Biography
Born in Hull, North England, under the name Christine Carol Newby, Cosey Fanni Tutti established herself as an English musician and performance artist whose primary recognition stems from her role in the avant-garde industrial noise group Throbbing Gristle. Her initial rise occurred in 1969 when she co-established the performance art collective COUM Transmissions alongside Genesis P-Orridge; the venture continued until 1976 and provoked outrage in the British press through its deliberately provocative and boundary-pushing presentations. Tutti’s involvement elevated the collective beyond its musical origins, steering it toward a broader mix of exhibitions, dance, and street theater. Over two years she developed the “Prostitution” project, an examination of the pornographic and sex industries staged at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Central London in 1975 and shaped by her earlier experience as a stripper, during which she had already begun incorporating performance elements. That same year she formed Throbbing Gristle with P-Orridge, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter. The new band extended the conceptual framework first tested in COUM Transmissions and made its debut at the “Prostitution” event that simultaneously concluded the earlier project. More explicitly musical than its predecessor, Throbbing Gristle became closely identified with London’s punk and industrial movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s, its live shows consistently controversial for the horrific and sexual imagery that accompanied them. After issuing several recordings, the group disbanded in 1981, prompting Tutti and Carter to launch the project Chris & Cosey the same year; their debut album Heartbeat appeared in 1981, followed by further releases throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983 Tutti issued her first solo recording, Time to Tell. Following the turn of the millennium, Tutti and Carter adopted the name Carter Tutti, signaling the change with the 2004 album Cabal. December of that year brought Tutti’s return to Throbbing Gristle for a reunion performance at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival. The reactivated group produced additional material until its dissolution in 2010, triggered by P-Orridge’s departure. In 2012 Tutti and Carter joined forces with Nik Colk Void to create Carter Tutti Void, releasing the albums Transverse in 2012 and f(x) in 2015. During 2017 she published her autobiography Art. Sex. Music while continuing work on new solo recordings; her second solo album, Tutti, appeared in late 2018.
Albums
