEW WITH GENESIS P-ORRIDGE
BY SKOT ARMSTRONG


Genesis P-Orridge: Up Against the Candy Factory Wall

Ordinarily it isn't news when an artist offers a show of new work in a traditional gallery setting. But Genesis P-Orridge is not an ordinary artist. For three decades he has been exploring new ways of presenting his vision outside of gallery walls. Calling himself a "cultural engineer", he has achieved iconic status in a variety of fields. Now he has his eye on the art world proper.

When I first met Mr. P-Orridge in 1974, he was editing an exhaustive encyclopedia of modern artists.(Contemporary Artists pub by St Martins thru Macmillans) As resumes poured in from all over the world, he regaled me with stories of who was doing what in the name of art. He was also producing mail art and performing all over Europe with his artist collective called Coum Transmissions. When one of his erotic postcards was seized by Scotland Yard in 1975; he turned the subsequent trial into a performance piece involving such luminaries as Bridget Riley; Allen Jones; Mark Boyle and William Burroughs. Later that year, work began on a show at the ICA in London called "Prostitution". The show thumbed its nose at the British art establishment, featuring pornographic images, used tampons and live mice. It also foreshadowed the controversy of the NEA four, as the show was produced with public funds. For weeks the tabloids had a field day and P-Orridge was headline news. One of these headlines became the title of a book about P-Orridge and his Coum associates: "Wreckers of Civilization".

It was during this show that P-Orridge and crew premiered their latest foray into performance art, a "band" called Throbbing Gristle. Punk rock was in its first bloom and record executives were falling all over themselves to sign the mysterious and cantankerous new "band". But this was performance art and they wanted to do it their way. They formed their own label and began releasing their own work along with that of other acts that were hard to characterize. True to their performance art roots, they played non-traditional venues with each performance lasting exactly one hour. They also released films and videos that had more to do with art than music.

In 1981, after the TG members had gone their separate ways, P-Orridge founded his own church. Besides the obvious tax advantages, he was afforded an opportunity to field study the effects of organized religion. A slow news day in the early 90's caused a new series of headlines, which forced him into exile from his native country. This also caused Scotland Yard to seize his considerable archives. He landed in the U.S. on the doorstep of Timothy Leary, who was no stranger to government persecution.

P-Orridge has traveled the globe and has been allowed to see things that aren't usually shown to western white people. He was a good friend to (filmmaker) Derek Jarman and was instrumental in the preservation of the archives of painter Brion Gysin (who exhibited in the first Surrealist show and later invented the cut-up technique employed by William Burroughs). His opinion is frequently sought by people who are seeking to make sense of cultural trends. His new show marks a return to gallery walls. We decided to catch up with him to see what he's doing and why he's doing it.

How do you currently perceive your relationship with the artworld?

In the beginning I had a romantic vision of the artist's labors being a divinely chosen activity equal to that of a doctor, or priest; a calling that was absolutely impossible to deny or refuse. As I began seriously making art in the form of expanded paintings, collages and kinetic installations and environments in the 60's I experienced a deeply painful distress at the sycophantic and self-serving, hypocritical and social "clique freak" foundations of the gallery scenes. Inevitably for years my art and relationship with the artworld became fueled by anger and indignation, satire and popularism as a result. Now I feel very much that a dynamic of mutual knowing seduction is the appropriate process and dialogue for all concerned. A maximization of reflective content and access for all seems to be the hors d'oeuvre of the day!

How have your methods changed over three decades?

Generally, at this stage in my art, I will conceptualize meticulously and thoroughly, approaching an intriguing idea from as many speculative directions as possible. I'll also engage other artists and non-artists in conversational speculation around the themes and even the words I am drawn to use and explore. Once the stage is reached where I maintain an aesthetic and effectual curiosity with the chosen theme I'll begin making works and, where once I would continue to "talk them up" so to speak, now as I witness their physical manifestation I conceptualize less and less until by the time of an exhibition the entire integrated piece, is for my part, non-verbal.

When did you decide you were an artist?

