BODY OF REVERBS 

2014-present

"New ceremonies for contemporary bodies"

B.O.R is a contemporary ceremony and post-tattoo practice started by Michele Servadio in London in 2014 and has since performed in theaters, galleries, churches and clubs, and rural and desert settings across Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.

Turning tattoos into sounds, B.O.R. uses tattooing as a musical instrument, translating the vibrations of the needles on the skin into sound and amplified by a sound artist through synthesizers and sound effects. The tattooer and the musician symbiotically advance in a progressive loop, while the receiver is subjected to visual and auditory sensations that operate deeply into its subjectiveness. What emerges is a deeply haunting and layered sound that transfixes audiences.

Performed in front of a crowd, the tattoo itself is abstract and spontaneous. This is because it is the experience, the connection between body, sound, and space that is central, not the result. Each performance is unique because it is the result of all the different vectors involved: the space, the musician, and mainly the needs of who is getting tattooed. It can be a strong, loud and brutal process, or a very dilated approach, careful actions, in very specific parts of the body.

The performance always starts with a body assessment to identify the right places to tattoo and understand what kind of experience we are going to deliver.

B.O.R was born out of the necessity to bring tattooing back to its archaic identity, at a time when it has become a mass-consumed product. The aim is to create a total art practice with tattooing at its center.