Body Suspension

Let’s look at one of the latest trends in the world of body modification, body suspension.

What Is Body Suspension?

Body suspension is the act of suspending the human body via temporary piercings made just before the suspension process. The body is then raised either partially or completely from the ground by these hooks.

The hooks are typically fishing hooks that have been modified to suit the needs of suspension by removing the barbs and possible reshaping. The rigging used to suspend the person is nylon high tensile rope similar to what mountain climbers use. This rigging is then attached to a pulley system to raise and lower the suspended person.

Types Of Body Suspension

There are several common types of body suspensions.

Chest (O-Kee-Pa) - Vertical Chest Suspension; Two hooks are placed in the chest and the body is suspended vertically.
Coma - Horizontal Face Up; Hooks are placed in the chest, abdomen, arms, and/or legs and the body is suspended horizontally.
Crucifix - Vertical Back And Arm Suspension - Hooks are placed in the back and the arms so that the suspended person appears to be hanging on a cross, with his or her arms held straight out to the side.
Resurrection - Horizontal Face Up; Hooks are placed in two rows on the stomach. Suspension gives the impression of rising from death as the suspended is all curved back.
Suicide - Vertical Back Suspension; Hooks are placed in the upper back and the body is suspended vertically.
Superman - Horizontal Face Down; Hooks are placed in the back, arms, and/or legs and the body is suspended horizontally.

Reasons For Body Suspension

Why would someone want to pierce their skin and be raised from the ground? The reasons are as diverse as the people who participate in body suspension.

Some use suspension as a form of meditation to gain a higher level of spiritual awareness. Others use the process of body suspension to mark a significant event or a turning point in their life.

I imagine the most common reason to participate in body suspensions is that they just plain like it.

Things To Consider

Body suspension requires experience and a team of people to perform safely. You should never attempt body suspension by yourself as you risk serious injury or even going into shock with no means of help.

A lot of things must be considered when attempting a body suspension. It takes care and experience to determine the proper number of hooks needed to suspend the full weight of the human body. Careful consideration must also be paid to placement to ensure the tissue will hold the weight of the suspended person. If too few, or poorly placed, hooks are used they will simply rip out of the skin causing serious tissue damage.

Body Scarification

There is no more bold a statement as a human scar. Scarification is becoming a more common practice in the body modification community. Could you handle sitting for several hours as flesh is slowly carved from your body?

What Is Scarification?

Scarification is the act of placing a scar on the human body for a purely aesthetic purpose. The scars are created in a controlled process and should not be confused with self inflicted scars used to deal with pain.

History Of Scarification

Using scars to mark the body as a right of passage or to mark an event has been going on for thousands of years. Even today scarification is a common practice in Austrailia, New Guinea, and West Africa.

Facial scarring was a popular practice among the Huns during the 4th to 6th century.

The Māori of New Zealand used a form of ink rubbing scarification to produce facial tattoos known as “moko”. Moko were considered to make the body complete. Māori bodies were considered to be naked without these scars. Moko were unique to each person and served as a sort of signature. Some Māori chiefs even used the pattern of their moko as their signatures on early land treaties with Europeans.

Methods Of Scarification

Abrasion - Scars can be formed by removing layers of skin through abrasion. This can be achieved using a tattooing device without ink, or any object that can remove skin through friction (sandpaper, cheese grater, belt sander, etc).

Chemical Scarification - The use of corrosive chemicals to remove skin and induce scarring on the skin. The effects of this method are typically very similar to other, simpler forms of scarification. This is not a common method of scarification and not a whole lot about it is known.

Ink rubbing - This is where tattoo ink, or another sterile coloring agent, is rubbed into a fresh cut. Most of this ink will remain in the skin as the wound heals. The result will have the same basic effect of a tattoo. The general public often interprets ink-rubbings as poorly done tattoos.

