With DJ set from friend & label partner, Andrew Till (Psy-Harmonics). This documentary of ground-breaking ELECTRONIC English group THROBBING GRISTLE also details the story of their precursive/subversive “wreckers of civilization” art-collective, COUM TRANSMISSIONS.

Tracing their humble beginnings in a run-down commune, Other, Like Me dives deep into the narrative of a group of social misfits who adopted new identities and went on to shock and confound with everything from theatre happenings and gallery performances — that dealt openly with sex, pornography and violence — to a string of confrontational records that birthed the genre “industrial”. Though chased out of birthplace Hull by the police in the mid-‘70s, they went on to be a major influence on subsequent generations of musicians, before imploding on stage in front of thousands of fans in San Francisco in 1981.

Subsequent decades saw them reforming and continuing to push creativity to its limits both collectively and individually, surviving against the odds, by amalgamating art with life completely and fearlessly, no matter the cost.
A must-see for anyone with an interest in uncompromising dedication to artistic expression, creative independence, the evolution of electronic music or TB themselves, this first ever film-documented history of Coum Transmissions and the band it spawned draws on the group’s archive of photographs and video, alongside new interviews.

At the core of the group and story, are two unique, pioneering artists and thinkers: Cosey Fanni Tutti and the late Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. The first used pornographic modelling early on as conceptual art to forge a specific position in relationship to 1970s feminism and continues to make music, work as a performance artist, score films and write. The second, perhaps like no other performer, pushed themselves and art to the extremes, even testing the limits of the human body.

This screening is a fund-raising for Melbourne music legend Ollie Olsen who is in need of vital health care. The filmmakers and TPH are waving all costs associated with this event.

Rating

R18+

Duration

82 MINS