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While doing a little light reading about Stelarc for my last post, I re-read a lot of his views on suspension and the body.  I can’t recommend reading his reasons for suspending nearly enough as they are rather foreign (at least in expression) from the modern community, which seems to largely derive from Fakir, and thus Modern Primitives, as well as Allen and company’s work in the early-mid 90′s.  Reading him talk about the “creaking of the skin” really resonates with me as a shared experience, which is pretty interesting in it’s own right, and one that many of us in the community can readily identify with.

Photo: Nina Kuo

Stelarc performed his first suspension event in 1978 and supposedly his final one in 1988, long before the days of BME and the suspension explosion (relative, of course) of the early 2000s.  However, he very recently, 8 March 2012, performed another suspension, a “superman” in modern terms, in Melbourne for the Scott Livesey Galleries entitled Ear an Arm Suspension.  That’s amazing!  To return to an art form you haven’t been a part of in 24 years is spectacular! I’d love the opportunity to discuss how his experience changed from the previous events to this one.

Photo: Claudio Oyarce

Speaking of, our good friends Wings of Desire are hosting a Body Suspension Symposium in Oslo, Norway 19-21 October of this year and their special guest of honor is none other than Stelarc!  Other guests include Allen Falkner, Steve Joyner, Paul King (a personal favorite lecturer), as well as the Wings of Desire team.

As Hook Life has already covered, Wings of Desire are celebrating their 10 year anniversary by crowd funding a photography book documenting their first 10 years. It’s up to us, the suspension community, to make certain that this happens as it’s immensely important that our world is documented in a variety of ways, and like Allen mentioned, there hasn’t been a book like this since Stelarc‘s Obsolete Body: Suspension, and I can think of no group to better represent the modern community than WoD.

If you are interested in suspension, photography, subculture history, art in general, or just want to support some amazing artists and performers, pre-order a copy of their book!

So far, most of the images I’ve posted have been in regards to the street processions, but that’s not all that happens during the festival. I’ve chosen to largely highlight that aspect of this ceremony as it is most in line with body modification rituals such as suspensions. This post is still going to be mostly images from the processions, but I’m also including some notes and pics from one of the evening rituals: hot oils baths.

As I mentioned before, the temples do firewalking ceremonies at night, and in addition to that, the night prior, the mah-song partake in hot oil baths. A large wok of oil is heated and the entranced mah-song tend to it, dipping their hands into it to test it’s temperature. When it reaches the proper temperature (ie bubbling), they take swaths of clothe, dip them in the oil and proceed to flagellate themselves, leaving red marks and oil all over their torsos. Again, due to rain and their rapid movements, I was unable to obtain pictures of the actual flagellation, but I do have a picture of the oil and one of Bang Neow’s eldest mah-song between flagellations.

The mediums take turns self-flagellating and saying prayers over the oil. Once the oil is sufficiently blessed, it is ladled into small plastic bottles and sold to the patrons of the shrine. It’s said to be great for body massage, but it’s other use in soothing your feet after walking on fire the next night. I can personally attest to the oil’s abilities in healing the latter…
Now, here are some random pictures of Jui-Tui mah-song and their various “burdens”.
Those hooks in his ears seem familiar….
Note that I use the term “burdens” as my own word, which I’ve appropriated from thaipusam as I don’t really know what else to call the items they wear/carry. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of western documentation (or eastern for that matter) which describes this ceremony as it’s very unique to Phuket province. Even elsewhere in Thailand, the piercing portion of the ceremony isn’t present, nor is it present in Malaysia or mainland China where the festival originates as The Nine Emperors Festival.