Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Art of Suspension
I'm an anthropology major. I'm still an undergrad and I've always been interested in body modification, and figured I'd study that in some capacity as a grad student as well. This semester, we had to do a project and I chose to investigate body suspension, where people are held aloft by hooks though various parts of their bodies. I've become so taken with the subject, and there's so much to learn, so I'm realizing that this semester's project will be the basis of my Master's thesis.
I figured I'd put bits and pieces of my work here.
The following is an interview with my informant, the guy who's been amazingly helpful in this whole thing:
Justin is a professional body piercer on Milwaukee's East Side. I went to his shop on a Saturday afternoon to do observation, and since it was quiet and he had no customers scheduled, Justin suggested we interview then.
Not surprisingly, I wasn't prepared, but luckily I had my microphone attachment for my iPod. We walked through the back of the shop down into the basement. Judging by the spent cigarette butts on the stairs, the basement doubles as a smoking lounge during cold winters.
I find basements terrifying, and I focused on Justin's back as he led me around the corner and past washing machines. We walked into a room set up with table and mismatched chairs and a small sofa. Justin gestured towards some equipment, what I first took as a drill press and table saw.
"This is where I grind down hooks," He explains.
I sit in a wooden chair with a velvety cushion, and he perches upon a metal fold up table and lights a cigarette. I'm nervous and clumsy and I explain I'm not prepared and apologize. He shrugs nonchalantly. Justin strikes me as the type of person who isn't easily perturbed by much. He is open and friendly, but perhaps a little reserved. He is visibly tattooed, including his neck and blade like lambchops tattooed on his face. His ear lobes are stretched to 2 inches, and he has 4 gauge plugs in his nostrils. Atop his forehead sit two transdermal steel spikes.
He's very attentive, even as he speaks, constantly watching to gauge reaction and understanding. I wonder how much of this is just his personality, and how much comes from years of piercing. He's a self taught piercer, though he did undergo an apprenticeship when in 1996, at the tender age of 16. He's been doing suspensions for 8 years. When he pierces someone, he always checks them as he prepares, making measured eye contact between each step in the process. As he prepared his partner to be suspended at the show the previous night, after each loop through the rigging, he'd stop to look at her, or to peak to her.
I ask him the standard opener, "tell me how this started for you."
He talks about remembering shows on the Discovery Channel and National Geographic specials. We laugh, it seems like a lot of us come to body modification through those specials.
This part of our conversation is lost due to user error, I forgot to press record. He did find someone to suspend him and he got to go up on his 21st birthday. He remembers this with a smile, and the significance of his first suspension on his 21st birthday is clear. He stayed up for three hours that first time. He remarked that the pain didn't last long, that wasn't even an issue, because then he was flying.
I reach to press record as he tells me how suspensions became spiritual for him, a "therapy as a tool to get through certain things in life." Each one of his personal suspensions is different for him, sometimes he finds once he's up, it doesn't feel right and he'll come down. Other times, he'll suspend someone and then decide he "might as well go up."
I ask how many people work with him. He explains that he sometimes has six or more, but there are also people he brings in that aren't necessarily in his group. He explains that in order to be a part of the suspension group for performances, an individual must be experienced. He says that he'll "do a bunch of suspensions on one person over time." Justin needs to feel comfortable that the individual can handle being around a crowd. He talks about people having stage fright or panic attacks.
He becomes earnest talking about the responsibility for those people he suspends, both publicly and privately. He leans elbows on knees and says,
"You know, you're responsible for that experience. You're responsible if it's bad or good and where it takes them in life and for how many people I've hung, I've got a lot of fucking responsibility on me! ...Some people go downhill afterwards....What we call Post Suspension Depression...You're having such a great time and you're hanging and you're feeling so good and stuff, and you know, sometimes after a show or something, that feeling's gone and you can't quite get it back."
Suspension isn't only the physical thing, there's also a very real mental and emotional aspect. Justin is aware that as much as they toy with ways of suspending people and making a bigger, more spectacular show, it's also very serious, and he doesn't take his responsibilities lightly.