By 1965 I was reading books on Dada and Surrealism voraciously. I had free reign of the loft in my house, which I converted into a painting studio. There I experimented during all my free time teaching myself various styles and techniques with acrylics, water colors and with collages. To raise money for materials I would illustrate school magazines, church programs, design posters, paint ceramics, sunglasses, clocks, anything I could find in yard sales and junk shops to feed my media habit. Making art has remained a compulsive daily therapy and a sanctuary within which to study perceptual and aesthetic maps ever since.

What are the most important themes that your work deals with?

Sex. I very quickly intuited that art must aim to be all-inclusive. That no material or immaterial stone should be left unturned. As I privately began to use psycho-sexual dramas to decondition my SELF in order to move towards a state of aware neutrality where real personal choices and exposures of trauma, desire and compulsion were revealed, it became quite impossible to pretend that sex and sexuality and the expectations of gender were avoidable zones of expression. If I was to discuss a sensation, a taboo, if I was to neutralize the innate, and to me redundant and crippling core states of being and obsession, and, in both live actions and graphics illustrate these, then I must put my own body and sexuality into the frontline and retrieve the most unadulterated co-ordinates that located intersections of friction and dis-integration. The personality, for me, must comprise every possible and impossible sensory and imaginal experience. In the same way art must, without exception or dilution, include without fear of behavioral or physical damage or the judgement of any outside cabal, all aspects of the artist's evolving personality as the central raison d'ĂȘtre for creation.

Magic. I have a fundamental belief. A religious awe for the act of creation in all forms. I also believe that the manipulation of plastic materials, of all and any media, and the inclusion of life (the artist) and words (the universe) is a magickal act. Further, I would contend, based upon my own subjective, oft documented experiences to date, that art, and language are literally clusters of living energies. That we can assemble artifacts, images, commentaries and poetics that "make things happen" as William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin so wisely affirmed. I therefore approach the act of creation, no matter how mundane it might appear to the consensus reality and context, as a holy act suffused with immense responsibility. In a very real sense, the artist is defined and recognized as the closest being in our apparent material and linear world, to "Godlike". One reason that I return over and over to various interpretations of the cut-up, and assembling, a jigsaw-like process, is my faith in the power and joy of breaking linearity in order to contribute directly to the alteration of and re-direction of inherited reality models. In this sense we perform magickal acts from the moment of imagination, through stimulation, via speculation to creation.

Collaboration is not a sin - the third mind. There is a rather entrenched tradition in the contemporary artworld that individuality and a promotion of the appearance of uniqueness is an unquestionable and essential part of the repertoire of success. I feel fortunate to have grown up with art movements is my icons rather than any of their component artists. Dada and Surrealism, happenings and fluxus, and of course mail art during its most inspiring phase in the early 70's would be the key influential movements. (I would also include the Beatniks here as an art-like movement) I have been fortunate enough to interface with later fluxus activities via the touring FLUXSHOE exhibitions, with many fascinating artists through mail art and via FILE and General Idea in Toronto and, of course, with the Beatniks too. Where many might feel threatened by collaboration, and the possibility of immersion in a group manifestation and effect, I have always found collaboration exhilarating and creatively nutritious. I have a profound sense of connection to others and have received only clarity and inspiration from open dialogue and interaction with so many of these carefully chosen artists and associates. Burroughs and Gysin as they developed their visual techniques through cut-ups noticed a fascinating phenomenon, which they referred to as "The Third Mind". It appeared, consistently, that as they collaborated, passing works back and forth, extrapolating, that another, extra voice, quite other than their own, began to contribute, speak and reveal, even shape those works. This "being", this creative force, was owned by neither artist, nor answerable to them. To me, this third mind is the voice of random chance, of illogic, of something truly new and outside expectation. It is, for me, closer to the unique than any individual with buried expectations and agendas can ever hope to reach. If one is looking at a transcendent moral imperative, and an open artistic system and process as the corner-stones of the creative act, then collaboration is not a sin, it is a necessity. To seize the means of perception is my goal, for then we can change memory, and truly work in the present.


Humor.


Inclusion of the human body.

