Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.
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This photo from the Corpo E’Mio “Apartheid” performance (facebook.com/bcirkus)) in Rome last year really shows the value of using a safety harness when suspending from the knees — look at how far they’ve torn and how little flesh is left protecting the suspendee’s neck! On a side note, those are some very interesting looking implants in his forearm.
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One night Tristan had a terrible nightmare that he was being chased by a ghostly girl, and after pursuing him endlessly through the halls of a derelict asylum, getting closer and closer, he found himself pressed up against the wall of a dead end. Frozen in fear, he could not turn around, but the chill was obvious and he could sense a cold ethereal hand reaching out toward him. At the moment it slapped onto his back, the icy burning sensation where the hand touched him on his shoulder woke him up, drenched in sweat. He wasn’t able to sleep again that night, and when he got up in the morning his shoulder still ached. And this is what he saw when he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror…
Ok, so that’s not the true story, but it’s what I’d tell people when they ask me dumb questions at the beach. Truth is that he had his good friend Patrick Kielty of Body Alter Body Modification in Worksop and Chesterfield, UK brand a hand print of his own daughter, a wonderful little girl that Patrick also loves as if it was his daughter too. This is the brand nicely healed of course.
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Oh, I remember now why I enjoyed writing here so much — it’s for the wonderfully whacky messages that I’d wake up to in the morning. Today’s message came to me from my friend Wayne Fredrickson at Fastlane Tattoo in Corona, California. At first I thought it was some sort of implant/tattoo combination, but no — after making sure that he was healthy enough to get tattooed, a 51 year old man with gout came to Wayne to get tattooed (his first tattoo by the way). He had a huge swollen elbow from the goat, and they converted it into the bulbous body of an oldschool spider. My nine year-old daughter absolutely loves this and isn’t grossed out by it in the least, so I’ve got to say that what this old guy did is just brilliant and charming — he’s transformed himself from a stereotypical “gross old man” to someone with a mirthful sense of hilarity about his body, and turned something disgusting into something comedic.
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I’m quite fascinated by the experimental ultra-wide needles that experimental art tattooists Cy Wilson and Caro (see the blog skintraces.blogspot.ca for an engrossing view into their avant garde world of ink). Check out these monstrosities:
If you’re wondering what sort of strange art you might create with such a contraption, here are three guniea pigs they’ve experimented on with them, using them to do strange calligraphic brushstrokes that would be almost impossible with a traditional tattoo tool — the only other thing that could easily create such a pattern are some of the hammer-like hand-tattoo chisels that some polynesian tatu masters use. In the past people have experimented with similar needles to speed up black filling, but here they’re being used more creatively. Click to zoom in on these images:
Again, do check out skintraces.blogspot.ca — whether you love it or hate it, it’s a fascinating look at the borders of the tattoo artform, where it intersects with modern art.
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Tye Olsen (who I think most BME-regulars have known for years) of Tyetanium in Waterdown, Ontario, had a girl come to him with a funny little bump on the back of her helix — note that this is natural, not the scarred result of a piercing or anything like that. She’d gone to every piercer she knew and had been turned down, but Tye decided to do it for her for just the cost of the jewelry since he couldn’t guarantee it would be anything but fun… And she loves it, as does he!
