… a BDSM scene is a work of art, not science, not technology. A work of art is something unique that is created using special skills and reflects the personality and creativity of the artist.
Hermes Solenzol – BDSM is not science, it’s an art!
We all like to escape our everyday life once in awhile. There’s something recharging, relaxing and stimulating about going into the cinema or spending time with a hobby and forgetting about work.
In BDSM practices, quite often we play a role that is related to power. I don’t mean “play” to be insulting to those who consider D/s or M/s to be something integral. What I mean is that sometimes we ramp up the power differential for periods of time to have fun. It might be a lecturer/student, Master/slave or soldier/prisoner scene. We enjoy that moment of becoming a particular person in our world of imagination, and our partner helps us to bridge the world of fantasy and imagination into reality, by consenting to be slapped by (or to slap) you. We’re no longer a Master, Dom, slave or sub “in theory”, we become that in a real social interpersonal interaction in society.
That has many similarities to the creation of art. We use tools, techniques and skills to bring our imagination into some kind of tangible form. It could be film, music, writing, drawing or performance art. Or, it could be a BDSM session.
“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?” ― Michel Foucault
I dabble in a number of different art forms, but I don’t consider anything I do to be “professional”, and it’s not intended to be that way. Art is not a career to me, it’s an integral part of my expression of life. In my opinion, a child’s drawing of dinosaurs and angels has artistic value.
By the same token, I think BDSM is an art form that we in the BDSM community can access to express ourselves. When a body is marked by stripes it is a process of energy, pain and beauty that encapsulates a particular time and space, where power was exchanged between the Dominant and submissive. The rope burns and the shackle-chafes on a body is a trail of intense energy. The piercing and the stretched hole, the shaved head and the finger marks on the face, are similar to tattoos to remember something significant in life. Different tools of torment would leave different types of trails, from different journeys. These are all very beautiful in the eyes of the Dominant and the submissive. They are most definitely an art form, using the most powerful material in human civilisation – the body.
If you are interested in seeing art and BDSM combined, below is a music performance by Dirk Caber who is both a pornography actor and pianist.
It’s called Tame Your Man, and it is an attempt to bring two different types of energy together, merging the vanilla classical piano music with BDSM Domination and submission.
Through the performance, the pianist’s hand is gradually tied further to both ends of the piano by the Dominant, and the control of the variety of sounds is being taken away, creating a piece of music that slowly walks into the deepest bass notes and sharpest treble notes. The Dominant uses his body, pushing the submissive’s chest down on the keys of the piano, and from there the energy of both Dominant and submissive is being translated into a piece of meditative music in its simplest form through the collaborative, complex process of rope bondage.
You can read more about the music performance over here – Tame Your Man