My partner in crime and I drove down to Bournemouth for the bank holiday weekend to join Louis of AMF for a fashion show at Pandora’s Box fetish & burlesque event. It was great to catch up with Mr. Fleischauer and get hooked up for the occasion.

A few weekends back I was wearing a dress at some party that called for a formal dress code and felt very embarrassed and self concious about the suspension & hook scars across my back. You can see them in this picture, the older ones have faded but the most recent ones (from May) are still raised and pink. This weekend I realised I should stop being ashamed of them – they’re signs of strength after all.

Danse Macabre – Trailer from Phi Group inc. on Vimeo.

“For a period of time, while we believe it to be perfectly still, lifeless flesh responds, stirs and contorts in a final macabre ballet. Are these spasms merely erratic motions or do they echo the chaotic twists and turns of a past life?”

Haunting and beautiful, this trailer for Danse Macabre leaves me desperate to see the full version, but I can find annoyingly little info about it. Looks like it’s showing at festivals only at the moment.

Small optimistic message spotted when walking home through Hackney Wick.

A Friday round up of links and other lovely internet things. This ones a bit of a lazy edition as I’ve posted a lot of these on my Twitter recently.

++ The image above is from the incredible Car Crash Study series by Nicolai Howalt. His close ups of dents and scratches, studies of spent airbags and shots of destroyed and shattered windscreens turn the violence of a car crash into something still and quite beautiful

++ Bunnylicious – A blog that solely displays pictures of bunnies, and I don’t mean CuteOverload style pictures of rabbits being adorable, I mean Bunnylicious finds surreal, disturbing, cute and sexy artwork with one thing in common – it features bunnies.

++ A rare fashion-related link, I’m not usually a fan of personal style blogs but I do think that fetish model/artist/stylist Sohui has crazyhot style and I’m into her white-blonde har and lack of eyebrows. Her blog – Filth in the Beauty – is pretty new but I think, worth following.

++ Interview with the legendary Marina Abramovic regarding her recent endurance piece ‘The Artist Is Present’ in New York.

++ Piece by one of the artists who recreated Marina’s work during her retrospective at MOMA: The Artist Laid Bare. The idea of recreating other peoples performances is strange and fascinating to me. Want to explore my thoughts on it all.

I’m currently alone in the new flat (dubbed Bunny HQ due to my and my house mates shared love of wearing bunny ears on bad days)which is a rare occurrence and I’m enjoying it. The sun is shining, the doors from my room to the balcony (balcony!) are open and I can hear the sounds of the Lovebox festival spilling from the local park. It’s lush and so relaxing. I’ll have to post some pictures here soon.

The show was a total blast, very professionally organised, and a lot of fun backstage. Her clothes are so, so beautiful. I’d found them very striking in images I’d seen online but when you see them up close, they’re something else. The subtleties and details are amazing, and everything looks a lot more delicate and feminine than I’d expected.

All hair for the show was done by the incomparable Robert Masciave, who also shot video footage of the show. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen video of a suspension I’ve done and I love it.

I’m struggling to embed the video, but you can view it at the link below -
Rachel Friere at TG Birthday Ball 2010

Rachel also got some excellent coverage of the show over at Tank Magazine’s blog, where there’s a write up of the show, interview with Rachel and many photos from the performance and backstage. It’s really interesting for me to see how people outside the modification and fetish world see suspension. Check out Tank’s opinion here: Rachel Friere Couture Show

Rachel’s last show at Torture Garden was a collaboration with Lady Lucie latex and was basically unlike any fashion show I’d seen before. Check the video to see what I mean, it’s not the best quality but you get a few glimpses of the striking stigmatic special effects.

This time round Rachel is working with both myself and French body modification artist Lukas Zpira, hopefully we will create a piece that’s even more memorable than her Easter show.

Photos of the cage installation/performance I did at the first Belle Epoque Ball, shot by Marcus T. Love  the bloody leg with the red shoes.

Super excited to post this flyer from Suka Off advertising 3 new performances that will take place in the ‘Crash play area’ at this years Torture Garden Birthday Ball. It’s a stunning image and I’m really excited to be collaborating with Suka Off once again on a new piece Car Crash Clan – for someone as Ballard/Cronenberg obsessed as I it’s a bit of a dream come true to be performing Crash-inspired work amongst ruined car parts. Can’t wait!

More info about the event can be found at www.torturegarden.com

Finally, another edition of the infrequent but delicious Mixtape. My grand plans of making it happen weekly didn’t exactly  get off the ground but hopefully there’s a few dirty, arty treats here that should make the wait worthwhile.

++  The J.G Ballard inspired Crash exhibition at the  Gagosian gallery has now ended (boo!) but there’s a great selection of images online here

++ Untitled Hardcore Zombie Project is probably the greatest name for an exhibition I’ve ever heard and there’s some very cool photos from this exhibition, of a project in progress by Bruce LeBruce, which was held in LA and is related to his upcoming film LA Zombie.  I love the blood smears surrounding the photos! As the title suggests, the images are hardcore, meaning you can see cock in them, so be careful clicking that link. As an aside, I saw Bruce working on part of this project at an event in London, I was totally in lust with his naked, bloody zombie guys.

++ Beautiful video tribute to the late, great Alexander McQueen, it contains many iconic moments from his incredible theatrical runway shows and is pretty moving.

++ Glass shells for hermit crabs! I found this strange, beautiful picture and had no idea really where it came from or what it was about, after a bit of research I discovered that some marine biologists in New Zealand created glass shells so they could study the crabs better by seeing inside their homes. More information can be found here. Fascinating.

++  IArtist kits allow you to make recreations of well known modern art works, from Hirst’s diamond skull to Emin’s tent. The one that caught my eye though was the Mark Quinn kit – your very own blood head sculpture for £20 – I have no idea if this is a spoof site or a genuine product, but it amuses me.

[Image = Crashed by Richard Prince. As seen at the Gagosian Crash exhibition]