Posts tagged suspension

Point 73: BMXnet – Nicole Holmes

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Nicole Holmes
Blue Lotus Piercing, APP Member*

September 3 through 6 of this year, I was fortunate enough to attend my fourth BMX Conference, which was held in the small but beautiful city of Essen, Germany. The conference was coordinated by the charismatic Stefan Schomowski and his team of trusted helpers and volunteers. As much as I always enjoy this conference, I must admit that just visiting Essen is lovely too: scattered city water fountains, the shopping district, and great food. It is honestly the highlight of my piercing year. Each year I arrive earlier and leave a little later.

The venue for BMX is partly the reason I return year after year; the Unperfekthaus is truly a spectacle to behold. As an artist’s village nestled within the city, it really doesn’t disappoint. It is such an inspiration to sit for lunch, walk the corridors, or climb the stairs. Every wall is hand painted, covered in collage, or decorated with a sculpture of sorts. When this venue is full (on registration day, capacity is reached long before breakfast) the atmosphere becomes energized. With so many like-minded people gathering from around the world, BMX embodies a special sense of purpose and community.

I remember my first BMX in 2012. I didn’t know anyone there personally. I was sitting outside alone having coffee at the ungodly hour of 8:00am just because I was excited. The first person that sat by me grew to be the first of many conference friends. Each year BMX expands and there are new faces, new friends to be had. I find it so easy to talk to people during the event. This is another reason I keep attending.

I have attended many seminars, day events, and conventions, but none compare to BMX. There are no similar conferences or events where I live in the North of England. My last large scale, piercing specific event was the 2002 APP Conference & Exposition in Amsterdam. However, 2002 was more than a decade ago and so much has changed. There has been so much grown in the industry since then, I feel a comparison would be irrelevant.

What I can say with certainty is that BMX is not like anything I could have imagined. This year marked the 9th annual conference and it really demonstrated the team’s experience. From the smooth running operation of things to the flow from class to class, the grouping of the lectures was natural and it never felt rushed. Although I feel there was never enough time to visit the expo to do some shopping!

Classes covered topics such as hygiene in the studio, creating sacred space, earlobe reconstruction, and magnet removal. BMX is as it always has been, an umbrella of many topics, not solely piercing based subjects. Tattooing and other modifications are also covered. Many attendees expressed their fondness for this scope of subjects.

I personally feel I absorbed the most this year from the roundtables. These communal discussions based on topics such as “Ethics” led by Samppa Von Cyborg, covering the delicate issue of recording and posting video clips on the internet when you may unwittingly represent the whole industry. In another of this year’s fascinating roundtables, titled “Implantable Technology,” Tim Cannon brought his prototype silicone implant containing LED lights capable of being switched on and off by the users already-implanted magnet. There were even some attendees who were so passionate about the topics that they were willing to hold roundtables at all hours of the day or night. That is a perfect example of the freeform and flexible nature that is BMX.

After classes on both Friday and Saturday, there were striking and eclectic shows from Coco, Superfly, Squid O, and Pain Solution which enchanted the late night crowd with a manifestation of freakshow/sideshow entertainment. This was followed by the annual prize draw raffle.

Overall the whole adventure of BMX was undeniably a special triumph of our industry and community. After discussing this year’s efforts with many other attendees, both new and old, I feel the response was very heartwarming. Everyone that learned and loved at BMX promised to return the following year, myself included.

*Nicole Holmes is one of the newest APP Members in the UK.

Point #65: International Suspension Alliance (ISA)

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PKing photo for conference 2011By Paul King
APP Treasurer

In the summer of 2012 Allen Falkner contacted me, requesting help from the APP for a member of the suspension community. A woman was having a legal custody battle over her children. The other party’s attorney was using her participation in hook suspension as evidence that she was an unfit mother. I recommended that he take the issue to the APP Board, as  I was sure they would help in some way. But I wasn’t sure exactly what help would look like and what the implications, would be.

The APP’s primary purpose is laid out in the mission statement: The Association of Professional Piercers (APP) is an international health and safety organization. It is a nonprofit voluntary alliance dedicated to the dissemination of information about body piercing.

As a modern adaptation, (hook) suspension utilizes body piercing needles to pierce the tissue rather ISA_2than the actual hook. However, after this commonality, the differences start to outweigh the similarities: Suspension is temporary without the complication of trying to heal the body with a foreign object present. Suspension requires knowledge of, and experience with, placements and configurations with considerations for differences in weight and torque bearing tissues. This must all be done in tandem with an expertise of the support rigging that rivals that of a mountaineer. Body piercing is almost always performed by a single practitioner while suspension is usually done with well-practiced and coordinated teams.

The mission statement goes on to say: the APP is a united group of piercing professionals…

Anyone that looks around the APP’s annual conference, online forums, or The Point publications will see faces of people that suspend and those of people that pierce. However, not everyone that professionally pierces suspends, and vice versa. Many people that are active in the suspension community participate within teams without needing to learn or to perform piercing. These are two distinct-yet-overlapping communities that have independent jargon, histories, skill sets, social norms, and motivations.

