Nonbinary: A Memoir (Hardcover)
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 had a profound impact on me as an artist and then a dear friend. Reading this illuminating and radically open memoir is an honor. The echoes of such a strong creative voice unveiling the experiences of the proverbial climb to becoming a true artist and later cultural icon is mesmerizing.”
— Asia Argento
“Genesis was continually breaking new ground and developing new projects with the aim of short circuiting received ideas, chipping a hole in the carapace, questioning everything: religion, education, nationality, sexual identity to find the reality behind the society of the spectacle. Gen was always going forwards. It is fascinating to read the back story, finally told.”
— Barry Miles
“Genesis P-Orridge—a mystifying vanguard with a gift of prophecy. Nonbinary is thee definitive oracle from the heart of the indefinable.”
— Wesley Eisold
“An entertaining and thoughtful book about a remarkable life that consistently embraced transformation.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Part narrative, part philosophy, this outré memoir is a remarkable experience.”
— Booklist
— Asia Argento
“Genesis was continually breaking new ground and developing new projects with the aim of short circuiting received ideas, chipping a hole in the carapace, questioning everything: religion, education, nationality, sexual identity to find the reality behind the society of the spectacle. Gen was always going forwards. It is fascinating to read the back story, finally told.”
— Barry Miles
“Genesis P-Orridge—a mystifying vanguard with a gift of prophecy. Nonbinary is thee definitive oracle from the heart of the indefinable.”
— Wesley Eisold
“An entertaining and thoughtful book about a remarkable life that consistently embraced transformation.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Part narrative, part philosophy, this outré memoir is a remarkable experience.”
— Booklist