The Tattoo

"Abstract:
Since the end of the 19th century tattooed people in Euro-American societies have been perceived either as exotics from faraway countries or associated with socially-deviant groups such as criminals, sailors or circus people. In the beginning, heavily-tattooed people were showcased, later they were stigmatized, expelled from public places and killed in the Third Reich. In this context the “Tattooed Women” occupy a special place: they were outsiders within a group of outsiders. Exposing the skin of women was unconventional especially to the middleclasse civil society at the end of the 19th century, which insisted on women covering their whole body. The tattooed circus women not only showed much of their skin, but it was also covered with colorful and exotic pictures. In this paper promotional postcards and photographs of circus women held at the Walter Schönfeld collection in Heidelberg are examined. These cards and photographs are significant ethnohistorical sources because they were used as a means of self-promotion. As such, they offer valuable insights into the way in which the tattooed circus women perceived and represented themselves to the outside world. The paper examines the cards and photographs in the context of existing and developing theories about tattoos.


Zusammenfassung:
Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts waren Tätowierte in der euroamerikanischen Gesellschaft zumeist entweder Exoten aus fernen Ländern oder Kriminelle, Seeleute oder Zirkusmenschen  Exoten aus der Nähe. Stark Tätowierte wurden bei Vorführungen bestaunt, aber ansonsten nach und nach stigmatisiert, aus der Öffentlichkeit vertrieben oder im Dritten Reich schließlich umgebracht. Vor allem Tätowierte Damen nehmen in diesem Kontext eine besondere Stellung ein. Sie waren längere Zeit die Außenseiterinnen unter den Außenseiterinnen und Außenseitern. Für die bürgerlich geprägte Gesellschaft Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts verstieß die entblößte Haut einer Frau ganz und gar gegen die Konventionen. Fast der ganze Körper einer Frau war mit Kleidung bedeckt. Die tätowierten Schaubuden-Frauen dagegen zeigten nicht nur viel Haut. Die war zusätzlich noch mit bunten, fremdartigen Bildern geschmückt.
Ihre Werbepostkarten und -fotografien aus der Sammlung Walther Schönfeld in Heidelberg werden untersucht. Diese Werbekarten sind die unmittelbarste Quelle für ihre Selbst-Repräsentation und deshalb eine wesentliche ethnohistorische Bildquelle.
Im Rahmen dieses Artikels sollen außerdem vorhandene und in Entwicklung befindliche theoretische Ansätze und Konzepte über Tätowierungen an das gesellschaftliche Phänomen der „Tätowierten Damen“ angelegt und übertragen werden.

(peer reviewed)
"

Interviewed by Gayle Keck for article in American Archaeology magazine on the archaeological study of ancient and historic Native American tattoo traditions.

See: http://www.archaeologicalconservancy.org/discovering-the-archaeology-of-tattooing/

The practice of tattoo roots back to the history of humanity if we consider the symbols carried and imprinted by society to distinguish in-group and out-group peoples. It is psychologically and sociologically important as we see identitary dimension attached to the practice of tattooing and body modification. However, as it is pointed out it has several references to psychological and sociological inquiry. Therefore, in this research, I will try to use both psychoanalytical approach to body modification and pain for 'earthly others' and sociological approach as to examine its reflections on nationalist or post-modernist neoliberal contemporary societies. To do that, firs of all, I have to make a critical analysis of what academics understand by body aesthetics, aesthetic ideology and the place of tattoo in those discussions in order to build a framework under the term, bodyart ideology. The second and most important part of this research will be based on the knowledge gained by semi-ethnographic observation of tattoo shops and designers (tattoo artists) in Istanbul. In this part, we will try to learn where the artist and clients position themselves in this artistic production and consumption cycles, what kind of audience and content that we have, what they think about tattoo in terms of aesthetic discourse, thus, in general, the social ingredients of bodyart ideology. By considering these two sections, I will try to figure out what can we say about the spectator in bodyart practice since there is only artist, client and mediator (shops and platforms) in-between them, therefore the replacement of spectator with an ideological apparatus of tattoo art that intersects with the drives of neoliberal subject. where his research focus is on cultural studies and identity formation through political and artistic participation. Other areas of interest to his include youth politics, street culture, and the intersections between art and politics.

: Die Ausstellung wird durch ein von der Hoenes-Stiftung und der Museumsleiterin Dr. Stefanie
Dathe herausgegebnes Katalogbuch (Hardcover / 96 Seiten / 16 €) mit zahlreichen Abbildungen
und Texten von Stefanie Dathe, Igor Eberhard, Dirk-Boris Rödel und Peter Weibel, sowie einem
umfassenden Veranstaltungsprogramm begleitet.

