Deviant Culture? Modern Primitives and Digital Culture Pat Duffin MODERN:1. Being at this time; now existing. 2. Of or pertaining to the present and recent times, as distinguished from the remote past; pertaining to or originating in the current age or period. 3. Characteristic of the present and recent times; new-fashioned; not antiquated or obsolete. 4. Everyday, ordinary, commonplace. PRIMITIVE:1. Of or belonging to the first age, period, or stage: pertaining to early times; earliest, original, ancient. At the beginning; anciently; originally in time, at first. 2. With the purity, simplicity, or rudeness of early times. 3. Original, as opposed to derivative; primary, as opposed to secondary; radical. 4. Math., etc. Applied to a line or figure from which some construction or reckoning begins; or to a curve, surface, magnitude, equation, operation, etc., from which another is in some way derived. 6. Of colors: Primary. 7. Anything from which something is derived. The body is the ultimate medium of communication. Before speech or script it was the only medium of communication. The intentional transformation of our bodies, from hairstyles and clothing to multiple piercings and scarification, is a means of transmitting to those around us some idea of who and what we percieve ourselves to be, and our relationship to each other. Over time, this sort of face-to-face communication has become more and more abstracted as we have devised more advanced methods of communication. With these abstractions, however, we are in danger of losing our humanity. Over the last two decades, a small, subcultural movement dedicated to the extreme modification of the human body--as a means of personal spiritual enlightenment and discovery of true identity--has grown into an huge international community. Collectively termed "Modern Primitives," these individuals create their own identities through the manipulation of their bodies. The reasons for the acceptance and popularity that this lifestyle has acheived is quite simple: of all the things in the world, the only thing we truly own is our body. The human body has become commodified; the ideal of beauty has not been fashioned by the individual, but corporate media; it is the majority's ideal. The body modification movement uses primitive ritual body modification in order to reassert ownership of the body. It is a means of taking control of identity and finding acceptance. We rely on our mass media to provide us with an accurate reflection of the world we inhabit, as well as an accurate reflection of who we are. These images and reflections, however, are at their worst untrue, and at their best, exclude a large segment of the population. In the past, those individuals who were not represented in the traditional media had little recourse: public radio...fanzines...whatever "fringe" media would give them the airtime. With the advancement of the Internet and World Wide Web, however, those individuals whose views, attitudes, philosophies etc. have never had a forum have a means of communicating their message not just locally, but globally. There is now an oppurtunity for former "fringe" groups and subcultures to consolidate their efforts and found a community of sorts, online. We are now free to individually explore what it is that gives each of us our identity and humanity; we no longer have to content ourselves with whichever images have been foisted upon us by our media and to adopt whichever persona has been most effectively and beguilingly presented to us. Among those who have used the new technology in this way have been those individauls who practice body modification. They have created their own ideals of beauty, and now have the opportunity to celebrate it. As with any so-called "deviant" group, mainstream media is less than sympathetic in it's examination of the philosophies and practices of these individuals, but that no longer matters. There are virtually no boundaries. Although using ritual modification to reassert ownership over identity and body, the Modern Primitive movement has done far more than just provide an alternative to the current commodification of the human body; it has provided a synthesis between old and new. The movement, by using mainstream, traditional media has given a voice to the voiceless. Images of radical scarring and piercing exist side-by-side with the stars of Melrose Place, beastiality sites compete with Martha Stewart for bandwidth. This is true democracy and freedom of information. Gone are the boundaries of good vs. poor taste and high-culture vs. Low. Everyone is entitled to equal time, free from persecution or repercussion. As an example, Fakir Musafar (image at left), the individual who in 1979 coined the phrase "Modern Primitive", not only maintains a personal website, but publishes his own magazine, Body Play. Fakir has been practicing ritual body modification for close to fifty years and has initiated more interest in this lifestyle than any other person, managing to involve individuals around the world in this movement and opening his own piercing/branding training center in San Francisco. His website and images live side-by-side with images from other, more traditional publications, each asserting its own ideal of human beauty. While in the past knowledge of his activities was limited to the tightly-knit subculture, he now has a venue where it can be projected to the entire world. It is communities like these, which practice body modification as a lifestyle and philosophy, that provide an alternative to the overwhelming crush of media-generated, cookie-cutter beauties that populate most of our mass-media. There is a smorgasbord of ideas on the Internet, presented by individuals who wish not to generate interest in a particular lifestyle for any gain, but who want to share themselves with the world. These are genuine people, and we have an oppurtunity to share in the life of anyone, regardless of whether or not they conform to an abstract ideal of beauty. It is the concept of equal time--a concept which mass-media have often paid lip-service to but rarely practiced. LINKS All the images on this page are from the sites listed below. Check them out. BME: Body Modification Ezine . The Extreme Team Performance Art . Tattoo.Com Fakir Musafar's Body Play E-mail me Top