Packing - This is an uncommon practice in the West, but has traditionally been used in Africa. A cut is made diagonally and an inert material such as clay or ash is packed into the wound. Massive keloids are formed during healing process as the wound pushes out the foreign substance that had been inserted. Cigar ash is commonly used in the United States for more raised and purple scars. It has also been somewhat common to use the ashes of deceased loved ones to pack the cut.

Skinning (Skin Removal) - Cutting in single lines produces relatively thin scars. and skin removal is a way to get a larger area of scar tissue. The outlines of the area of skin to be removed will be cut, and then the skin to be removed will be peeled away. Scars produced from this method often have an inconsistent texture once healed.

Results Can Vary Greatly

No matter what method you use to produce the scar the end results can vary greatly from one person to another. Generally most people want raised scars which are actually keloids, an overgrowth of scar tissue.

The darker your skin the more noticeable scarification will be on your body. People with darker pigment generally have much more significant keloid growth then lighter skinned people.

If you have lighter skin tattoos will show up much better then scarification. If you have dark skin scarification will produce much more noticeable results then any tattoo ever could.

Body Scarification Aftercare

There is great debate in the body modification community as to the proper way to take care of a fresh scarification cut.

Irritation - The longer it takes a wound to heal, the more pronounced the resulting scar will be. In order to have very pronounced scars, the goal is to keep the wound open and healing for the longest time possible. This is done by picking or scrubbing away scabs and irritating the wound with chemical or natural irritants such as toothpaste or citrus juice. A wound may take months to heal using this method and the scar may be inconsistent.

Leave It Alone - Although it’s not the most common recommendation to heal a scarification it is by far the safest. This method is what a doctor would recommend for a fresh wound. Keep it covered, don’t pick at it and let your body run its natural course to heal the wound. The resulting scar may not be as pronounced but this method usually produces a more consistent scar.

Bottom Line

As with any body modification there are serious risk with scarification. If you choose to modify yourself with a cool scar make sure you do your research and go to an experienced shop specializing in scarification.

Tongue Splitting

One of the newest body modifications to hit the scene is tongue splitting, also called “tongue forking” or more officially “tongue bifurcation”. The process involves literally cutting the tongue in half directly down the center. Once the tongue is split it is possible to move both sections independently of one another as seen in the video above.

How Are Tongues Split?

Surgical Splitting - The tongue is split using a scalpel or surgical laser by a certified medical doctor. The benefit of having a doctor split your tongue is the careful attention paid to sterilization and having all the proper tools to take care of any complications.

Fishing Line Method - Yes, you can split your own tongue with just fishing line. I would imagine this is the most common way tongues are split as no doctor is required. The only requirement is a healed tongue piercing and some thin monofilament fishing line.

Thread the line through the hole where the piercing barbel usually goes. Feed the line through and line it up with the center of the tip of your tongue. Tie the fishing line as tight as you can bear, and be sure to knot the line several times to avoid slippage. Remove the excess fishing line and leave it alone for three to four days. At that time, remove the existing fishing line and retie the tongue as tight as you can bear. Continue this process for several weeks and you will slowly split your tongue.

The tongue may not split completely using the fishing line method but the process can easily be completed with a quick swipe of a razor.

Thoughts On Tongue Splitting

Everyone I have ever talked to with a split tongue absolutely loves it. They all tell me they don’t know what they would do without two tongues. If you do decide to split your tongue, as with any body modification, be sure to take care of it during the entire healing process and keep a watchful eye for any complications.

Body Art | Body Modification

Body modification is not a new age hype. Although many people think body art or body modification is a creation of Western civilization, body art has been around since the dawn of man and has player a major part in all Eastern and other cultures. People look at body modification from different perspectives: parents look at it as a form of rebellion, Christians see it as a destruction of a body and thus a sin etc.
While some people consider body modification to be a sign of non-conformity, others see body modification as trend. However, this is not always the case.


What is body art?

