With an exploratory case study of an art center in Berlin, the paper aims to initiate an exploration of relationships between performance art and BDSM practices (i.e. practices of bondage, discipline, domination and submission, sadomasochism) with relation to their social and cognitive effects.Schwelle 7 is a venue in Berlin organising workshops and events on the threshold between the arts and sexuality, with specific focus on BDSM practices as well as other embodied practices such as yoga. Felix Ruckert, a well-known choreographer and dancer from the art world of contemporary dance, is the founder of this experimental venue.The paper will focus on Schwelle 7's venture into BDSM practices, and will base itself in an exploratory phase of participant observation, qualitative interviews and analysis of recent writings of Felix Ruckert on the subject.This empirical exploration is theoretically located at the intersection of several academic fields: sociological and inter-disciplinary research on BDSM, queer studies, performance studies, and some elements from the sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism. It embeds itself within a transdisciplinary exploration of aesthetics of complexity. The research questions will address the interplay between power relations and social roles, on back-stages and front-stages (Goffman) of society, of performance art, and of BDSM scenes, the remapping of sexual sites on the body (Foucault), the deconstruction and reconfiguration of dichotomies – regarding sensations and power relations (Easton & Hardy), a complex aesthetic experience of reality (Kagan), and potential artist and queer critiques of social contracts through BDSM performance.