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1+1=3
By robotdeniro | April 5, 2009
‘We started out, because we were so crazy in love, just wanting to eat each other up, to become each other and become one’.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridges Pandrogyne (Positive Androgyny) is a project that resists easy classification; part performance, part romance and part prophetic it defies even orthodox authorship by belonging fully to neither of its two participants: Genesis P Orridge & Lady Jaye Breyer. It is even arguable that, as it is the result of collaboration, the Pandrogyne invented itself. The project also sets itself apart from the obvious categorisation of transvestism, presenting itself as existential rather than sexual:
‘Its not about gender some feel like a man trapped in a womans body, others like a woman trapped in a mans body. The Pandrogyne says, I just feel trapped in a body.’
The ‘Body’ is here seen within the perspective of the reality given to man via genetic and societal programming: the cage. Whereas the mind with its infinite possibilities, but most importantly choice, is seen as the key. Abandonment of the ego is territory already visited by Genesis in the original creation of his alter ego, although the sacrifice of the name ‘Neil Andrew Megson’ was no doubt a comparatively easier choice than the surgeons knife.
Encompassed within the distinction from transvestism is the idea that they are different and separate beings meeting in the middle, rather people attempting to clone the image of the other. This can be illustrated by perhaps the most bizarre Valentines ever, on February 14th 2003 the romantic gift of his ‘n’ hers (hers ‘n’ hers/his ‘n’ his?) breast implants were exchanged between the couple: the symbol of the first plastic change.
The project has an infinite scope of idealism, provided by faith in scientific technology. This rests upon the grounds that, if man has learnt to modify the body via plastic surgery, it will eventually destroy it altogether. This futuristic projection for the Pandrogyne echoes back to ancient times and Socratic ideas on the relationship between body and soul:
‘What is purification but the release of the soul from the chains of the body.’
‘To the philosopher, the body is a disturbing element, hindering the soul from the acquisition of knowledge.’
Socrates (tragically born before the Rhinoplasty)
The origination of the idea of Pandrogyny can be traced to Genesis’s self proclaimed artistic godfathers: William Burroughs and Brion Gysin - whose greatest collaboration was in the field of the cut-up technique. This method essentially broke down the linearity of words; creating new meaning by offering them to the chaos of random juxtaposition. However, it was looking at the process of their partnership, ‘the synthesisation of their personalities’, that gave birth to the idea of 1+1=3: the Third Mind.
The Pandrogyne, although undeniably taking the concept further, finds some precedent in the field of performance art: Marina Abramovic and Ulay. The collaboration between these two artists was likewise a romantic one - their epic journey on foot starting from each end the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle is reminiscent of the abstract meeting between the poles of self that is Genesis and Lady Jaye’s work (except for Marina and Ulay it was symbolic of the end not the beginning). However, the similarity is more specific than this; Abramovic and Ulay both recognised and investigated the creation through their partnership of another being formed through their work together, described by themselves as a ‘two headed body’ or ‘the other’. By dressing and acting like twins they blurred the distinction of their seperate entities. This relationship of co-dependence is explored in a performance in which they exchanged breaths between each other until all the oxygen was used up, replaced by carbon dioxide, causing them to fall to the floor unconscious.
‘The main problem in this relationship was what to do with the two artists egos. I had to find out how to put my ego down, as did he, to create something like a hermaphroditic state of being that we called the death self.
”We begin in a sort of synchronized similitude … and then we arrive at the level in which each of us functions alone. The two bodies doing the same, but within, there is a separation.’
Topics: Vision |
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Enjoyed this erudite bit of writing robotdeniro,
although Mr Megson appears to be somewhat artistically diminished without Cosi Fan Tutti and Throbbing Gristle, surgical enhancements or not
.J Savage has a good story about him.
Might Gen also be usefully considered in the context of Orlan and her surgical horns, another physical manipulation of identity and use of body as site?
The evocative description of psychic exchange and romantic voyaging between Ambramvic and Ulay points to many other powerful encounters yet to be explored within the dynamic of performance art and elegantly reminds us that the mind is not gendered.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I want to find good pop music. Help me please.