The Brutal Tattoo Ritual Built on Pain
Tattoos hurt, but for most people, the pain is just a means to an end. Tattoo artists are usually mindful of their client’s pain threshold, catering for breaks and mitigating any unnecessary brutality. It’s abnormal for tattoo artists to restrain people while they’re getting tattooed, or for the tattooee to bolt upright in agony to escape the needle’s unrelenting penetrations. Nor is it very common to see sadistic mirth occupying the faces of multiple tattoo artists as they inflict the unnaturally long, thick, shallow lines seemingly without pause.
Enter Brutal Black. It’s the tattoo project where mandalas come to die and where pain is prioritized over aesthetics. Ritual and rebirth are at the forefront of this project helmed by Valerio Cancellier and Cammy Stewart. They take those brave enough to be tattooed by them on one of the most brutal experiences one can imagine; far beyond one’s threshold for pain to create an entirely new experience.
CORRECTION: This text was adapted from a VICE article on Brutal Black by Fareed Kaviani: https://vice.video/2iHZF5r. Due to an oversight, he was not properly credited in an earlier version of this synopsis. We regret the error.
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Comments (49)
VICE follows the orchestrators behind the Brutal Black Project, the tattoo collective where mandalas go to die and pain is prioritized over aesthetics.
WATCH NEXT: Hong Kong Tattoo Legend: VICE INTL – https://vice.video/2zV9C9p
Do they not… like… realise how downright terrible they look? I get the whole "express yourself and who you really are" thing, but if these tattoos are some kind of representation of who you are, then perhaps you need to be locked up in a padded cell for a little while. Just sayin'.
The fact the guy says it feels like torture says enough
To each their own but this does not seem like art it seems more like these people need a therapist
God this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen this is no longer art
The healing process must be a nightmare. Cleaning and disinfecting, showering, putting a shirt on, the skin peeling away. If you’ve seen any of the hellraiser movies, this is like becoming a cenobite damn near 🙅🏻♂️
Sadistic people working on masochistic people
If you want pain comme to a kyokushin session in full limite and i promiss you will receive enough pain to be satisfied. Come to our Dojo and you can feel pain for the next 60 years of your life with this system soon you will be out of skin to torture yourself.
Well, there are a lot of terrible ways to die. This is bad. What about my particular case? Let me share. In 2011 I went to an orthopedic doctor because I was having some thoracic pain. I thought I knew what pain was then. This doctor had a plan for me. He operated on me 3 times. I was on Medicaid at the time and this doctor told me he had a plan for me where I could work again full-time and he made promises that there is no way in hell he ever planned on keeping. It was a teaching hospital. I let this guy operate on me and I could swear right before my last surgery, when I almost died from this, with broken hardware and a 2-inch screw stuck in my ileum, that I saw death in that man's eyes. I have never saw such a cold, inhumane stare, and it scared me. I should have backed out of that last surgery, but I said, "Let's do this." I signed away my life as a normal person. Each year I continue to deteriorate and the pain has spread. It is over my chest, shoulder blade, collarbone, entire spine and neck, buttocks, left leg. Right now, as I am typing this, the pain is abnormal and it makes you want to scream and you scream and cry and nobody will help you. I have been to the ER and they send me home and say go straight to pain management. Pain management will not manage my pain. In fact, last visit the doctor laughed at me and said "You walk better than I thought you could," I do not know if I have been cursed but I am enduring torture every day that most people would not live with. I think about dying daily. One doctor told me if you ever feel like you can't endure the pain anymore come and see me right after telling me that he had killed a woman due to paralysis and she died a month later. He said you will never be straight and you are going to continue to get worse. He said live with it or come see me. So, I came here to see what other people do in pain. What would make someone want to do this? I just want out of my damn pain and want a normal life, but if I can't have that, then the alternative is death. I probably have another year naturally if I hold out, but why wait?
imagine being able to do that to someone
So the British guy is involved with neo-nazis as well? these two are pieces of shit human beings.
This Italian asshole really thinks he’s some type of new-age Pinhead, lol. What a totally stupid concept, this whole video.
Fucking bummers,the lot ov them,get their kicks doin it.
Valerio is so full of crap he must have problems in sitting down, what he say is the comments of a sadistic idiot and saying he is an idiot being unkind to idiots, The guy just speaks rubbish.
People who have the confidence to tattoo their faces scare me. 😕
People are too crazy now. Humanity just has too much freedom.
I think I'll skip dinner for tonight
This has just put me off getting a tattoo
When SADISTS meet MASOCHISTS…
That’s not tattooing, that’s just little kids scribbles on a human. I mean at least it’s free because it looks like shit. I rather pay for what I want and that it looks good 🖕👹🖕
Seriously the sickest, saddest thing I think I ever saw on YouTube. Feeling sorry for that guy's parents
How is this legal wtf
The pain angle is interesting and probably something to it, but lots of way to feel pain without scarring and looking like shit. These people should have gone to see a dominatrix
Jesus Christ….
Sick artists
total idiots;)
Ignorant. Violent. Primitive.
3 ingredients to make the perfect masochists.
so i just got my first tattoo a few days ago and i have no clue how this got in my recommendation but wow this is insane
Idk why everyone is so mimimi here. Both sides want to do this and these guys are crazy definitely yes but they also know how to respect limits and know when to stop. No one was forced to anything here. And even if they like to hurt people with tattooing, and? The people wanted to participate in the black project because of that, the immense pain to find out their limits. Get over it cry babies they're all adults.
Extreme … Too much for many people (like me), but I liked it
PORCODIO!
Vengo de parte de Cesar Palma
CÉSAR PALMA JAJA
Uh good job getting heavy metal poisoning.
Seems like I'm the only one who liked these tattoos. Kind of a bummer they don't do this project anymore, because i feel like i would want to go through with it.
I would never go to the Black Brutal Project in my life,and if I see it I’m running all the way to Anartica
ive been tattooing 21 years professionally……..all i can say is these guys are idiots
Everyone is "eww" while I'm like "hell yeah😍"
sick af !
Ma tutto ok?
Cammy is a cool guy
Art, this is art. Painful art.
Wtf is this shit
I feel like i'm watching (saw)
They look like a serial killers
Naruto character
Love how he said about the mother's fr he does not need to be babied he will be ok pain last for a moment you'll be ok
sensacional
okay but that one guy looks like dr phil’s evil twin
I can only imagine that healing it must be awful because your whole body would be itching 😱
Damn u wanna be black that bad just no it ain't easy
Wow such sterile environment and clean equipment lmao but for real just looks like they turned him into a 1 year olds coloring book or sketch pad. They shame the tattoo community and people like me who take tattoos seriously and as an art not a s&m fetish! Even the tatted remains of skeletal remains was more clean than that and you can't be more barbaric than that. Dumbasses who get crappy tats and think they are tattoo artist's pathetic take their guns and ban from all tattoo supplier's!