Cosey Fanni Tutti began her art and music career in 1969, appearing in art performances and musical improvisations in and around Hull, England until 1972. In 1973, she moved to London and continued working as a performance artist representing Britain at the 9th Paris Biennale in 1975, and Arte Inglese Oggi in 1976. Fanni Tutti also performed in Belgium, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Austria, Canada, and the United States until 1980. Throughout this period of exhibiting, contributing to mail art exhibitions, and performing in other group exhibitions around the world, she often worked naked in her performances. Fanni Tutti went on to investigate self-image within the context of sex magazines and sex films, glamour modeling, and striptease acts. Her experiences within these industries were brought into her art work as she explored the many aspects of sex as it is perceived and transacted as commercial product. She placed conventional beauty in a situation where it was subjected to simulated mutilation before a live audience, providing a visual contrast that highlighted and questioned the notion of what is presentable as "beauty."

In her infamous exhibition Prostitution at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London in 1976, Fanni Tutti occupied multiple roles: artist, model, musician, and herself. Music was used in performance in preference to spoken language, which she considered an obstacle to her visual presentations, and Fanni Tutti continued to explore the use of sound, scientifically, politically, commercially and as a means of physical pleasure or pain. In 1976 she co-founded the group Throbbing Gristle with Chris Carter, Peter Christopherson, and Genesis P-Orridge. They broke the rules of established music and its contextual business practice, ultimately becoming successful with their own record label, Industrial Records.

In 1981 Cosey Fanni Tutti immersed herself in creating music and video with partner Chris Carter under the name Chris & Cosey most recently performing and recording as Carter Tutti. Their joint musical and video collaborations, some 32 albums, have met with continuing international success. 1994 marked Fanni Tutti's re-entry into the art world, since which time her works have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries in the United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Austria, Germany, Lisbon, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Sweden. Cosey Fanni Tutti's continuing multi-disciplinary practice has generated audio and visual works that comprise a prolific output alongside her guest lectures, discussions, panel appearances, and numerous presentations.