For Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV, playing music is just one branch of an elaborate multimedia artistic practice. Accordingly, a forthcoming documentary about P-Orridge’s work doesn’t focus on Psychic TV, the band s/he formed after the dissolution of pioneering industrial act Throbbing Gristle, so much as it does on Thee Temple of Psychick Youth, a cultish art collective that existed around it. (P-Orridge’s practice involves the idea of “pandrogeny,” and s/he uses pronouns that are meant to encompass both male and female genders.)
A Message from the Temple will be directed by Jacqueline Castel, whose past work includes videos for Zola Jesus and Pharmakon, and produced by Sacred Bones and Dais records. Thee Temple of Psychick Youth (TOPY) was founded by members of Psychic TV in the early 1980s, and describes itself as an “anti-cult” devoted to transgression in art. The Message trailer is heavy on VHS distortion and light on narrative, though it does include reference to a raid on P-Orridge’s home that Scotland Yard carried out after tabloids wrongfully accused h/er of “Satanic ritual abuse” in 1992.
The film’s producers are raising money on a Kickstarter page whose language feels like it’s ripped from one of the Temple’s own cryptic missives. “A Message from the Temple isn’t just a film, it’s a call to arms,” it reads. “We seek Individuals to preserve the Temple that resides within us all.” Rewards for backers include “a TOPY haircut with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s original clippers.”
