October 25, 2017
Following a theatrical run at ICA, Unsound, CTM and SF Doc Fest, Boiler Room presents the online premiere of Bight of the Twin, a new arthouse film starring counter-cultural icon Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (merci Pierre-Luc) :
Bight of the Twin
Hazel Hill McCarthy III, 2016, USA, 55 min
“Serial transgressor Genesis Breyer P-Orridge travels to Benin, Africa, to explore voodoo twin cults and dark mysticism”
Bight of the Twin tells the story of musician and artist Genesis’ journey to Ouidah in Benin to explore the origins of the Vodoun (Voodoo) religion. Transcending assumptions of what it means to be “gendered,” Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and h/er late wife Lady Jaye underwent a series of surgical procedures to become physically identical to one another, seeking to perfect a gender-neutral state through a process they termed ‘pandrogyny’.
In Benin, which has the highest national average of twins per birth in the world, twins carry sacred meaning and are venerated as gods. When one sibling passes away, the remaining twin remembers their lost other by carrying around a small, carved replica of their dead brother or sister.
Beginning as an investigation, the nature of the project changes drastically when Genesis is serendipitously initiated into the ‘Twin Fetish’ – a practice within Vodoun that honors twins by activating a dead twin’s spirit in order to allow for the living one to remain connected with the one who has passed. Through a series of sacrifices and ceremonies, Genesis reaffirms an eternal bond with h/er late wife Lady Jaye: a deeply interdimensional connection of Western civilization and African ritual.
Ultimately, during shooting the nature of the film changed from simply being a catalyst for audiences to gain a wider understanding and acceptance of Vodoun, to being itself, Vodoun—an object that has been activated by creation.
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Bight of the Twin (2014) by HAZEL HILL McCARTHY III (July 1, 2014)
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First Transmission (1982) by PSYCHIC TV (January 7, 2015)
Les yeux de GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE présentés à La Centrale (October 1, 2012)
La bible psychique de GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE (December 7, 2010)
‘Thee Psychick Bible’ A New Testameant By GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE (October 27, 2009)