The ability of an image to deceive based upon our assumptions about what it is and the information we are given regarding it and the possibility of directing reactions as a result of this.

Your new exhibition at TEAM Gallery in Chelsea is called "CANDY FACTORY". How are these themes addressed in this show?

Candy Factory is a totally integrated and balanced collaboration between myself and the radically innovative artist Eric Heist. The title evolved from a phone conversation with you (Skot) and led to the next stage of dialogue and speculation as to why the resonances of the title were so compelling. There is a lot of humor involved and multiple levels of metaphor and implication that we have discovered so far. No doubt others will recognize interpretations and precisions of reference that we have missed very much confirming the efficacy of collaboration. All the source images are Polaroid photographs from a series I began in the 70's using an SX70 camera and continued to this day. I had been patiently waiting for the images to "tell" me how they were to be used in a gallery context. Over the last 5 years my partner Miss Jackie had rejuvenated both the content and clarity of intent in these pollards. I realized that one theme they were revealing was a sexual one...the addiction of desire. Another was an ever more central concern of my art and thinking which was ambiguity, and the hermaphrodite as a symbol for a war on the over-riding binary polarization of both technology and consensus perception. Any either/or structure is anathema to me. In Nepal there is a discipline, considered by many the most rigorous, called Agori. This can be abbreviated to "the path of no distinction". The more recent the root images, the more androgynous and unspecific the information revealed and the more scattered and subjective the viewers interpretations. This process of the viewer's life and emotional residue dictating what they believe they see has never ceased to intrigue and excite me and is central to the way Candy Factory operates as All the images are processed in different manners, using sugar, silk screens, inks, paint, gold and aluminum leaf, mirrored mobiles, even tarp enclosed sculptures that change according to the adventurous intrusion of the viewer. Just as a lot of contemporary art might utilize knowing references to the art object, in our case we are more interested in the effect of knowingness related to the art person. Sugar is used as a metaphor, for the candy factory that is the residue and receptacle of sexual activity and carnal, adult desire; for the childhood fantasy of sensual appetite and desire realized; for the 70's integration of lifestyle, art, archetype and hedonism of Andy Warhol; for the mass visibility of androgyny and the romance of transgender display personified by Candy Darling and for many other modern reflections as culture folds in on itself in preparation for a next new way on of being. Eric Heist takes my raw materials and structures and then expands upon them, both conceptually, aesthetically and then literally by building them. In turn I will then decorate, adjust and amend his previous stage. This process goes back and forth until there is no separation or distinction between our roles or their plastic results.The entire show is like a jigsaw. Paintings that seem abstract become graphic as you move around and assemble various other works in one's mind. The exhibition can only exist completely in the memory and process of viewing. One enters through a 15-foot tunnel of sugar, illuminated by lightboxes containing Polaroid blow-ups. There are rugs that are woven of Polaroid images, hidden sculptures behind mirrors, large-scale "sugar paintings", a photographic series, even T-shirts, hard candy and coffee mugs. Miss Jackie has recorded a soundtrack for the Candy Factory and, of course there are addictive white powder references, sugar-cube sculptures falling from mirrors and mysteries galore. I feel that this is the most complete, fully integrated exhibition I have worked on so far as it contains a precise and meticulous unfolding of all my concerns where the balance between the whole and the parts is so perfect that the visitor is empowered to tip each and every scale from their eyes at any given moment. In a very real sense the Candy Factory has become forensic evidence of the continuing relevance and effectiveness of collaboration and the third mind principles. this time constructing a metaphorical environment where the viewer is placed as closely as possible into the ethereal role of neither creator, nor public, but by their presence becoming the intersecting point that is the only position that maintains the integrity and completion of the work itself. Thus we remove our selves from the center and they become through a necessity of collaboration the third mind.

Interview by SKOT ARMSTRONG Los Angeles 17th January 2001

This article will appear in COAGULA Magazine Feb 2001 Issue in a shorter form. SPECIAL THANKS TO TULSA AND ALL AT COAGULA for their support and interest.

All photos of Genesis P-Orridge and Miss Jackie copyright Skot Armstrong 2001.

