I can’t really place when it happened, but at some point in my life I stopped taking human anatomy for granted. It wasn’t an academic realization, or one that came with some sort of grand epiphany. I just found myself being fascinated with all the weird things it can do, and how damned beautiful it is.
It took me a while before I got to the putting hooks in skin part; there was a whole period pre-dating that of where I just got fascinated with human physiques. Post coital walks along the peaks and valleys of the human body were almost better than the sex sometimes, feeding my imagination with splashes of vistas made of skin and scar tissue. I wanted to find ways to adorn the skin, and better yet; I wanted the skin to become the adornment for other things, without turning into, you know, a horror movie.
I’m not sure adornment is even the correct term for this. Adornment implies something ornamental, or decorative. I see skin as an undiscovered sea of context, waiting to be complimented by subjects that are visually arranged with it. These can be daily objects like clothes, furniture, or even an obscure little planter. They can be more complex environments like cities or forests. And on the more immaterial end of the spectrum it can be pure light.
And the closer you zoom in, the more you shift the narrative of what you are looking at. Skin enveloped in a leather harness? Sure, pretty sexual by default. Up close? It suddenly turns into an exploration of topography, textured surfaces, and maybe only a hint of sexual milieu remains in the picture.
For a number of years now I have been taking pictures of the human form, and I have a love of its inherent topography. My fascination really peaked early on when I first started to consciously encounter the phenomenon called pareidolia. Most folks will be familiar with what this means when I say, “faces in places.” It goes beyond seeing a face in a power outlet, and extends to all manner of objects being perceived in patterns and textures. In my case, I see landscapes where most folks would say “oh yeah, that’s a human limb.”
Fun fact: pareidolia is a type of apophenia, which is commonly defined as, “the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.” Ironically, it is a phenomenon that is used to explain what’s going on with schizophrenia, certain forms of paranoia, and even what occurs during gambling. That’s right, folks chasing financial charts with no solid metrics based in reality, and seeking patterns in random information are gamblers experiencing this weird thing that has its etymology rooted in Greek.
This oddly specific similitude I’m so infatuated may be niche, but it is definitely not new. There are photographers like Carl Warner that have experimented with similar things before. He has one series called “Bodyscapes,” that explores this. The difference with Warner’s work and mine is that he creates collages with the photos he takes. Mine are barely edited at all; I go through some weird inelegant yoga-like transitions to get myself positioned just right to catch these surfaces how I want to. It’s like an awkward kata, that is never repeated in the same way twice. My back hurts just thinking about it. Photographers will know my pain.
I’m not going to lie here - I’m seriously considering collaging some of my work more and more as time goes by. I feel like I’m moving on from an era of being some sort of damned purist with a camera. I mean I hang people from hooks for fuck’s sake, why the shit should I be adhering to any sort of discipline so adamantly? Maybe I’ve just gotten overly comfortable doing what I do, even though the kata of it all is not exactly a pleasant process usually. We all have a flavor of suffering we enjoy I guess.
The thing is, I don’t want folks to be able to easily tell if they’re looking at human anatomy. I want to challenge the viewer’s sense of reality a little bit, by making them do a double - or better yet - triple take. I think it comes from my experience with body suspension as a public performance medium. Folks that see it naturally think that the persons suspending are in pain, or that the skin will ripe - but these are very rarely the case. Calm euphoria and strong skin are juxtapositions to viscerality and gore. I love watching the metaphorical gears turning in people’s heads as they process this stuff.
I want juxtapositions in everything I do. To be honest, I don’t mind if folks don’t realize them; I’m just personally entirely preoccupied by them. Maybe it’s because I believe we are paradoxical creatures, or maybe it’s because I just like the mindfuck of it all. Whatever is at the root of it, I always find joy in doing the mental gymnastics required to parse what I am looking at. Sometimes I get so lost in the obfuscation of what I’m trying to capture, that I know I’m in the right place.
Now while this is not an article about censorship, it is also indirectly an article about censorship. I don’t think we can talk about what constitutes “adult content” in this day and age without stumbling into some weird and fucked up cacaphony of social constructs. It’s like a clamor that exists between the extreme ends of conservative and liberal values. Is my work sexual if it is only sexualized by others? If it’s out of my hands, should I refrain from sharing it just in case some kid sees it? This is not productive thinking.
In the din of moral righteousness, we can make out a few clear sounds, like porn, and violence. The one thing we can all agree on with certainty is that there are things that kids should not be exposed to, until they are of a certain age. And the reason for that is based on the premise that at some point in a human’s lifetime, they have been exposed to enough knowledge that qualifies them to make moral decisions for themselves.
I am under no illusion that body suspension comes with themes of bodily harm, and questionable anatomical displays that challenge one’s notions of sexualized anatomy and violence. In fact, these are traumatic themes that folks are often working through, on their cathartic voyages through body suspension. It’s somatic, but it’s also highly mental. These are all complex things that require complex comprehension of morality and emotional maturity. Liminal states on this level require adulthood to make sound decisions; the act of consenting is not a trivial affair.
In a way, the rawness of something like body suspension is also a lot for me to handle sometimes, and I like to explore the other end of skin topography, which does not require it to be under tension, or otherwise manipulated to present uncanny shapes. Maybe I’m censoring myself for my own good on occasion. Anatomy as a visual language is highly complicated, and entirely underrated. The imperfections of the largest organ of our body (that we wear on the outside of all of our other organs and musculoskeletal system) are what make each body outwardly unique, in addition to all the weird shit like hair and nails that are growing out of its pores.
The more you analyze the grosser it starts to sound. But the closer you get, the more amazing it gets. There is an infinitude of beauty to our bodies, and for me it starts with our skin. True, “beauty is skin deep,” and lies in who we are beyond our physical meat vessels, but the beauty of our bodies should not be discounted. I for one will continue to explore all body types as much as I can.
Whether I start digitally manipulating everything or not is a different question of course. What do you think? More raw photography, or do we take a wild dive into digital collages?