anybody can enlighten me on psychic tv & monte cazazza's contributions to "hardware"? they are mentioned in the end credits as responsible for some "library footage" if i memorized it correctly. what's it all about? just saw the movie, and it's a revelation!

Hmm, that's an interesting one. I would have to say that the "library footage" referred to would have to be what we see on the TV-screen in Jill's apartment, as she channel-surfs -- with remote in one hand, and a "Major Good-Vibes" in the other!

Cool, Genesis P-Orridge! Psychic TV! I hadn't heard of Monte Cazazza -- looked him up. Wow, yeah. P-Orridge met Cazazza back in 1974, in person, in some sort of Gary Gilmore furore (look it up)(I did, here). I'll have to examine some of that footage more closely.

By the way, not all of that TV footage is sourced from P-Orridge and Cazazza. I have some intel (more, later) that various tidbits are from San Francisco performance artist, metal sculptor, and mechanical wizard Mark Pauline and his SRL - Survival Research Labs. And that the titles of several of these clips used were MENACING MACHINE MAYHEM, A SCENIC HARVEST FROM THE KINGDOM OF PAIN, and A BITTER MESSAGE OF HOPELESS GRIEF.

Fun for the whole family!

(I got the Mark Pauline information from a review of HARDWARE written in an out-of-print Cinefantastique, that apparently NO one has, anywhere. I am in the middle of transcribing it, and plan to have it online soon.)

Anyone know any additional information on the Genesis P-Orridge/Monte Cazazza material?

Well, now that you mention it... This August I managed to contact a chappy called Donal Ruane, who "was the video artist and technician on cult sci-fi horror film Hardware (1990), directed by Richard Stanley, and created the video cut-up sequences and other special effects for the film." [Head Over Heels] Can't remember exactly why I didn't mention about it then, I guessed it got kind of stepped on. Thanks for the memory jog!

This is what he said:

"Yes I was responsible for that footage in Hardware. Unfortunatley it was so long ago I don't remember all the details. However I probably still have a lot of the original footage somewhere plus a lot of other footage I shot at the time but it's all on VHS. Some of the footage was genuine gootage shot by Genesis P Orridge of various Psychic TV torture rituals, footage which was incidentally later used in a TV documentry to expose alledged Satanic abuse & was then used in a police witch hunt against him which forced P Orridge to relocate to the USA with a threat of his kids been taken from him.

There was some genuine and faked footage of tortures & executions taken from a documentry on political unrest in Haiti & some very disturbing faked footage of bizarre sexual rituals with teenage boys in the States made by Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle & Coil. Most of the decisions were made between myself & Richard Stanley but I did all the editing with a friend John O'Donnell. "

As fun for the whole family goes, Peter Christopherson directed a Nine Inch Nails music video Happiness in Slavery, where performance artist Bob Flanagan worships the machine. Not for the squeamish.

If you ever get the chance, listen to the Coil track Circles of Mania. The opening sample sounds deceptively like Richard Stanley.

I actually saw P Orridge and Christopherson (along with the rest of Throbbing Gristle) recently live. They still play some killer music, but it had never really dawned to me how closely they were related to Hardware. Oh well, we live and learn.

Have written a blog that sheds some light on the matter.

Read it here