Genesis P-Orridge Remembers Erotic Mailart by BENGALA

I saved this article from Gen's "Next-new-way-on" official webiste circa 2001. It was contained within a sub-page upon the site "The last museum" Showcasings Gen's archived work.


GENESIS P-ORRIDGE



EROTIC MAIL ART COLLAGES


FROM THE 1970'S



TO _____________ WITH LOVE



Genesis P-Orridge Remembers Erotic Mailart by BENGALA


There was a time in the not so distant past when men and women sent postcards, or even letters to one another, and often this exchange of images and words was illicit in nature. Both love notes and erotic postcards have rich historical pasts. Even today, walking down the street in any major city (especially those situated near a body of water), one undoubtedly comes across a variety of spicy postcards. Bountiful breasts straining against an "I Love New York" T-shirt, sand-covered Floridian asses all in a row, inebriated flashers lost in the over-stimulation of Mardi Gras. Sex to send still runs rampant.


Of course the Internet has done much to kill the exchange of paper and pen, envelope and stamp. Computers have become as accessible as books, if not in every home. Even travelers have no trouble staying connected to their long-distance paramours. Many upper end hotels now offer web access, and e-mail has become the rule in nearly every exchange. The chat room is the new realm of sex if not romance, immediate, vital. More often than not the mailbox is left holding only bills and unwanted offers for credit cards and savings at the local K-Mart.

Another aspect of postal personality left by the cyberdelic wayside is that of mailart. Though it still exists, this inspired trend peaked in the 1970s, as a celebration of correspondence as community, of visual puns and formalist exercises in rubber stamp, of the crossing of borders without the strain of commercial intentions. It was art for an audience of one, a package both personal and unpredictable, yet populist by nature. Mailart contained no curator. Even during the height of the movement's popularity, mailart galleries had an all-inclusive policy. Famous artists such as Ray Johnson and Ken Friedman of Fluxus were shown alongside obscure sendings from joe schmoe. Mailart wasn't even about being an artist, stressing instead creative communication. Judgement was withheld. The same held true for the staple publications, Vancouver's FILE (published by the art collective General Idea) and then later VILE from San Francisco. All things sent were printed.

It was this open-door policy that also allowed censorship no play within the mailart scene. Yet government agencies were crucial to the postal process. The mailman played the crucial third in our correspondents' tryst, the ballast without which the transfer of image or info would prove impossible. And while political powers came into play in some Third World packages, indecency, especially in the case of the postcard, lay with the postman to judge.


Genesis P-Orridge, founding member of COUM, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and countless other art/sound/culture projects experienced these bureaucratic prejudices firsthand. While his work both within and without the postal medium always dealt with erotic material, in the mid-Seventies he'd been combining images of pornography and royalty in his queen postcard series.


Page 2


"I don't know when I decided to use the queen postcards with [images from porn magazines]. It was very early on. I think it was probably such a ridiculous level of kitsch and the national sense of taboo. Even in the Sixties, criticizing or manipulating respectful royal families was just ludicrous to me. It just fell naturally into place that the two things should go together. I had grown up liking the idea of Dada and Surrealism. I think it was just completely instinctive, just walking along the street in London and seeing queen postcards! I could see the altered versions even before I could pick them up. And it's historically much more accurate to reveal and illustrate the decadence and hedonism and corruption that's always been hand in hand in royal families of Great Britain. And that's not in any way a moral criticism or judgement. I just think it's far more exciting and interesting to actually reveal and illustrate more of the story instead of these completely trite and inaccurate representations. So that was there. And fun. Always the element of fun."

The English authorities found this artist's work problematic, though this was during what some would consider they summit of mailart's popularity. Rolling Stone Magazine had included a two-part article on mailart in 1972, which was soon followed by a cover article on Art in America. Still, the increasing roster of participants did not stop the British government from charging P-Orridge with indecency. In late 1975, he was summoned to appear before the courts. His queen postcards had been noticed.

