Brion Gysin was born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire on 19th January 1916. He was subsequently to claim that the unusual spelling of his forename was ‘accidental’, though how accidental is open to debate since his views on the significance of ‘accidents’ are well known. He says of his name: ‘My given name is Brion. My Celtic mother was thinking of one of those insufferable phony kings of Ireland and spelt it with an a: Brian. Official documents took care of that and spelt it Brion, like the famous wine of Bordeaux, Haut Brion. I accepted this gladly and dropped all my other given names when I became an American citizen.’ Educated in England, at Downside College (1932-34), he moved to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne. Among those he met at this time are renowned members of the Surrealist group, including Max Ernst, Salvador and Gala Dali and Picasso. Gysin’s work was included in the Surrealist Drawings exhibition in Paris in 1935 (Galerie Quatre). He first visited the Algerian Sahara in 1938, a journey that was to have a deep and lasting influence on his life. Equally significant to the form of his later giant landscape paintings were the years he spent in New York working as assistant to Broadway stage designer Irene Sharaff (1940-43). In 1953, having returned to North Africa, Gysin opened the Thousand and One Nights restaurant, where the Master Musicians of Joujouka played an ‘extended residency’. This was his primary location until 1973, although he famously spent a number of years in Paris where, with William Burroughs, he both developed the cut-up technique of writing and experimented with tapes, permutations and the Dreamachine. In the summer of 1982 he and William Burroughs were the principal artists in the Final Academy show. His paintings are in museum collections in Paris and New York. Brion Gysin died in Paris, in July 1986. Selected Writings: Minutes to Go (with William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Sinclair Beiles) 1960 The Exterminator (with William Burroughs) 1960 The Process 1969 Brion Gysin Let the Mice In 1973 Soft Need 17 (Brion Gysin Special) 1977 The Third Mind (with William Burroughs) 1978 Re/Search 4/5 - William S. Burroughs/Throbbing Gristle/Brion Gysin 1982 Stories (collection of short stories) 1984 Here To Go: Planet R-101 (with Terry Wilson) 1982/1985 Morocco Two (a screenplay) 1986 The Last Museum 1986 Chapel of Extreme Experience (John Geiger) 2002 Brion Gysin: Tuning in to the Multimedia Age (ed. J F Kuri) 2003 Flickers homepage

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