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Hooking / Human Suspension
Original Post
A practice where humans suspend themselves on wires with hooks, inserted directly into their flesh. There are many different positions: O-Kee-Pa, Suicide, Crucifix, Superman, Coma, Falkner, Lotus. Some hooking is done as performance spectacle, but mostly it is done as semi-private rituals of pain and endurance. Groups gather to help each other hook, provide support, and develop safe practices; rigging is an art, and there are good accounts online of what people feel when they hook and why they do it. There are galleries of images and notices of national gatherings called Suscons.

For Prozak "hooking" is a physical way of dealing with the intensity of the mental anguish she feels. She tries to leap into the epicenter of some pain she can tangibly expereince. As if by taking this risk of flight she can conquer her own fear of death, or know what her mother felt so silently when she committed suicide. Some audience view Prozak’s "hooking" as her own suicide attempt, or a death wish, I think it is the impulse that keeps her alive. It is what she is doing in her loud music, piercing, and poetry, trying to find external expression commensurate to the silent desperation, anger, and pain she feels inside. The writing on the "hooking" practice does not talk about masochism, but levels of psychic transformation and healing, and deep listening to the body.

Comment from KellyAnne Hanrahan on 4/21/2009

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