BME: Body Modification Ezine

A tattooed person suspends from hooks, laying flat, one leg higher than the other. Their head is back, and they seem to be smiling, dark hair dangling like an anime character.

Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.

Author: Shannon Larratt

  • Ear Reshaping Fun

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Ok, one last bit of ear-chomp-chomp. Italian bodmod enthusiast Paolo Cambiaghi decided he wanted a new ear profile, and went to Bruno BMA (brunobma.com) to have it reshaped — you can see it nicely healed in these images. I always find these types of ear reshaping fascinating — The Enigma has a similar piece that I’ve featured on ModBlog, as does my friend James Keen, and this client of Muffe’s. The way the majority of the lip of the helix has been removed on Paolo’s gives it a very unique and unusual appearance.

    paolo-ear

    I should mention that this picture first came to my attention because Morgan Dubois, who recently experienced his tattoo being copied by a Polish fan and was worried it might be happening again. Morgan got his tattoo in 2009 by Igor of Tattoo Station in Lyon, France, inspired (for very personal reasons, which is why it bothered him when it was copied exactly) by the music of Autechre — check out the video of Dropp to understand it a bit better. Paolo’s tattoo on the other hand is a case of completely different motivations and interests bringing one to a similar end design, and was done by Spider Tattoo in Italy. He tells me it is inspired by the art of Wassily Kandinsky, specifically the work he did in the later portion of his career after teaching at The Bauhaus.

  • Tongue Split = Mutant Healing Factor

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    One of the most amazing thing about tongue splits is that they heal crazy fucking fast, have no long term risks, and have the highest satisfaction rate of any body modification out there. They heal faster than tongue piercings — and probably faster than any other modification with the exception of tattoos — and they’re not going to chip your teeth. That said, it does require skilled hands to do it right. While it is true that nightmare incompetent tongue splits by DIY home doctors tend to be survivable and heal just fine, they’re playing with fire and at a minimum you’ll have way more pain, fear, and there’s a solid chance you won’t get as good looking or deep of a split. It is the sort of thing you should want to do responsibly. Don’t take my comment on how easily it heals and how happy people are with them to mean you can have your dog do it, even if he is very well-trained border collie.

    This example was done by the fully human Gladix at On Edge Piercing & Tattooing in The Hague, with beautifully clean looking suturing. Only seven days later and Tirza’s tongue split looks incredible. Nice and deep, perfectly rounded edges without any scarring. Superb work. I should mention that even though the tongue split looks completely healed at this point, but it could take a few weeks more before it can truly be considered fully healed.

    tongue-split-healing

  • When Aghoris Lose Their Ears

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Martin sent me this video of the autocannibalism fun they got up to at GELOCHT UND SCHARF GESTOCHEN (gelocht.com) in Neuss, Germany (across the Rhine from Düsseldorf). Before I start making obvious jokes about Germans and cannibalism, can I just say this is the best studio name ever? It’s one of those wonderful phrases that doesn’t translate cleanly into English but roughly it’s “holes made and sharply stuck”. Perhaps you have to speak both languages but to me it’s both hilarious and somehow poetic.

    Martin to we’re watching here is the closure of 68 mm (2 5/8″) lobes, which looks like it was very well done, but is completely outshined by the apparently Aghori-inspired autocannibalism ritual in which the soft jiggly but very chewy ear leftovers are consumed. You’d be surprised how common this is (for atheists as well as for those with spiritual justification) in tissue removal procedures and skin removal scarification. I will try and update this entry in a day or two with some more information, so check back if you’re interested.

    Click the thumbnails to see them bigger, or click here for the video.

    yumyumyum

  • Partial ear reconstruction with keloid removal

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Since I seem to be in the mood for posting stuff about ears being chopped up today, let me share another. My friend Gabriele from Max Art Body Piercing in Rome had a client come in that had a large open lobe that had been previously scalpeled (Ludovico’s ears were 2″ last time I remember them) — as you can tell from the distinctive shape, a “U”-loop of flesh hanging down from the ear — and also had a keloid covering a solid area of it’s upper-outside edge that the client wanted excised, complicating the procedure. To make the procedure even more tricky, they wanted to keep the piercing, but alter its shape and reduce its size. To accomplish all of this, Gabriele cut out the body of the keloid and closed the wound, as well as removing part of the lobe “worm” to tighten the ear to the new size. The jewelry used for the healing is glass with silicone o-rings. Glass is an ideal material, but for some people the o-rings can cause irritation (and must be kept clean to avoid a build up of waste — and becoming a home for bacteria), so the client will have to keep an eye on that. The bruising in the third photo went away quickly, the tissue relaxed, and healing is going well so far.

    no-more-keloid

  • Ear Pointing Evolution

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    To generalize, ear pointing works by cutting a piece out of the top of the ear, and then stitching the open portions together, folding the helix rim up into a point. It is a wonderful optical illusion that this makes it seem as if the ear has a point coming out the top, when in fact the ear has actually been lengthened very little, if at all, since we can only remove tissue — nothing is added. While additive procedures are theoretically possible, they appear currently beyond the reach of the body modification practitioner, if not beyond the reach of most reconstructive surgeons. In the majority of ear pointings done since Steve Haworth first invented them in the mid-1990s, the wedge-removal procedure has changed little — only the location, size, and shape differs (and varying the shape of the piece removed the result can cover a wide range of appearances).

    However, Samppa Von Cyborg expanded the procedure by removing more than just what’s needed for the point, allowing one to reshape the entire contour of the ear. This related example is by Matias Tafel of Rata Body Art in Argentina. You can see from both the stitches and the animation that a long strip running much of the height of the ear has been excised, giving an end result where the ear is narrower as well as pointy. This narrowness brings with it the optical illusion of additional length/height, because it changes the length to height ratio and tricks the mind of the observer.

    matias-ear-animation

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