"We're not freaks," he explains, "People think we're absolutely crazy for doing this, or it's a slight against god...it's not...We're just going for our own experiences, enjoyment and, you know, putting on a good show!"
I figured I'd put bits and pieces of my work here.
The following is an interview with my informant, the guy who's been amazingly helpful in this whole thing:
Justin is a professional body piercer on Milwaukee's East Side. I went to his shop on a Saturday afternoon to do observation, and since it was quiet and he had no customers scheduled, Justin suggested we interview then.
Not surprisingly, I wasn't prepared, but luckily I had my microphone attachment for my iPod. We walked through the back of the shop down into the basement. Judging by the spent cigarette butts on the stairs, the basement doubles as a smoking lounge during cold winters.
I find basements terrifying, and I focused on Justin's back as he led me around the corner and past washing machines. We walked into a room set up with table and mismatched chairs and a small sofa. Justin gestured towards some equipment, what I first took as a drill press and table saw.
"This is where I grind down hooks," He explains.
I sit in a wooden chair with a velvety cushion, and he perches upon a metal fold up table and lights a cigarette. I'm nervous and clumsy and I explain I'm not prepared and apologize. He shrugs nonchalantly. Justin strikes me as the type of person who isn't easily perturbed by much. He is open and friendly, but perhaps a little reserved. He is visibly tattooed, including his neck and blade like lambchops tattooed on his face. His ear lobes are stretched to 2 inches, and he has 4 gauge plugs in his nostrils. Atop his forehead sit two transdermal steel spikes.
He's very attentive, even as he speaks, constantly watching to gauge reaction and understanding. I wonder how much of this is just his personality, and how much comes from years of piercing. He's a self taught piercer, though he did undergo an apprenticeship when in 1996, at the tender age of 16. He's been doing suspensions for 8 years. When he pierces someone, he always checks them as he prepares, making measured eye contact between each step in the process. As he prepared his partner to be suspended at the show the previous night, after each loop through the rigging, he'd stop to look at her, or to peak to her.
I ask him the standard opener, "tell me how this started for you."
He talks about remembering shows on the Discovery Channel and National Geographic specials. We laugh, it seems like a lot of us come to body modification through those specials.
This part of our conversation is lost due to user error, I forgot to press record. He did find someone to suspend him and he got to go up on his 21st birthday. He remembers this with a smile, and the significance of his first suspension on his 21st birthday is clear. He stayed up for three hours that first time. He remarked that the pain didn't last long, that wasn't even an issue, because then he was flying.
I reach to press record as he tells me how suspensions became spiritual for him, a "therapy as a tool to get through certain things in life." Each one of his personal suspensions is different for him, sometimes he finds once he's up, it doesn't feel right and he'll come down. Other times, he'll suspend someone and then decide he "might as well go up."
I ask how many people work with him. He explains that he sometimes has six or more, but there are also people he brings in that aren't necessarily in his group. He explains that in order to be a part of the suspension group for performances, an individual must be experienced. He says that he'll "do a bunch of suspensions on one person over time." Justin needs to feel comfortable that the individual can handle being around a crowd. He talks about people having stage fright or panic attacks.
He becomes earnest talking about the responsibility for those people he suspends, both publicly and privately. He leans elbows on knees and says,
"You know, you're responsible for that experience. You're responsible if it's bad or good and where it takes them in life and for how many people I've hung, I've got a lot of fucking responsibility on me! ...Some people go downhill afterwards....What we call Post Suspension Depression...You're having such a great time and you're hanging and you're feeling so good and stuff, and you know, sometimes after a show or something, that feeling's gone and you can't quite get it back."
Suspension isn't only the physical thing, there's also a very real mental and emotional aspect. Justin is aware that as much as they toy with ways of suspending people and making a bigger, more spectacular show, it's also very serious, and he doesn't take his responsibilities lightly.
"We're not freaks," he explains, "People think we're absolutely crazy for doing this, or it's a slight against god...it's not...We're just going for our own experiences, enjoyment and, you know, putting on a good show!"
// posted by jess @ 10:31 AM 