This paper takes a new look at the case of the tattoos worn by Ötzi, a late Neolithic man discovered in 1991 in a small glacier of the Southeast Alps, near the Italo-Austrian border. The Austrian and Italian teams have already advanced several hypotheses. The main one, which suggests that Ötzi was tattooed for therapeutic purposes, is not contested. Others, however, can be briefly invalidated (the "tibetan cauterization" alleged by L. Capasso), while still others call for more in-depth discussion (the Austrian team's attempt to establish a link between the location of Ötzi's tattoos and the topography of acupuncture-points). Questionable hypotheses as these result from a lack of knowledge about the ancient treatments using minor surgery. The aim of this paper is thus to assemble available ethnographical and historical data about therapeutic puncturing, tattooing and cauterization. Even though such material postdates Ötzi's era, it constitutes an essential prerequisite to the formulation of any hypothesis about protohistorical therapeutic concepts and practices.

“Man is sick because he is badly constructed”, explained Artaud. “When you have given him a body without organs, then you will have delivered him from all his automatisms and restored him to his true liberty”.

Artaud’s exhortation inspired Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s polemic of the Body without Organs, and it is this rich theory’s application to the modified body which underpins this article . Thinking on body modification often aims to unpick the reasons behind an individual or a culture’s choice to undergo certain modificative procedures. My research, in contrast, centres on the visual and ontological consequences of invasive corporeal transformation, and seeks to further understand what I have termed ‘the post-modified body’ – that is, the modified body as object; the body produced by modificative practices including, but not limited to, tattooing, piercing, scarification and cosmetic surgery. Initially, this paper suggests that the BwO paradigm as set out in Capitalism and Schizophrenia may provide an illustrative model for understanding the modified body, and that this paradigm affords a useful philosophical account of the nature of embodiment once a subject’s body has been deliberately modified. Moreover, I contend that Deleuze and Guattari’s account of the BwO may elucidate body modification’s facility for establishing a strategy of reconstruction to provide the liberty Artaud so desired, and that body modification practice may be understood to be a mode of resistance in Deleuzian terms .

The BwO is resistant to the organism, to significance and to subjectification, and as such recasting the modified body in these terms is problematic for traditional conceptions of body technologies in a number of ways, particularly as analyses of the modified body often rely on framing it entirely in these terms. Therefore, having established that the modified body is indeed a BwO, the paper concludes by outlining how the BwO model highlights the inadequacies in other descriptions of modified bodies, and how, by extension, the methodology of the modi ied
body might be able to liberate and invigorate investigations into various forms of corporeally transformative technologies.

Inks of various colors have been used for at least 5,000 years to communicate historical, philosophical, economic, and religious information on paper, ostraca, the human body, and other media. The portability, utility, and lasting permanence of this liquid substance has had a powerful and enduring impact on human civilization and local, regional, and global interconnectivity. Contemporary scientific studies of ancient ink are revealing profound insights into the technological and socio-historical contexts concerning its production and usage. New research also demonstrates how ancient ink and pigment can be used in modern telecommunications, biomedical applications, and manuscript conservation best practices. [corrected proof]

Interviewed by Claire Voon for media coverage of the paper "Archaic Tattooing and Bundle Keeping in Tennessee, ca. 1600 BC,"  presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting, of the Society for American Archaeology, Washington, DC, April, 2018.

http://hyperallergic.com/438579/worlds-oldest-tattoo-kit-fernvale-native-american/

See: http://www.academia.edu/36411504/Archaic_Tattooing_and_Bundle_Keeping_in_Tennessee_ca._1600_BC

