BME: Body Modification Ezine

Ferank (facebook.com/ferank.manseed), a handpoke tattooist who I’ve written about here before, points out that humanity has always had a close relationship with metal, not just as an object of wealth that never tarnishes or oxidizes, but also as a magical metal with healing properties — Ferank recalls his grandmother being given gold injections for her arthritis. Longterm readers may recall back in 2006 when I wrote about Islamic gold implants, and there are also Eastern monks who perform gold implants for a variety of spiritual reasons. Up until the early 1900s, Western doctors would sometimes implant a small piece of metal near an inflamed joint, and even today gold nanoparticles are being injected to fight prostate cancer!

Whether you believe this is placebo medicine, spiritual medicine, or hard science, it is undeniable that gold has an intimate and profound relationship with the human experience that few materials have, so he set out to tattoo himself with gold. This wasn’t easy because gold leaf is far thinner than paper and disintegrates easily — if he had tried to suspend it in a liquid solution like a traditional pigment solution, it would practically disappear, so he picked it up the gold leaf with a needle grouping and pushed it into the skin, which seemed to work.

He admits it sounds a little crazy, but he honestly feels that his consciousness has been altered through this ritual act. The first photo is fresh, and the second photo was taken about a week after the procedure, at which point you could still see a bit of sparkle. The last photo is well over a year old. Ferank plans on experimenting more with tattooing in gold.

Ayreen of Octopus Piercing Studio in Zagreb, Croatia… As dangerous as she is beautiful in this photoshoot by Marija Buljeta Photography. There is a second photo after the break that shows more of Ayreen’s blackwork tattoos. Click to zoom in the first photo.

First, I wanted to clarify a comment I made about light sensitivity and eyeball tattoos. While there is not any anatomical way for discolouration of the sclera to lead to light sensitivity, I think it is important to recognize that in a small percentage of people, increased intraoccular pressure (ie. squeezing the eyeball), which can occur when a layer of ink is added around the eye, especially if too much is injected, can lead to painful “eyeaches” which feel essentially like a really bad headache. If a person is sensitive to intraoccular pressure, and it takes time for the eye to adjust, it’s not unheard of for a person to have a bad headache that lasts a year or more — think about that before you have this done, because if this happens to you, there is effectively no treatment and you will just have to tolerate it. You can get eyedrops that reduce the pressure, which may or may not help. The reason that I mention it in relation to light sensitivity, is that in some people (think of your last bad hangover), a bad headache can induce light sensitivity, and you may find yourself forced to wear sunglasses outdoors for the next year just to be able to tolerate the pain. In some people this pain may never fully go away.

That said, Pinhead and John Villani in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida just shared with me four beautiful eye tattoos they’ve done. I am especially fond of the first one, a bright orange eye that really suits the wearer and looks amazing in this portrait. Most of the eye tattoos people have seen are the dark or black eyes, which are very different in appearance — and much less “friendly” — than eyes where the sclera is still lighter than the iris. While it’s still going to be a shock, I think the average person can cope with and even appreciate this look. The second eye, the blue one, as you can see, is also quite approachable (or maybe it’s just his big smile makes it seem safe?). The last two are of course black, and the difference in them is quite striking. I’m not sure which is my favorite because I love them all, but I think if I had to choose one in this set as my favorite, it would have to be the first.

(The first image can be zoomed, the others are already at full size)

PS. Don’t forget that BME has a gallery of other eyeball tattoos here.

Am I imagining things when I say that when Pauly Unstoppable takes out his piercings and makes this glum face (taken in utter boredom in his many hours of daily transit commuting) that he looks disturbingly similar to Pauly Shore? Seriously, do a Google Image Search and see if you agree with me. Either way, it’s always fun for me getting to see Pauly without his jewelry in those superbly large nostrils he has (as well as his cartilage monsters).

Sad that a PSA like this is still needed in 2012. It was already sad enough in 2002.

A lovely photo of Tanesha and her best friend pierced and chained together, with piercings by Mike Grant and photo by Jon Lake (contact Jon directly if you’re interested in prints).

I’m in the unfortunate position of having to make an unpleasant follow-up to a post that I really liked. After seeing an ink-doppelganger wearing what is effectively his facial tattoo in an advertisement for a Polish tattoo shop, Morgan Dubois was understandably upset about it. This theft stands out from the many others I’ve seen both because it’s a facial tattoo, the most “personal” of tattoo types, and because this isn’t a traditional tribal motif or common design, nor is it something that could in any way be considered flash. It’s a piece of custom abstract art, and where it gets really weird to me is that it seems like it would actually be easier to create a similar but unique piece than to painstakingly copy Morgan’s tattoo.

I can make a joke about how Morgan now owns his soul, but that doesn’t ease the pain that this causes. On one hand when you steal someone’s tattoo design, you’re not actually taking anything obvious from them, but that’s not true — you’re stealing their identity, their uniqueness. And that has value, especially in this community. That tattoo that they had designed for them, which became a part of them, was something virginal that gave itself just to them. Copying it and taking it as your own rapes that purity and dilutes its essence, and it’s a very personal insult that’s hard to really understand unless you’ve had it happen to you. I don’t want to attack the person who did it, and I think it was just a stupid, lazy, unthinking mistake rather than an act of malice. In the end they will realize what they’ve done and the shame of wearing the crime on their face like the scarlet letter is punishment enough. But I will say that this makes me very sad — for both people involved — and I just think it’s really unfortunate, and I hope I don’t have to see it again.

Those with elephantine memory may be reminded of a case way back in 2005 when a Russian tattoo fan copied Paul Booth’s entire facial tattoo, upsetting him greatly. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps this has something to do with concepts of copyright and ownership being different in formerly communist nations, but either way it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Copying a facial tattoo is something that should never happen in a community that ostensibly holds up individualism and personal expression as an ideal.