Body piercing has become a professional industry. While there are some who perform suspensions professionally, I’m unaware of a single person that financially sustains themselves on suspension. For most in the suspension community the words “paid professional” have no place. Although some appreciate donations to cover costs, most practitioners perform the services out of love of the experience, the benefits of gathering together, and the privilege of being entrusted to guide another through this powerful process.

The APP has political clout, but does it have the legitimacy and the authority to represent the suspension community before judicial, legislative, and public health officials? I don’t think so, and some veterans of the suspension community agree. On March 28, 2013, leaders from all the teams present during the Dallas Suscon met for dinner to discuss openly if they felt there was a need for greater community-wide coordination and cooperation, and what that might look like. Some of the needs that emerged were safety standardization, legislative representation, international cooperation, and contact consolidation. Simply put, there is a need for a common, stable, and readily accessible location that anyone, anywhere, can go to for reliable information and help.

ISA_1A small work group formed from the initial Dallas meeting. This group’s primary tasks are to solicit feedback and ideas from teams and individuals within the suspension community at various Suscons around the world, investigate these community-proposed options, organize and delegate viable plans, work their butts off, and continue to hold meetings to report on progress. At present, the group includes seven workers: Allen Falkner, team member of Traumatic Stress Discipline (TSD), USA; Bruno Valsecchi, member of APTPI, Italy; Eden Thomson, team member of Skindependent, New Zealand; Håvve Fjell, team member of Wings of Desire (WoD), Norway; Mike Coons, team member of Hooked, USA; Misty Forsberg, team member of Hanging City, USA; and Steve Joyner, team member of Constructs of Ritual Evolution (CoRE), USA.

On June 12, 2013, while at the APP conference, suspension teams and individuals came together for the second forum. During this meeting, the group submitted a working mission statement for a proposed new organization, to be known as the International Suspension Alliance (ISA): The International Suspension Alliance (ISA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the unification of the body suspension community through education, outreach, and the dissemination of information pertaining to the safe practice of human suspension to practitioners, the general public, and health care professionals.

86 people attended the open meeting. The entire meeting, including presentation and Q&A, was videotaped and is available for everyone to see here.

The third open meeting occurred in Oslo, Norway, July 24, 2013. Transparency and solid communication with the greater suspension community remain paramount for the work group. Allen Falkner et al. compiled a list of concerns and addressed them frankly. A complete video of this meeting is also available.

Over the next several months, more open meeting times and locations are scheduled:

September 2013 – Livorno Italy during Italian Suscon
September 2013 – Omaha, Nebraska during Mecca
April 2014 – Dallas, Texas during Dallas Suscon

The need for community organization is not theoretical; it is very real. In some U.S. cities, counties,602361_530168800353022_1022412352_n and states legislation is circulating that—if passed—will dictate, restrict, and in some cases, prohibit hook suspension. On December 6, 2002, the Florida Board of Medicine determined and then ratified that hook suspension was a medical procedure and therefore requires an M.D. to be present for and approve of all suspensions performed in the state.  In 2010, the city of Minneapolis prohibited all suspension practices. December 5, 2012, Coconino County Public Health Department, AZ implemented the revised Body Art Code, which banned suspension. The Coconino regulation acknowledges that suspension could be motivated by the desire for a “spiritualistic ritual.” It seems easy to imagine that any law blatantly banning what in some circumstances is an expression of religious belief and in other circumstances is performance art could be defeated in a U.S. court under First Amendment protections, but this of course assumes that the community has the resources and organization to challenge such discrimination.

Time and time again, body modification (tattooing, piercing, scarification, suspension, and extreme/heavy) communities are at the mercy of legislators, medical and mental health professionals, local law enforcement, and health inspectors. The people in power have their perspectives, informed by their own biases and agendas. We can let them establish whether or not these practices are legal or illegal, ethical or unethical, healthy and cathartic, or emotionally unstable and dangerous—or we can establish our own. Operating only from a position of defense and reaction to what they do is inefficient and garners as many defeats as victories. It’s exhausting and we’re always fighting these battles on their terms and their turfs. Like it or not, much of this comes down to good old fashion PR. How we talk about our practices and how we portray and organize ourselves in person, in the media, and on the internet does matter in shaping the minds of policymakers and the greater public opinion.

I talked to Allen about the group’s progress. His words sum this article up best: The future is really up to the suspension community.  The work group’s only function is to set up and establish the organization.  Once we have membership, the real work begins.  At this point I cannot speak for the organization. I am simply one person, but it is my hope that we will soon have one unified voice that will work to help those within our community.