Body art is art made on human body. Most common forms of body art are tatoos, piercings, body painting, scarification or branding and scalpelling.
More extreme body art involves mutilation or pushing the body to its physical limits. Example of body mutilation is Lizard man and many other examples, while good example of pushing the body to its physical limits would be Marina Abramovic's works involved dancing until she collapsed from exhaustion.
As such expression, body art often appears as sub-category of performance art, where artists (ab)use their own body to make particular statements.



Tattoos

Tattoo is a injected ink into a person's skin, commonly via needle, which forms a picture or a design. In technical terms, tattooing is dermal pigmentation, since the ink is injected in dermis, the second layer of the skin.
Tattoos have been used ornamentally and religiously by humans for thousands of years, despite having social stigma, as many other body modifications. Tattoos are used on humans and animals- on humans as a form of body modification, while in animals for identification.
Tattooing has been practiced worldwide for thousands and thousands of years, and despite some taboos following tattooing, like tattoos are worn by sailors, motorcyclers and some other 'lower' classes, the art of tattooing is still popular all over the world.

Piercings

Piercing is puncturing any part of the body in order to add jewelry or ornamentation. This jewelry or ornamentation is also simply called 'piercing'. People practice piercings from cultural or religious reasons. However, in Western world body piercings are used mostly for ornamental, and also for sexual reasons.
What body parts can be pierced? Almost every body parts- from the most common ear piercings (which are by my opinion even not considered as body art), to nose, tongue, lips, brows, navels, nipples, genitals, pocketing, etc.
Ear piercing has been the most popular, and has existed continuously since ancient time. I western culture ear piercing seems most conventional, even among men, which is the case from late 60s, while in non-western cultures ear piercing has always been practised by men.
Today, in Western culture, single or multiple piercing of either or both ears is extremely common among women and fairly common among men.

Body painting

Body painting is one of the oldest forms of body art. Unlike tatoos, body painting is temporary and lasts only several hours, or in case of henna tatoo, two to three weeks.
Form of body painting, expressed only on face, is known as face painting and is very popular for special occasions, like festivals etc. Most recognizable example of face paining is among clowns.
And do women paint their faces everyday? Yes, they do. We could hardy call this an art, but subdued forms of face paints for everyday occasions evolved into the cosmetics we know today.

Scarification or branding

Scarification or branding is permanent body modification that uses scar tissue to form pictures, words, designs in the skin. Scarification is not a precise art: the type of scarification depends on the skin type, depth of the cut, healing process, etc. During the healing process scars spread and their shape cannot be predicted exactly. For that reason scarifications are very simple designs without any details, since they can be easily swallowed during the healing process. Scarification is a body modification where body, and not artist, creates its own 'art'.
Scarification has been often used as a rite of passage in adolescence, or in some cultures the willingness of a woman to receive scarification shows her maturity and willingness to bear children.
Scarification is still common among Australian Aboriginal tribes, which seems reasonable, since compared to tattoos, which is often not visible on darker skin, scarifications is much more evident.
Branding is a type of scarification, which has been historically used to mark slaves and criminals. The brand was usually visible (on neck, hand) and was often letter-coded to reflect the crime.

Scalpelling

Scalpelling is a form of body art, very similar to body piercing, and is most commonly used as replacement for ear piercing. Scalpelling is performed with a scalpel and can produce holes with a larger diameter than can be achieved by piercing, which is typically performed with a hollow piercing needle or machine specifically designed for ear piercing. Since the hole, produced by scalpelling is larger, also larger can be accommodated in the hole.
Negative side effect of scalpelling is that hole created by the process is less likely to close naturally over time, but can be closed with some surgical procedures.
Scalpelling is most often used on earlobes, although theoretically it can be used to grow on almost every part of the body. Scalpelling is fairly new body modification technique, although it is more and more popular among younger population, especially in Europe.

Body Art as Art and Development

In western culture body art became subcategory of art, in which artists use their (own) bodies in order to make specific statement. With the development of new technologies, artists, and not only them, but also doctors and other members of society are trying to bring human body in symbiosis with technological development: body in symbiosis with implants and/ or new technologies. New approach in body art is opening with the absence of body.