MCA Talk: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

About the Speakers

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is the legendary English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and performance- and visual artist. P-Orridge rose to notability as founder of the COUM Transmissions art collective, which operated in Britain from 1969 to 1976. S/he fronted the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle between 1975 and 1981 and the experimental multimedia commonage Psychic TV from 1981 to present. In 1996, P-Orridge and partner Jackie “Lady Jaye” Breyer P-Orridge embarked on the Pandrogyne Project. P-Orridge currently performs within h/er spoken-word project, Thee Majesty, and the most current incarnation of Psychic TV labeled PTV3. Collaborators include Aaron Dilloway, Merzbow, Tony Conrad, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Monte Cazazza, Hafler Trio, White Stains, Z'ev, and countless others. P-Orridge's visual works have been exhibited in hundreds of exhibitions across the world over the past 46 years, recently culminating in retrospectives at the Andy Warhol Museum and the Rubin Museum of Art.

Jes Skolnik has been writing about music for the past couple of decades and making noise from the youngest age possible. Born into DC punk via two civil rights–oriented hippie musicians and raised in zine culture, they are currently the managing editor of Bandcamp Daily, a contributor to Pitchfork and many other publications, and at work on a book on the constant dialogue of DIY rock subcultures with mainstream marketing from the sixties to the present. They split their time between Chicago and New York.