While preparing for the class I found myself curious about which direction the content would go in; I had never thought very much about tattoos, let alone what their “visual culture” might entail. However, it became immediately apparent that there is a host of social, political, and cultural tensions that are directly manifested in the art of tattooing. I was specifically interested in the Kang and Jones article, which investigates why people get tattoos and whether their initial aims are satisfied by this decision. Identity seemed central to the article’s investigation, as tattoos are a way of reaffirming specific beliefs, memories, or interests in outward ways that mark the individual as a member of a certain group. However, there seems to be a fundamental paradox of individuality and community that I found incredibly interesting. The binary of conformity and resistance seems like a hard thing to reconcile when discussing tattoos, especially in regards to neo-primitive subcultures that challenge the social norms of mainstream society. Navigating the irony of tattoos as a commodity within a consumer market despite being a personal artistic statement is an issue that I’ve discussed in the context of material art but never in terms of body art.

This article, along with the other assigned ones, all seemed to present a central and fundamental question about how personal meaning functions in tandem with a wider, and often divergent, social understanding of that meaning. This also seems to be complicated by the politics of the body and how people choose to represent themselves; clearly, there is a heavy stigma around tattoos and the ethics behind body modification. The articles spend a lot of time discussing how gender plays into this and why women are more likely to get tattoos that challenge traditional gender roles and/or patriarchal values. This, juxtaposed against the more masculine tendencies to solidify gender stereotypes, is another interesting phenomenon about tattooing that I had never considered or consciously noticed. There was a lot of material in the first few readings that I feel excited to unpack and discuss with the class.

The class began with a discussion about the paradox of permanence and the perceived severity of tattoos because they “last forever.” This made me think about why the physical permanence of a decision or marker of identity is so daunting and discouraged. Tattoos often have very little to no consequence to anyone other than the individual who has one, yet receive a significant social importance and weight. We discussed how tattoos are often associated with the “delinquent” or lower class but have recently been elevated to a more fashionable higher status. We then moved onto a general history of tattooing and examined how far back the art went (Siberian mummies, ancient Egyptians, and Picts in the British Islands were among the examples). The binary between civilized and uncivilized society, sometimes marked by tattooing, dates back to the 17th century (well, probably before then too, but was recorded in Bulwar’s book). I had no idea that these stereotypes had been embedded in so many cultures for as long as they had. I’m looking forward to seeing how these ideas we read about and discussed in class will develop.