"They couldn't prosecute me as being obscene because then I would have had a jury trial. At that time in Britain, jury trials on any thing obscene had failed. The public had become more liberal with that type of imagery. So they charged me with indecent mail, and the idea of indecent mail is that if one person anywhere complains that they are offended by what they have seen, it's indecent. One of the people working in the mail sorting office had seen one of my postcards and was offended. Therefor I was guilty. At the trial when he stood up and swore on the Bible and all that stuff. The court asked, "So were you offended by these postcards?" He answered, "No, but I thought somebody might be." And that is what I was prosecuted on. It was an indefensible thing. Then they admitted that they were opening my mail without a warrant."

Fortunately, much of the art community came to his aid and the charges were dismissed. P-Orridge lent to the absurdity of the proceedings by sending invitations to the event to other mailartists, music magazines such as Melody Maker and N.M.E., and even Charles Manson. But this was not to be the last time mailart would cause trouble. P-Orridge continued to work with sex and death as subject material.

"I used to send a lot of things that included maggots, used tampons and pieces of dead animals along erotic images for a while. I sent one to Monte [Cazazza, American artist and musician] and he had gone away somewhere for a couple of weeks. So [the package] started to rot and stink at the post office. And when he finally came back he went to get his mail and was asked, "Do you know someone named Genesis P-Orridge?" "Yes." "Right well, we have a real problem here. Do you know what's going on?" Then they brought this stinking thing out. "What kind of person would send this to someone in the mail?" Monte said, "My friend."

This incident led P-Orridge to have a rubber stamp made bearing the statement, "Unsolicited Pornography" so that his correspondents would not get in trouble for his mailings. Sexual material was the exception rather than the rule in mailart. Looking through the Image Request Lists of old FILE Magazines, this is evident.

Page 3


"FILE was a spoof on LIFE Magazine. Originally they used to have a yellow pages. It was called the Image Bank Request List and it was just yellow newsprint in the middle of the magazine. It was literally hundreds of names and addresses and you would put what it was you wanted to collect, what images you wanted people to send to you. There weren't categories. You could say anything. You just had your name and address and then typed up to twenty words. So people might say just wanted pictures of dogs. This woman called herself Irene Dog. Anna Banana wanted anything to do with bananas. William Burroughs was in it and he wrote "Camouflage for 1984".

"I used to just go through it and pick out mainly people who were mentioning things that had some kind of erotic or sexual connotations. It was actually very few, surprisingly few. There was a certain coyness to the whole thing, and quite a lot of post art college cleverness, which really wasn't very interesting to me. I was crusading right from the beginning with COUM with the idea that street culture and popular culture should be raised up to the level of or treated as fine art and fine art should be reduced to the level of popular culture. It was one of my basic ideas from the very beginning to use the tools that were already lying around in the street: graffiti, postcards, magazines, pubs, pavement, the park, anything like that. I was aware of the idea, originally, of postcards, flyers, rubber stamps, and so on being a quick way to contact people and generate curiosity or manipulate curiosity. It's always good to take something that exists and then corrupt it rather than trying to erase it with something else. I was aware very early on that stickers, magazines, flyers, posters had far more impact than people gave them credit for in terms of people assuming a) that they knew what it was or b) that it must be to some extent well organized and well financed otherwise it wouldn't be so public. You could give the effect of being many people when you're only one. You could also develop a retroactive link with people you haven't met. Put stuff out there so they could contact you. I only used [porn] magazines I could buy at newsagents: ones easily available. Only things you could buy on the street.

"And then it became even more simple because Cosi [Fanni Tutti, member of COUM and Throbbing Gristle] started modeling for porno magazines and what were then known as glamour magazines, which meant they had no erections. It was simulated. I decided to archive them whenever I could. I would always buy three copies so that I had the fronts and the backs if I wanted to frame them, and one extra to play with for collages. But I still had all the extras from the other two as well. So it was opportunist or pragmatic. There was all this stuff piling up in my collage room and I was compulsively buying queen postcards and the two just went together. That was the raw material that I had at hand. And I always thought that one should improvise with that which was at hand."

