the Wreckers Of Western Civilisation: COUM Transmissions
"These people are the wreckers of civilisation", exclaimed the conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Fairbairn in 1976. In relation to the art show Prostitution by the avant-grade art collective COUM Transmissions, and their transition into the the seminal progenitors of industrial music, Throbbing Gristle.
Before they took the art world by the scruff of the neck and shook it until its teeth rattled inside its head, COUM Transmissions had their not so humble beginnings in the stark northern English industrial city of Hull. Among the urban decay and WWII bomb site strewn city COUM Transmissions would forge their boundary stomping brand of anti-art, with outrageous and outlandish street performances, surreal gigs at pubs and working man's clubs around the city. They soon developed a reputation for the bizarre, attracting the misfits, down-and-outs and general weirdos from around the city to their avant-garde mayhem driven cause.
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Started by Hull University drop-out, Neil Andrew Megson, who changed his name to Genesis P-Orridge, the seed of an idea for COUM Transmissions came about during a family trip to Wales, when he claims he heard voices and saw the logo for what would become COUM. In the December of 1969, Genesis was back in Hull and along with friend John Shapiro, set his plans into action. They moved into derelict building, on Princes Street off Dagger Lane, that Genesis nicknamed the Ho-Ho Funhouse. They were soon joined there by Hull local Christine Carol Newby, who changed her name to Cosey Fanni Tutti. The Funhouse was filled with eccentric Hull characters, and sometimes used as an ad hoc clubhouse for passing Hells Angels.
They started performing in pubs and clubs around Hull, usually to the utter shock and bewilderment of audiences. Under the banner of "Your Local Dirty Banned", they borrowed from the 60s counterculture, and were influenced by Dada artists in particular the Fluxus network. Their shows were improvised cacophonies on broken instruments and whatever they could find to make noise. They began to involve audience participation in their performances, gradually moving from being an anarchic musical group, to a performance art collective. One time purposely turning up to play a gig without any instruments at all. As others began to hear of them and gravitate towards the creative maelstrom that was tearing down the barriers of the art establishment, they came to the attention of the media and art world beyond the dull downtrodden streets of Hull. |
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By early 1971 they had reached the notice of the Yorkshire Post, who did an article on the group. Which helped spread the word. They performed sessions on the very conservative local BBC Radio Humberside in the April of that year. Energised by the press attention they were getting, the collective starting giving impromptu street performances in the city, much to the annoyance of the local police, with whom they ran into to trouble. Most famously they gave a performance at the Gondola Club on Little Queen Street in Hull, which was raided by the police after a riot broke out. The club closed down permanently soon after the performance, and COUM were blamed across the city for its closure, resulting in them being unofficially banned from playing in Hull again. The group got together a petition, which garnered enough signatures that they were given a gig at the Brick House, on Albion Street in the city. They continued with their bizarre brand of improvised street performances, bedecked in home-made costumes constructed out of found items. As their reputation grew, by October 1971 they were supporting Hawkwind at a gig in Bradford St. Georges Hall, after blagging their way to be the support act. At the gig they performed a piece called Edna and the Great Surfers, which consisted of them getting the audience to chant, "Off! Off! Off!" While a member dressed as a schoolgirl fired a starting pistol and they threw polystyrene snow all over the stage and audience.
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They applied for arts funding, and gave performances at the Hull Arts Centre and the Ferens Art Gallery. They started in give performances outside of Hull, but still used the city as their very playground of fun, entering the National Rock/Folk Contest at the New Grange Club in Hull with a set entitled This Machine Kills Music, in the summer of 72. COUM organised events for Hull City Council's Fanfare for Europe to commemorate the UK's joining the European Economic Community in 1973, while that year P-Orridge featured a pieces of conceptual art called "Wagon Train" and "Mr. Alien Brain", at the Ferens Art Gallery's Winter Show. The exhibition proved controversial in local press, who asked "Is this Art?". However by 1973 it was time for Genesis and Cosey to leave Hull for the bright lights of London, due to constant police harassment and that Genesis had become friends with William S. Burroughs through correspondence. Burrough's was living in London at the time, and encouraged Genesis, introducing him to avant-garde artist Brion Gysin. COUM were becoming both nationally and internationally recognised, and in 1973 were included in a Fluxus retrospective that toured the country called Fluxshoe. And they performed alongside Viennese Actionists, who encouraged COUM to push things further, by using extreme shock tactics in their performances.
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Their performances were becoming more and more extreme, often involving themes of sexual fetishism, piss, vomit, blood, and semen. They cut themselves, burnt themselves, spat, pissed and vomited on each other, and then fucked. Performances became more extreme, leaving any boundaries of taste far on the horizon. Even to the extent that controversial performance artist Chris Burden walked out of one of their shows proclaiming, "This is not art, this is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, and these people are sick." In 1976, COUM Transmissions gave their infamous performance of Prostitution. It would be the show that not only saw them being described as "the wreckers of civilisation", but would be the first outing of the band Throbbing Gristle.
The now infamous performance happened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, in the October of 76. The multi-media show immediately caused a stir, with its images of Cosey from her work as a porn actress and model. She'd appeared in numerous pornographic magazines and hardcore porn films. One to fund her art, and two to create the body of work that was shown at the exhibition. She re-appropriated it all as a single body of art, and that unbeknownst to anyone in the porn industry, her time as an actress and model was all part of the bigger performance of COUM Transmissions. In addition the show featured a stripper, transvestites, prostitutes, punks and all manner of people dressed-up and secreted into the gallery audience. There were sculptures of found objects alongside used tampons, and jars of bodily fluids. The controversy exploded, reaching a crescendo, when questions were asked in Parliament about whether public funding should be used for such an event. |
The press jumped on it, and wrote lurid condemnations of the exhibition. Which Genesis took and used to make cut-up works, which went on display at Prostitution. In turn that very act generated further press coverage, and in turn, those articles were cut-up and added to the show. The notoriety of COUM Transmissions and their dedication to pushing the boundaries of what is considered art, can never be underestimated. As the city of Hull moves closer and closer to its year in the lime-light, as the city of culture. It's time to celebrate the someone forgotten history within the city of this avant-garde force of nature that took on the art establishment and turned the world upside-down.
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Nothing Here But The Recordings - Cult spoken word album by William S. Burroughs, produced by the guys from COUM Transmissions / Throbbing Gristle from his tape experiments in 1981.
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Throbbing Gristle: Three chords? You Can Start A Band With No Chords! - Provocative pioneers of industrial noise music, formed from Hull based art collective COUM Transmissions.
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