This fascinating collection explores the growing range of body modificationpractices such as piercing tattooing branding cutting and insertingimplants which hav... » 

This fascinating collection explores the growing range of body modificationpractices such as piercing tattooing branding cutting and insertingimplants which have sprung up recently in the West. It asks whether thisimplies that we are returning to traditional tribal practices of inscribingidentities onto bodies on the part of modern primitives or is bodymodification better understood as purely cosmetic and decorative with bodymarkings merely temporary signs of transferable loyalties?Contributors address the question of the permanence of body transformationthrough fitness regimes and body building look at the French performanceartist Orlan and the Australian performance artist Stelarc who explored Westernstandard of beauty by experimenting on their own bodies with surgery andprosthetics and explore the construction of the anatomy of a virtual body inReal Video Surgery and the Visible Human Project. «