P-Orridge is also an avid believer in Brion Gysin's theory of the cut-up, where the true meaning of things is only revealed when disassembled and re-assembled. The collage technique found throughout his postcards and correspondence art in general cannot help but fall in this category. However, this theory applied to sexual content adds yet another possibility:

Page 4


"The exploration of the erotic in a different medium. I didn't think the magazines were particularly erotic or sexy in themselves. They were very formulized. I was curious about what happened when you took one thing out of that context and placed it in a completely inappropriate one. Does it become more interesting? Does it regenerate its erotic quality? The naked body or sexual activity in an unexpected location or background without the usual context in terms of how things evolve. Would that surprise? Is that unexpected quality really the essence of what makes sex exciting?

"The actually grinding and wriggling around of naked bodies is ungainly and ludicrous more often than not. There are exceptions of to that. I would argue that if you could spend a great deal of time and beautiful lighting and ended up taking pictures where you couldn't see the penetration, so that what you didn't see were the ridiculous parts. What you are left with is this amazing smooth sculptural landscape in which you know the fucking is happening. That's the way that it becomes really beautiful. When it's abstracted by one. But once you make it purely graphic, the odds are high that it becomes ludicrous and far more animalistic as well,"

P-Orridge sees his work, as well as most of the more interesting work of the 20th Century, as deeply indebted to the cut-up technique.

"My belief is that the artist is really the explorer on behalf of the rest of society and the species that the job of the artist is to go to the moon first, so to speak, or to climb the mountain first, or to go to the bottom of the sea to see what's there. That's the job of the artist or the poet: to find out what's coming next, what it's made of and what it might mean. And the actual art itself is just metaphors aimed at describing the research and the discoveries that we've made. That's why I call it cultural engineering."


And how does this apply to the sexuality aspect?

"I think we're going through a huge change in terms of sexuality. People are misunderstanding what is happening now that we have the world wide web and probably more so-called pornography available and live sex and sexual images and images of desire and even cameras inside dildos. I think that this actually is the last throes of a misconception of what sexuality actually is, and, in fact, a desperate attempt by a lot of people who have been mislead about the nature of sexuality to convince themselves that the material is actually reality. That if you see enough cocks and you see enough cunts then that must mean it's sexy. You see more people doing more things and somehow that maintains the status quo, the old way of looking at the world and looking at the body, but like all revolutionary changes they happen regardless of what the previous generation wanted. So I see that all as a Nietszche death throe of the old way of seeing sex. And similarly with the magazines. More graphic and more color and more variety does not new information make. It 's the classic problem of consumers, which is addiction. Addiction in and of itself is meant to never satisfy. That's the whole point. People don't get something twice if they are satisfied the first time. So the whole premise of pornography and society's projection of sexuality is that it has to be false in order for people to keep coming back. So the whole image and the precept is to trick people into being forever dissatisfied and incapable of satiation.


Page 5


"My proposition would be on several levels. First, the real purpose of sex is to believe in the possibility of union with the divine. That it's a magickal and spiritual metaphysical act. In a sense it's poetry. Poetry is about leapfrogging consensus reality to some more incredible place where the world is revitalized and the vision is renewed. It's very sad that people don't get taught at school concepts of sexual magic and guided orgasm and plateaus and techniques and concepts of looking and being and behaviors that are about being something more than human.

By re-posturing these images within mailart or other mediums, the artist is in effect bringing the mind back into the erotic process.

"Re-activating the mind and re-activating the whole concept of sexuality and sex and sex acts and the body and de-mystifying it and at the same time enhancing it in a metaphysical way. All are small messages, small pieces of propaganda that in and of themselves I see as triggers and I call the whole process "Thee Seeding Ship." I think that's how culture works, and I think that's how culture gets changed, too. So while I'm happy to be seen as silly and fun, I also believe that there's an innate invisible impact that enables one to become actively involved with the direction that culture moves. And I would argue that the fact that I was suppressed and so attacked vehemently so many times purely because I chose to work with sexuality and erotic images all the way through all the things that I've done would suggest that the authorities actually know about it. And that's why they control and manipulate and inhibit people's sexual expressions Because they are very very aware of the hidden power of the knowing use of the potential of sexuality. And one of the greatest services we could do for mankind would be to push them towards a place where they had a candid spiritual respect for the incredible potential and power of sexuality. It's very possible that the entire universe is breathing in a sexual way."

