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Hello! I am Luca, a performance artist living in London. My work involves the use of BDSM and body modification practices used to manipulate my body. I am also a practice-based PhD student at Central Saint Martins, whose research explores the use of BDSM in performance art to reclaim ownership of the body. The project looks at theories about the relationship between power, sexuality, and the body, using lots of Michel Foucalt’s and Jeffrey Weeks’ works as theoretical frameworks. More specifically, I examine the Foucault’s and Weeks’ theories to understand how institutions and society attempt to control the body through the regulation of sexuality. My practical work functions as a physical manifestation of the theories explored. I am trying to represent the concepts I am examining by using BDSM and body modification, repetition and restriction of movements, pain, and endurance.
I am also looking at historical Body Art, particularly at the works of Gina Pane, Sheree Rose and Bob Flanagan, Franko B, and Ron Athey. Through them, I try to understand my work in terms of legacy.
I began performing because I thought it was the most immediate and natural way to express the idea I want to talk about. I believe that performance art is a method to communicate directly with the public.
However, I have been a painter since roughly 2017 and began performing in 2015, when I attended the MA course at Chelsea College of Fine Arts, though I have been interested in performance art since I was in Italy (I moved to London in 2013). For a few years, I used both mediums. But, after a while, I gave up painting because I was stuck with it and felt I had become ‘too mechanic’. I felt like I was a machine that was doing something automatically as though it was programmed. I remember that I threw away many paintings, one after the other because I was never satisfied and could not push myself further. Therefore, I decided to focus only on performance art.
To be honest, I do not think I was good at painting. Maybe, I have done something nice, but nothing relevant, in my opinion.
One of the biggest and common misconceptions about it is that some people address my performances as self-mutilation. It happened, for example, at Central Saint Martins. A couple of years ago, I wanted to organise a ‘performance for camera’ inside the university. The idea was to book a room, a private and intimate space for me, the photographer, and only a few people that would be invited. It would also be a way to show my work to my supervisors, who saw it only through photographs.
I talked to the Health and Safety Office as part of the process when a student wants to book a room inside the university, and they replied that I could not perform due to the nature of the work as it was self-harm. I think it is a shame that a university of art misunderstands Body Art with self-mutilation (I have even heard a tutor in the past, during a workshop about ethics, wondering whether Franko B’s earlier performances were self-harm or not). On the other hand, this type of work has been around for decades and has been recognised as a form of art. The university’s library also has many books about this subject. Therefore, I really do not get why they forbid such work and address it as self-mutilation. I think they are just scared that something may go out of control and they could face legal troubles.
I have two so far. One is my PhD project. I have just passed the ‘Confirmation Meeting’, which is basically a type of exam I had with my supervisors and an external examiner, someone I have never talked to before and who read my practical-based research just a month before the meeting. They had to decide whether to let me continue studying or not, either as a PhD student of MPhil. I passed as a PhD student!
The other, honestly, is performing at Torture Garden. I wanted to perform at TG for a while. It was on top of my wish list. Not just because TG is one of my favourite fetish clubs, but it is also a space where some of the pioneers of Body Art who inspired my practice, such as Fakir Musafar, Franko B, Ron Athey, performed and where I have seen some amazing performers that I admire like Skinny Redhead, Kris Canavan, Cynth Icorn, Louis Fleischauer.
As a PhD student who uses his practice in his project, I find it difficult to explain how my practice can be part of the methodology and place it at the centre of the project, and I am not always good with words when it comes to explaining my practice! But I think that I am getting there. Especially after the ‘Confirmation Meeting’, I feel that I have a clearer idea about how to structure my dissertation to make my practice more and more relevant. (Let’s see)
However, I was told by some tutors that several practice-based students have this issue as many do not consider their practice as a research method and are not used to talking a lot about that.
Furthermore, the fact that, in the last 18 months, I could not perform due to the pandemic did not help because I could not stage any performance and see whether I could understand my practice as part of the methodology of my PhD project.
Even though it was a tough period, during the year of Covid, I was able to focus on my studies without doing anything else for the first time in ages. Before that, I have always had to work to fund my studies. In Italy, when I restarted studying (I was about 26) and attended the Academy of Fine Arts, I had to work 10 hours a day in a factory to pay for it. I studied in the evening and it was exhausting. I still wonder how I managed!
In London, I have been working as a waiter to pay the fees for university (and the IELTS course, which is the certificate for the foreigners who want to attend university). It was difficult to organise my time and focus on what I was doing because sometimes I was very tired.
During the pandemic, I could concentrate only on research without working and I have done a lot. I was very proud of what I did and happy to have something that kept my mind busy (I think it helped me not get crazy). Nonetheless, the drawback was that I could not perform. As my practice is part of the project, this was an issue, aside from the fact that I was missing performing. I tried to make a couple of videos with my iPhone, but it was not the same. I did not like the result, although this attempt made me rethink my practice and the possibilities that I might have in the future by combining performance with video (recorded by someone else though).
Thankfully, my supervisors understood the situation, so did the examiner during the ‘Confirmation Meeting’.
I have a few pieces in my mind I would like to perform. In particular, I have this project that is about how institutions analyse and abuse the body, which involves cuts, needles, hooks, fisting. It also focuses on sexual perversions as products of medical institutions that pathologized them. The act is linked to my studies about Foucault’s idea of institutions and power, more specifically, to his series of lectures Psychiatric Power, where medical institutions are seen as places that analysed people to produce knowledge to classify them, and History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge Vol. 1, in which Foucault examines sexuality as a social and cultural construct, a product created by the definitions that medicine gave to people’s sexual behaviours.
I would like to perform it at some point. Matt Skully and Tam Smith from the State of Bliss kindly agreed to help with the performance. I would also like to make a video of this piece, and a friend from Central Saint Martins agreed to make a video.
I really enjoyed when TG organised Body Probe – Ron Athey’s Farewell. I did like performances by Ernesto Tomassini, SUKA OFF, and Ron Athey. I would love to see a similar night again.
Moreover, some of my favourite shows are one by Skinny Redhead at Coronet, when she performed with Bliss of Pain. I did like that piece and it is one of the shows at TG I have enjoyed the most. I also liked two performances by Cynth Icorn at Electrowerkz. In one piece, she arrived on the main stage with her back, arms, and forehead pierced. Some white feathers were attached to the needles that she removed during the act. The other one is when she performed in the courtyard and her body was covered with blood and gold leaf before being suspended with hooks. I found these images very powerful.
I think it was how people express themselves freely with costumes, materials, and, above all, the use of BDSM practices. As a submissive, I enjoy how some practices, such as whipping, flogging, bondage allow me to experiment with my body, to challenge my limits as I resist and endure pain. I find my submission very empowering and feel that I have agency over my body.
You can find out more on Luca’s website; and you can follow him on Instagram & Facebook
HiddenMCR
Electrowerkz