Ah, "body modification" art — that sub-sub-genre of performance art that features artists disfiguring, warping, implanting devices into, or otherwise transfiguring their flesh, in more or less permanent ways. What could be a more perfect genre for the holidays, when people generally stuff themselves silly, and encounters with relatives leave you wanting literally to pull your hair out? Here, then, are ARTINFO's top six works of art-inspired body transformation — just in time for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy:

1. WAFAA BILAL

Body modification art has been burning up the headlines lately, ever since artist and New York University professor Wafaa Bilal announced that he would be undergoing surgery to implant a thumbnail-sized camera in the back of his skull. Now the procedure has been completed, and the implant will automatically take one photo per minute for an entire year. Dubbed "The 3rd I," the project was commissioned for a show at Qatar's new Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art — to be previewed to the public on December 15, and open at the end of that month — and will allow viewers to see snaps of Bilal's rear view transmitted live to monitors at the Mathaf show, as well as on an associated Web site (currently the website just shows a countdown until the surgically implanted camera goes live). "I have had the idea for the project in the back of my head (no pun intended) and am delighted to now see it come to reality," the artist relayed to the Wall Street Journal via a spokeswoman.

2. STELARC

View Slideshow: Six Stomach-Turning Acts of Body Modification Art

Close in spirit to Bilal, though a good deal more extreme in execution, are the shenanigans of the Australian-Greek artist known as Stelarc (born Stelios Arcadiou). Known for technological experiments with body augmentation — including a project for which he allowed internet users to control his muscles remotely — he famously, and somewhat controversially, had a "third ear" ear grafted onto his forearm in 2007 to make a statement about... something. The ear, made of cartilage, was nonfunctional, though a subsequent surgery installed a microphone into the graft, enabling Stelarc to "hear" with it remotely. Alas, according to the artist's Web site, the mic had to be removed following a major infection associated with the procedure. (Incidentally, a lot of the groatiest "bio-art" seems to come from Down Under — who can forget the Australian duo Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr's project for MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind" show, a living leather jacket made out of stem cells, which curator Paola Antonelli had to "abort" when it began to grow out of control?)

3. ROBERTO CUOGHI

Best known these days as a creator of elegantly ironic mixed-media paintings and high-concept sculpture — his colossus "Pazuzu" featured prominently in "Skin Fruit," the New Museum's Jeff Koons-curated tribute to the racy tastes of collector Dakis Joannou — Italian artist Roberto Cuoghi burst onto the scene with a now-legendary 1998 "life-share" performance, in which he attempted to transform himself, for all intents and purposes, into his own father, swelling to more than 300 pounds, dying his hair white, and growing a beard. Essentially, Cuoghi voluntarily lived in the body of the much older, ailing man for several years, until his father passed away. According to reports, the long-lasting performance had extreme health effects, and even required surgery to return the artist to his younger self — a bit like body modification art in reverse.

4. ORLAN

The queen of body modification art, of course, is the French-born artist Orlan (née Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte), best known for her investigation of the aesthetic potentials of plastic surgery. In a series of operations between 1990 and 1993, Orlan had different aspects of her face and body altered to match ideals of feminine beauty taken from throughout art history, adopting, for instance, the chin of Botticelli's "Venus" and the forehead of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa." The surgeries were staged as flamboyantly theatrical events, complete with elaborate set dressing and costumes. Fat liposuctioned from her body was placed in transparent reliquaries molded in the shape of her own arms and legs. In many cases, the events were broadcast live to a sometimes queasy art audience. "I am feminist, neo-feminist, post-feminist and alter-feminist," Orlan explained to the Irish Critic last year.

5. GENESIS P-ORRIDGE  

Of acts of body modification carried out by artists, perhaps the weirdest, most touching, and most tragic was that of artist and Throbbing Gristle frontman Genesis P-Orridge, who in 2003 underwent plastic surgery along with his wife, the dominatrix Lady Jaye, with the aim of making themselves as indistinguishable as possible. According to Aaron Gell's classic 2008 account in Radar magazine, the pair outfitted themselves with matching C-cup breast implants and surgically tailored eyes, noses, chins, cheeks, and lips. According to P-Orridge, the act was an experiment in "pandrogeny" — an attempt to "liberat[e] us from this binary conception of reality. Instead of everything being male/female, only recently that I've come to terms with my love for it. I've found black/white, good/bad, it all becomes a malleable, flexible material. It's about eradicating difference altogether." After four years of living out their romantic dream — culminating P-Orridge's lifetime project of performative non-conformity — Lady Jaye, who had struggled with stomach cancer, suddenly passed away in fall 2007. Since then, P-Orridge has retained the effects of the cosmetic procedures, and has focused on his visual art. Represented by Lower East Side gallery Invisible-Exports, he will show his work next week in a solo booth at the NADA Art Fair during Art Basel Miami Beach.  

6. JOCELYN WILDENSTEIN    

Finally, there's Jocelyn Wildenstein, not an artist strictly speaking, but very much in the vein of Orlan, and very much part of art-world lore — she's one-time wife of Alec Wildenstein of the legendary Wildenstein art-dealing clan. Dubbed the "Bride of Wildenstein" by the New York Post — always quick with the vicious one-liner — because of her disturbing fondness of cosmetic surgery, Jocelyn was involved in sensational divorce proceedings in 1998, during which time Alec was famously quoted in New York magazine as saying that she wanted to "look like a cat." Since that time, Jocelyn has become tabloid fodder, while her plight has even inspired a musical, "Bride of Wildenstein," conceived by Los Angeles-based self-described "puppet artist, chanteuse, and high-art drag personality" Marsian. According to promotional materials for the show, it is a "weird and tragic love story that examines the making of a monstrosity through one woman's personal struggle, and the loss of her sense of self."

For pictures of some of the above artists, click the slide show at left.