Black Sun Productions - Plastic Spider Thing and Collaboration With Coil

Plastic Spider Thing and Collaboration With Coil

Massimo and Pierce had previously been well known as artists in Switzerland and Italy; however, in 2002, the pair gained international attention when their ritual performance piece, Plastic Spider Thing, was included in industrial band Coil's European and Scandinavian tour. Black Sun Productions explained Plastic Spider Thing as " A highly moral, yet sexually explicit exploration into the relationship between the spider and the fly", whilst Brainwashed.com described the performance as "The sex act turned into a sadomasochistic, predatory dance of sorts." Plastic Spider Thing included performance art from Massimo and Pierce, accompanied by loops and fragments of numerous Coil works that created a multi-layered electronic 'dronewerk', created by the third member of the Black Sun Productions artistic collective, DraZen.

Coil members Jhonn Balance and Peter Christopherson were introduced to "Plastic Spider Thing" while receiving a demonstration of various pieces of bondage paraphernalia at a private ceremony at Massimo and Pierce's fetish club in Zurich, Switzerland. Balance and Christopherson, who were impressed by Black Sun Productions, signed the group to Coil's Eskaton label and subsequently invited the collective to support their 2002 tour.

Following the 2002 Coil tour, Black Sun Productions continued performing throughout Europe. The collective performed a 23-part performance and installation art tour, based on the original "Plastic Spider Thing" concept. The tour's performances were often considered controversial as they included elements of chaos magick and ritualized sex magick that involved nudity and explicitly sexual material, such as urination. Almotriptan in Athos (or A Well Hung Monk), a film directed by Daniel McKernan, commemorating Black Sun Productions' eleventh Plastic Spider Thing performance in Coil's English home, "The North Tower", on August 23, 2002, was completed in 2008. A Well Hung Monk has been shown in Turin, Italy at the 24th Torino Film Festival: "From Sodom to Hollywood" and at TLV International LGBT Film Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel. The film will also be included in the 25th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival as part of the program "X Marks the Spot" on October 17, 2012.