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She is a pillar of industrial music who was called a “wrecker of civilisation” in the UK parliament because of her subversive and boundary-pushing art, and who wrote one of the best music memoirs of recent years. Now, with a new album due for release, Cosey Fanni Tutti will be answering your questions.
Born Christine Carol Newby in 1951, she was a founding member of the music and performance art collective Coum Transmissions. Their 1976 exhibition Prostitution prompted the aforementioned parliamentary commentary, plus plenty more controversy besides: it featured explicit photography of Tutti – who also worked as a stripper and in the adult film industry – alongside rusty knives, syringes, bloodied hair and used sanitary towels.
Then in 1975, with her Coum collaborators Genesis P-Orridge and Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, Tutti formed the band Throbbing Gristle, along with Chris Carter. Built from samples, effects and noise, their work continued the frankness of Coum Transmissions: Zyklon B Zombie was a reference to the lethal gas used in the Nazi death camps and Hamburger Lady was inspired by the story of a burns victim. Throbbing Gristle became icons of underground music.
After the group disbanded in 1981, Tutti and Carter formed the synthpop duo Chris & Cosey (latterly Carter Tutti) and put out 17 studio albums over the years. Tutti reflected on her transgressive – and at times traumatic – life’s work in her memoir Art Sex Music, published in 2017, and later wrote another book, Re-Sisters, telling the stories of two other radical women: the 20th-century electronic composer Delia Derbyshire and 15th-century mystic Margery Kempe.
Tutti is now getting ready to release her new album, 2t2, in June, and will answer your questions. Would you like to know more about where her provocative art comes from? Her appearance in the video to Sylvester’s disco classic You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), or her time in an art commune in Hull? Post your questions in the comments before 10am BST on Tuesday 13 May. Her answers will be published in Film & Music on 30 May.
