Born Christine Carol Newby on November 4, 1951 in Hull (England), Cosey Fanni Tutti is a British artist, musician and performer, a pioneer of body art and industrial music. She began her artistic career in the 1970s as a member of the performance art collective COUM Transmissions, which she co-founded with Genesis P-Orridge. Active between 1969 and 1976, COUM was known for its radical performances, exploring sexuality, the body, transgression and social critique; their 1976 exhibition Prostitution at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) caused a scandal and marked the transition of several members to experimental music. That same year, Cosey Fanni Tutti co-founded the group Throbbing Gristle with Genesis P-Orridge, Chris Carter and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson. The band behind the term "industrial music" developed an extreme sonic and visual aesthetic, blending noise, synthesizers, sound collage and provocative imagery. Christopherson played electronic instruments, guitar and vocals, and contributed to landmark albums such as The Second Annual Report (1977), D.o.A: The Third and Final Report (1978) and 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979), until the band split up for the first time in 1981. At the same time, she and Chris Carter founded the duo Chris & Cosey in 1981, focusing on more structured forms of electronica, between experimental synthpop, ambient and industrial techno. The duo released numerous albums from Heartbeat (1981) onwards, including Trance (1982), Exotika (1987) and Technø Primitiv (1985), and then evolved under the name Carter Tutti in the 2000s, with more introspective works such as f(x) (2015) and Carter Tutti Void (trio project with Nik Void of Factory Floor). In 2004, Throbbing Gristle briefly reformed with the album TG Now, then Part Two: The Endless Not (2007), before ceasing all activity in 2010 following Christopherson's death. Cosey Fanni Tutti has also collaborated with Coil, Current 93, Boyd Rice and other figures on the experimental scene. As a solo artist, she explores video, installation and performance, often in relation to her own image and personal history, notably integrating her past experiences in the pornographic industry as an integral part of her artistic approach. In 2017, she published her autobiography Art Sex Music, hailed for its frankness and depth, which traces her journey between radical art, body freedom, music and resistance to the norm. In 2019, she released the album Tutti, followed by the soundtracks for the films Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes (2022) and 2t2 (2025).