Contesto socio politico del tatuaggio sulla costa ovest USA negli anni '70. Chi erano gli "adulti" degli anni '70? I giovanissimi della WWII. Per comprendere da chi fosse formato il substrato sociale con cui avevano a che fare-anche-i tatuatori dobbiamo considerare la visione d'insieme e l'utilizzo che veniva fatto dei tatuaggi all'incirca 30 anni prima, nei 40's. Senza aprire un trattato che, conoscendomi, finirebbe a Napoleone e alla Roma antica, possiamo considerare il fatto che durante la guerra il tatuaggio era usato dai vari schieramenti per identificarsi "definitivamente" così da evitare trabocchetti e non incorrere in tranelli sia TRA i diversi eserciti che tra questi e i propri prigionieri. Per dirla in breve il classico cinematografico del fuggitivo che tramortisce una guardia per poi rubargli la divisa ed evadere qui non avviene e non avverrà mai (nelle intenzioni). Sappiamo tutti che i tedeschi tatuavano ai prigionieri il campo di prigionia di appartenenza, il TIPO di prigioniero ecc. cosa che ebbe un forte impatto su tutta la sociologia del tatuaggio. Ma oltre alla prigionia, nel 1925 Wilfred Dyson Hambly scrive "the history of tattooing" in cui afferma che nel momento della pubblicazione il 90% dei marinai della marina americana è tatuata e, per tornare a geolocalizzarci nel nostro distretto d'interesse è facile immaginare come la California che era, durante la guerra uno dei maggiori centro di produzione navale, pullulasse di marines giovani, con uno stipendio, un forte senso di appartenenza e molto tempo libero. 30 anni dopo sono i 50enni reduci di guerra che vivono in villette a schiera con la bandiera che sventola in cortile, pantaloni beige e camicie a maniche corte da cui escono braccia tatuate. [questo farà anche si che i giovani hippie utilizzino quello stesso medium per imprimere simboli di pace sulla loro pelle in aperta opposizione ai richiami di guerra dei loro genitori e ancora dopo ai punk di esagerare questo inchiostro per differenziarsi dal piccolo simbolo esercito-centrico]. Ora stringiamo il cerchio attorno ad Ed Hardy. Sappiamo che il primo approccio al tatuaggio di Ed fu molto precoce, all'età di 10 anni infatti vede non solo i primi tatuaggi su un amico di famiglia ma soprattutto vede Bert Grimm al lavoro! Dove? A Long Beach ovviamente! Siamo nel 1955 quindi il primo approccio che il giovane Ed ha è di un tradizionale americano dei più puri, inoltre lo associa subito a qualcosa di positivo un po per l'alta considerazione sociale di cui abbiamo parlato poco fa e un po per il contesto stesso

This blog post discusses recent research using experimental archaeology and use-wear analysis to evaluate possible bone tattoo tools in the archaeological record.

https://tennesseearchaeologycouncil.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/use-wear-and-bone-needle-tattoos/

Although tattooing played a vital role in the social organization and ritual life of prehistoric and early historic Native Americans, archaeological identifications of tattoo tools remain rare. Analysis of ethnographic data from the Great Plains and indigenous toolkits from throughout the world suggests that ancient Native American tattoo tools were stored within a particular class of sacred bundles alongside other specific artifact categories. Applying this framework to collections from the Southeastern United States and associated culture areas allows for the archaeological identification of tattoo bundles and provides a template for future examinations of prehistoric tattoo tools and associated artifacts.

This essay is about tattoos in traditional societies, more specific amongst the Maori people of New Zealand. This choice was made since these tattoos have been well described and observed as a traditional pattern already in the 18th century. The main thing to investigate is who was allowed to get a tattoo. I will write about the history of moko (as it is called amongst the Maori people), how it is done, the different patterns and a little about how the contact with the western world affected the practice.

This book charts the history of tattooing as an artistic practice in Europe and America, from its beginnings in seafaring and religious communities in the 16th and 17th centuries, through its period as an elaborate and fashionable preserve of aristocrats in the 19th century to its seeming ubiquity at the beginning of the 21st. By focussing on tattooing’s status as an art form, by considering the role of key tattoo artists, and by examining developments in form, genre, style and technology, the book presents a unique art historical perspective on a fascinating method of art making which has for so long been misunderstood.

This  paper describes ongoing research into the archaeological remains of prehistoric tattooing in the eastern United States. Ethnohistorical references to tattoo implements are used to identify potential tattooing tools within the archaeological record. These tools are then recreated using prehistoric technology and tested by a professional artist to determine which are best suited to the practice of tattooing. The most successful tools are then subjected to use-wear analysis using a scanning electron microscope in an effort to identify microscopic wear patterns specific to tattooing. Finally, this paper discusses why tattoo artifacts have not been previously identified or formally recorded in the archaeological record of the region.

Collection of world's great tatto designs including Hindi tattoo as well.Source:-http://bestofshayari.blogspot.com/2017/01/16-unique-hindi-tattoos-thatll-make-you.html
​Tattooing has been around for a long time, and this is more than what most people think. Its existence has begun about 10,000 years ago, and goes back to the Neolithic time, which was evidenced by the mummified skin and archaeological records. One of the earliest known examples of a tattooed human skin was discovered on the upper lip of a Chinchorro mummy from South America, one found out that it was 6000 before Christ was.