One girl's adventures in The New Flesh

[deletia] performed at Tempting Failure, yesterday in East London.

Photographer and film-maker Alva Bernadine invited me to be part of his ‘Born With Three Mouths’ film project, due to my bifurcated tongue, with very surreal results.

by Izas aka Compulsive Behaviour

On 4th March 2012 I’ll be performing [deletia] as part of Tempting Failure at the Bierkeller Theatre in Bristol Performance Space in Hackney Wick, London. This event is being organised by Thomas John Bacon, and many more details can be found here on his site.

Found this recently posted on the Suka Off tumblr – a new (maybe?) edit of an old image. Our Lady Of The Red Cross.

Photo by Piotr W.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to see ORLAN giving a talk as part of the Performing Medicine: Anatomy season last month. (I say lucky as the majority of events in this season sold out very quickly, ORLAN’s talk was the only part I managed to see despite the whole season sounding amazing.)

The talk was purely about her surgical works, which I appreciated and it certainly left me keen to find out more. I’ve seen a lot of images of her work before, and seen her speak in a few documentaries and tv shows, but ORLAN’s aesthetic has never really captured me and whilst I considered her an important part of the body art world, I’d never really looked into her work before.  All in all I really enjoyed hearing her speak, and a few things she said stuck with me. I’ve attempted to record my thoughts on them here.

ORLAN spoke about how hard it had been to find surgeons to work on her surgery pieces with, explaining that there had been several surgeons who refused to do more extreme modifications to her face because they wanted to keep her ‘cute’ and ‘fuckable’, and who told her what work she could be getting done. Like they knew better than she how she should look?

I guess the whole point of cosmetic surgery is to normalize and beautify the features, but what that involves would actually depend on the surgeons preferences and aesthetics, not the patients. ORLAN has challenged that; as she said in the talk – she is not passive in the surgery process, as we so often are when undergoing medical procedures. She makes the surgeons comply with her preferences.

This passivity during medical procedures rings especially true to me at the moment – I’m in the midst of a cosmetic dentistry procedure I’ve wanted for years.  It is my most expensive and most mainstream body modification – I’m making myself more generic by straightening my teeth, not more unique by decorating my body – but it’s also the modification  that I have the least control over. I haven’t in any way designed how my smile will end up, I’ve left that to the dentist (Because, I guess, he knows best) I would feel awkward taking friends or a camera along to the procedures, although for ever scar, piercing or tattoo I’ve had has been accompanied in that way. But it’s my body, my teeth, and it’s me paying all the money to have this done, so surely I have a right to have it done the way I choose? Why do we so willingly submit to medical professionals, even when it comes to something as personal as how our face looks? Why  do I not take photos during my dentist appointments? Why was I too scared to ask if I could take the removed brace wires home with me? ORLAN refuses this passive role and it makes me think that I should too.

The second thing that stood out for me was how quick ORLAN was to deny that she feels any pain during or after these procedures, her Carnal Art manifesto does announce ‘Viva la morphine’ and ‘Down with pain’ but as someone who has witnessed people healing from cosmetic surgery and has had implant procedures done myself, I find it very hard to belief that this is all as pain-free as she claims.

I can understand why she brushes over the pain though, it’s not the focus of her work at all and as I’m sure anyone who performs acts of piercing, cutting, bleeding knows, the issues and questions surrounding the infliction of pain do tend to overshadow the rest of the work, sometimes meaning that what you’re really trying to communicate is never heard.

It’s been playing on my mind, how these 2 things relate to my work and my life. It’ll be interesting to see where these thought processes lead.

For more on ORLAN see: ORLAN.NET

One of the most awesome things about the internet is how it can lead you down new rabbit holes of knowledge and inspiration. I’d never heard of Michel Groisman until today, when I saw the above image, uncredited, on a Tumblr blog. Intrigued by the medical-esque apparatus, I tried TinEye & Google’s reverse image search to find it’s source, an quickly found with not just the site of it’s creator, but a short video of the performance that this image is from.

Transference, duration of performance: 60 min. In a continuous movement I pass on the light from one candle to another and, blowing through a system of tubes, I can choose the candle I wish to put off.

I very much like these extensions/equipment strapped to his body, and the unnatural movements it forces from him. Going to spend the rest of my evening checking out other works by Michel now.

Lock up – Me + Kira O’Reilly

Body slam – me + my partner, Phil Bedwell

I spent 3 days at the end of October learning about pro wrestling as part of the Breaking Kayfabe workshop organised by Jamie Lewis Hadley & Live Art Development Agency.

My other half is a wrestler, he has been for about 15 years I think, so I know a fair bit about it. Since meeting him and learning more about the world of wrestling I’ve come to see it as a form of theatre with definite links & connections to the work I do. Pushing the body and presenting pain to an audience, turning gestures into narrative & emotions. This all happens in the wrestling ring too.

The 3 days in which I learnt wrestling techniques, how to lock up, how to fall safely, how to move around the ring correctly were so much  more physically and emotionally intense than I expected. I was terrified by falling backwards, really struggled with overriding my physical instincts to make sure I landed in the correct way, I was scared to keep going, to keep falling even when everything already hurt. I cried more than once.

But I also achieved more than I ever thought I would. I’ve never seen myself as a sporty, athletic person, I thought these acrobatic wrestling moves would be way beyond me.

I actually sat out on the second day as people were taught how to take a hip toss as I didn’t believe I could do it, but eventually I realised that the only thing stopping me was my own fear and laziness. On the third day of the workshop I pushed myself to try it, and I did it. More than once. With a huge, huge grin on my face.  It’s an incredible feeling, similar what I experience when doing suspensions, I took control of myself physically and mentally. I realised I’m a lot tougher than I thought.

I was left battered and bruised, I failed to listen to instruction, went with instinct instead and as a result have injured my knee. It’s going to take about a month to heal.  I had a huge bruise on my back from hitting the ring posts incorrectly, or repeatedly, I don’t know which. Despite all this I’m elated, I feel stronger, I know my body better, I know I don’t deal well with pain I’m not in control of, and I now know that I can overcome that.

I learnt a hell of a lot more than just the wrestling moves.

This isn’t even mentioning the other people involved, the brilliant supportive teachers – Jamie, Greg, Garry & Phil, the other course participants – a mix of artists, dancers and actors, who all bought new perspectives into the ring, who kept the whole thing amazingly fun no matter how much we hurt and I don’t think I could have got through it without them all.

The strangest thing is, I woke up the day after the course had finished, struggled to get out of bed due to the massive aches in my neck, shoulders, knees, thighs, and really, really wished I could be doing it all over again.

I discovered Justin Novak‘s Disfigurine series through Street Anatomy. Delicate, white & wounded. I love them.

“The ceramic figurine has historically embodied a mainstream, bourgeois ideology, and for this reason, I have employed it in the presentation of an alternative vision, an ironic anti-figurine, or ‘disfigurine.’ In the ‘disfigurine’ series, physical wounds such as bruises and lacerations serve as metaphors for psychological harm. Whereas the figurine has historically represented the dominant culture’s norms and ideals, the disfigurines speak of the damage inflicted by those very same expectations”

See the full series and more of Justin’s work on his site.