COUM Transmissions /kuːm/ was a music and performance art collective who operated in the United Kingdom from 1969 through to 1976. The collective was influenced by the Dada and surrealism artistic movements, the writers of the Beat Generation, and underground music.[1] COUM were openly confrontational and subversive, challenging aspects of conventional British society. Founded in Hull, Yorkshire, by Genesis P-Orridge, other prominent early members included Cosey Fanni Tutti and Spydeee Gasmantell (also at school with Genesis P-Orridge). Part-time members included Tim Poston, Brook Menzies, Haydn Robb, Les (Reverend Lelli) Maull, Ray Harvey, John (Jonji) Smith, Foxtrot Echo, Fizzy Paet, and John Gunni Busck (John Lacey). Later members included Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson and Chris Carter, who together with P-Orridge and Tutti went on to found the pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle in 1976.
COUM had a rotating membership, and included both intellectual and criminal elements and existed formally from 1969 until 1976. In that year, P-Orrige and Tutti exhibited at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts in a show called Prostitution, which consisted of explicit photographs of lesbians, assemblages of rusty knives, syringes, bloodied hair, used sanitary towels, press clippings, and photo documentation of COUM performances in Milan and Paris. There was a lot of outrage expressed by London newspapers and UK politicians, including Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn, who referred to COUM as the "wreckers of Western civilization". However, memberships to the ICA increased sharply as a result of the COUM show.[2]
The last official COUM performances and art shows took place in 1976. Around that time, P-Orridge proclaimed to be through with performance art. Tutti, on the other hand, felt she had only just begun. Though she feels the name COUM to be "tainted" now and unusable, she has been known to say her individual projects are still a part of the COUM family of work.[citation needed] For a while, she operated a website at COUM.co.uk.