1  There is at least one other documented custody battle in which suspension participation was used as evidence that a parent was unfit for custody. In the second case this tactic was applied towards the father. In both of these instances, the individuals requested to remain publicly anonymous.
2 Steve Joyner, Allen Falkner, and www.suspension.org are credible resources.
3 http://www.floridahealth.gov/Environment/community/body-piercing/newinfo.htm
4 minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@council/documents/webcontent/convert_260915.pdf
5 http://www.coconino.az.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1044

Point #64: Shadow Suspension Experience, Body #5

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Jason Pfohl headshotBy Jason Pfohl

“Anonymous and uncertain, suspended in stress, the body realizes its obsolescence. Its stretched skin becomes a gravitational landscape. The suspended and pacified body is obsolete but not yet extinct. It has desires but does not fulfill them. It feels pain but remains silent and stoic. A body that neither thinks nor shows emotions. A suspended body is a zombie body. It does not think because it does not have a mind of its own nor any mind at all in the traditional metaphysical sense. To be suspended is to be between states. To be neither one nor the other. To be in suspense is neither to be able to participate in the present nor to anticipate the outcome.”
– Stelarc

I feel my naked body’s weight on the ground with ten hooks already through the skin on the front of my body. My hands grip the central wheel of the mainframe over my head, opening and immobilizing my chest. My gaze is aimed at the ceiling, focused on the central swivel system and the winch. My sight is obstructed and narrowed by the strap that will support the weight of my head when we are lifted into space, but technicians float in and out of my peripheral vision as they prepare the rigging, connecting the framework to me and to the other five bodies.

Time is temporarily suspended. Thoughts flicker through my mind. My Point64-Shadow Suspensionpassing memories and emotions are only a reminder that I am losing my identity as an individual and becoming a mechanical support unit for a larger entity. I repeatedly return to focus on my breathing and observe the stillness of my body lying on the ground, interrupted by cycles of trembling and an accelerated heartbeat. As the lines connecting us are tensed and adjusted, pulling the skin upwards, I collapse my weight inwards, testing the elasticity of my skin against gravity while preparing for the inevitable.

The observers in the audience who expected a performance will be disappointed; this is not a theatrical event for entertainment. There is no concern for time limitations. Instead, this is the vision of the futurist artist, Stelarc, made into reality by Havve Fjell and his technical support team of more than thirty people from nine countries. Wearing face masks and nitrile gloves while the rigging is threaded and adjusted, Havve and his crew operate with the smooth efficiency of a medical team combined with the knowledge of alpine explorers, carefully calculating weight bearing loads and the practical concerns of lifting six bodies into the air. The hush in the room, and the rise and fall of the murmur of the audience as expectation builds, is all I know of the progress the technical crew is making. My nudity feels clinical rather than artistic: I am a specimen, an experiment, disposable. Our bodies can be replaced by other bodies that meet the same size and weight parameters. We are no longer individuals but structural elements, spokes on a wheel.

With a jolt, the amplified sound of the winch announces the bodies’, our bodies’, departure from the ground. The machine has no empathy and no concern for human sensation; a switch controls our position in space. I cannot see the others, as my movement and vision is constrained, but I am aware of them through the tension in the hooks in my skin. We are a single entity.

The technicians make adjustments.

There is no applause.

Point 64 - Shadow Suspension 2The structure begins to spin. There is no sense of being lifted, just the amplified sound of the winch as we are raised and lowered. The jolt on the hooks and flesh is the same regardless of upward or downward movement. The shadows on the ceiling are spinning, but I cannot make out individual bodies; we have become a living-kinetic sculpture—a biomechanical support system of six bodies alternating between tension and relaxation, spinning in Earth’s gravity. Time remains suspended. We spin faster and then slower; we are raised and lowered. I feel like the ghost inside the machine; deep serenity combined with awe of the sublime beauty of the constantly moving shadows in my peripheral vision.

Eventually, Stelarc’s voice informs us that the experiment is almost over.

The amplified sounds of the winch announce our return to the ground with the same cold indifference that hoisted us into space. The technicians reappear to unplug the bodies from the metal structure. The cones formed by the rigging quickly disappear, and the tension is cut. The bodies are released and the wounds from the hooks are cleaned and bandaged. We rise again to our feet, once again human.

About the performance: “SHADOW SUSPENSION WAS A COLLABORATION WITH HAVVE FJELL Point64-StelarcFOR THE DALLAS SUSCON 2013, ORGANIZED BY ALLEN FALKNER. IT WAS HELD AT THE LAKEWOOD THEATRE, DALLAS ON MARCH 30, 2013. 6 BODIES, 3 MALES AND 3 FEMALES, WERE SUSPENDED HORIZONTALLY FACE-UP IN A HEXAGONAL CONFIGURATION. THE BODY STRUCTURE WAS SPUN, WHILST WINCHED UP AND LOWERED DOWN AND THE SOUNDS AMPLIFIED. AN AESTHETIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM OF CAMERAS POSITIONED ABOVE, BELOW AND A HAND-HELD CAMERA ENABLED STREAMING OF THE PERFORMANCE FROMA MULTIPLICITY OF VIEWPOINTS. THE DURATION OF THE SUSPENSION ITSELF WAS 23 MINUTES.”
— STELARC