These images are from Genesis P-Orridge's various correspondents who dealt with sexual material, as well as his own. His new work, a collaboration with Eric Heist entitled the Candy Factory, will be shown in February at Team Gallery in New York. For more information, check out: http://www.genesisp-orridge.com/


01_P-Orridge

03_ScienceHoliday
03_ScienceHoliday

04_Ellis

05_AlbrechtD

06_Klassnik

07_Klassnik

08_Klassnik

09_Haddock


10_KontovaPoliti



11_Naylor


12_Naylor


13_Francke

14_Francke

15_Francke






17_Francke


18_Francke

19_Francke


20_Francke





                                                       22_Vile

Information on Ted Little saved from Gen's "next-new-way-on" official site circa 1999

Ted Little originally ran the Birmingham Arts Lab in the 1970's. After moving to London to contemporise the I.C.A. Theatre and downstairs he championed all the new musical, fashion, and theatre spectaculars that were erupting in London at that time. Despite immense pressure from the Arts Council, and in the end the Government itself, he never backed down on what he believed was radical and relevant in the arts. Without him COUM could not have become as legendary and significant as they are. Nor Throbbing Gristle have been elevated into the public arena as effectively or fast. The Industrial Music and Punk Rock scenes of London in 1976 owe a huge debt to his vision, courage, and fabulous sense of humour. Malcolm MaClaren's "SEX" shop exhibited in the corridors and café. The Clash, The Damned, Siouxie, The Subway Sect played in the theatre. Throbing Gristle unveiled themselves in the large "Art" Gallery along with "LSD" (Chelsea, later Gen X) and COUM Transmissions confronted head on the moral, political, and artistic hypocrisies of their day.
-Genesis

Circa y-era 1999 Genesis website message :PERMANENT EXPLANATION and "APOLOGIA"

Brief message i had saved from Gen's "next-new-way-on" early website.

PERMANENT EXPLANATION and "APOLOGIA"

Genesis P-Orridge writes :

Dear website visitors. First we must apologize for having been "virtually" absent in the news realm for a few weeks. Because here at the Next New Way On project we are working on so many fronts at once sometimes we fall behind. The scope of what we are hoping to upload is huge. First there is an actual museum quantity of recordings, correspondence and artworks documenting the journey through popular culture of Genesis P-Orridge. The more we look at in the archives, the more daunting and complex it seems. There is substantial material relating to interactions with the Beats; Jajouka; 1970's Performance Art and Actionism; Mail Art and Fluxus; the origins of Industrial Music; to some extent the origins of "rave & techno" culture and then many remarkable people who have been met along the way. As if that isn't enough, there are several ongoing and new projects evolving simultaneously and parallel upon which the same few dedicated volunteers are applying all their skills.

One way we try to activate some of the ideas and speculations inherent in this search for metaphysical truth and worldly peace of mind, body and soul is to co-operate as often as we can with the makers of films and documentaries and the authors of books. That way the maximum people can access the works if they so chose and to some degree the work is preserved for a future and even effective, relevant and culturally energized for a whole new generation of seekers after the grail of expression, art and divinity.

So do please remember that in our silence is probably the germination of another special perception of this ongoing mystery of being alive, on this planet, within linear time, in the so-called (Western) year 2000.

Each month we shall try to tell you everything that is happening here. Various releases, live events, significant momeants in our lives and thoughts. In the end we shall have a unique journal of what it is like to be inside and outside of the mind of a creative and dedicated group of Cultural Engineers.

Thank You from all at the N.N.W.O.

copyright next-new-way-on NYC 1999

Thursday, April 7, 2011

new rare items...

We recently posted some unusual and rare items on the GP-O webshoppe. Things that will only come around once. Pillowcases, silkscreened posters on handmade paper from Nepal...
Check out the shop at http://www.genesisbreyerporridge.com/

(direct shop link here http://porridgeshoppe.myshopify.com/)

From Edward ODowd