Abstract
One of the many books which covers the increasingly popular phenomenon of tattoos and tattoo art in connection with philosophical issues has a well-chosen Descartian title: I ink, therefore I am. The pictures tell the story—as in a song by the Dropkick Murphys—and they tell a story of the person who the transformed body with tattoos belongs to. The story told by a transformed body has essentially two potential recipients: others (skin is, according to James Elkins, always expressive, doubly so tattooed skin) and the carrier him/herself. Within this second sort of “intrapersonal” communication, the transformed body does not just co-create identity, it can also officiate as a prosthesis (Alison Landsberg’s prosthetic memory) or as an extension (Marshall McLuhan) of memory, and this can have a wide range of interpretations. This chapter reflects on the transformed (tattooed) body, referencing also the phenomenology of the body (Merleau Ponty) as it is variously depicted and transposed in selected popcultural works of art. The centre of interest here should be the context in which the tattoo functions as a vehicle of the self and memory of the carrier (Prison break, Memento) and of others (Heroes).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
One of the increasing number of books which cover the phenomenon of tattoos and tattoo art in connection with philosophy, or more precisely with philosophical issues, has the Descartian subtitle I ink, therefore I am (the title of the book edited by Robert Arp is Tattoos: Philosophy for everyone), drawing the link between our identity and its visual presentation, as opposed to its non-visual activity of thought.
- 2.
This observation occurs relatively frequently in reflections on tattoo culture in various registers, from the journalistic to the popularizing to the academic; see, for example, Hainzl & Pinkl (2003, p. 7).
- 3.
The collocation “body transformations” further suggests itself as a functional conceptual alternative, since partial modification can ultimately lead to substantial transformation of the human body as a whole.
- 4.
Although tattoo(-related) reality shows like Miami ink or Ink master have raised public awareness in this context, there are still things which (at least for now) would be difficult to present to mainstream audience(s). This may be exemplified in the following binary oppositions: piercing versus tongue splitting, tattooing versus scarification or ear stretching versus eyeball tattooing.
- 5.
The author characterizes his conception as follows: “[i]t’s a pragmatic alternative to already existing theories and at the same time it’s based on experience as a determining category of the Nitra school” (Malíček, 2012, p. 12; my translations throughout).
- 6.
See Malíček, 2012, p. 49.
- 7.
Malíček understands a puzzle as a “semantic metaphor of popculture” (Malíček, 2012, p. 97), further noting that the puzzle is a “[m]eta-picture formed of fragmentary parts with their own incomplete picture which is at the same time a component of a bigger corpus…Popculture is such a permanently emergent puzzle, we are, unfortunately, building a picture which we do not have a master copy to, which is why the picture can appear as abstract. The mechanism of puzzle building illustrates the manner of reception apprehension of popculture as a whole—it is a permanent process of finding and weakening meaning regarding its context” (Malíček, 2012, p. 97).
- 8.
The causality here can probably also be understood in an inverted logic: since tattoos have been increasingly present over the last three or four decades, their status and their perception have changed. The crucial factor is whose point of view we are observing this from; with reference to the iconic work of the Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco entitled Apocalittici e integrati (published in English as Apocalypse postponed and in Czech as Skeptikové a téšitelé) we can possibly link this inverted logic to apocalyptic (apocalittici), or integrated (integrati) intellectuals.
- 9.
The motive of a tattoo as an erotic adornment is interestingly and sophisticatedly present in a short story written by one of the most significant Japanese authors of the twentieth century, Junichiro Tanizaki. The story entitled originally “Shishei” (in English “The tattooer,” and in the Czech edition which I work with, “Tetování”) features two main characters—a young tattoo artist named Seikichi and a young girl, who is going to become a geisha. The world in which the story takes place is a world in which tattoos are largely mainstream: “And all the people without exception desired to get prettified that much that they even had colours injected into their body given them by nature” (Tanizaki, 1971, p. 7; my translation). Seikichi is an extraordinarily skilful tattoo artist, but what is especially important is that he is obsessed with the pain of others, he enjoys it and his ultimate goal is to find a beautiful woman whose skin he could tattoo his soul onto. After he finds such a girl and tattoos her (he draws a spider all over her back), his soul becomes blank and empty, because his haunting desire has been transposed into the tattoo. What is important in the context of my reflection is that although the tattoo is meant to be an erotic adornment serving the tattooist’s desires, once inked onto another’s body it becomes a “vehicle” of the girl’s acquired or impending identity.
- 10.
Identification numbers tattooed with indelible ink on prisoners’ forearms are arguably one of the most powerful symbols of the holocaust. And the powerfulness of this practice is in an interesting manner present as a thematic component in the debut novel The tattooist of Auschwitz (2018) by the Australian writer and social work administrator Heather Morris. The story of the book, based on true events, is “the incredible story of the Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist and the woman he loved.” On the website www.thetattooistofauschwitz.com it is further aptly characterized as follows: “Lale Sokolov is well-dressed, a charmer, a ladies’ man. He is also a Jew. On the first transport from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Lale immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners. In the camp, he is looked up to, looked out for, and put to work in the privileged position of Tätowierer—the tattooist—to mark his fellow prisoners, forever. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who steals his heart at first glance. His life given new purpose, Lale does his best through the struggle and suffering to use his position for good. This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable.” It is worth mentioning that the translation of Morris’s novel entitled Tetovačz Auschitzu became an immediate bestseller in Slovakia.
- 11.
The Bayeux Tapestry, comic books of all kinds, Facebook walls and many other things could be mentioned here as corpus delicti.
- 12.
The following quote from David Cronenberg’s movie Eastern promises (2007) can be understood as confirmation in a specific context: “[i]n Russian prisons, your life story is written on your body, in tattoos. You don’t exist without tattoos.” The motive of human life being captured in tattoos can be found also in the young adult fiction Ink by Alice Broadway. Set in Saintstone, the story depicts a world in which every significant moment of a person’s life from birth to death is tattooed on her/his skin. After death the tattooed skin is flayed and bound into a skin book and the government decides whether the person’s soul and the material record of her/his life is worth preservation or that both the soul and the tattooed skin of a human should irretrievably be forgotten. “We are not afraid of death. When your marks are safe in your book, you live on after you die. The life story etched on your body is kept for ever—if you’re worthy. When we preserve the words, pictures and moments imprinted on our skin, our story survives for eternity. We are surrounded by the dead, and, for as long as their books are still read and their names are still spoken, they live. Everyone has the skin books in their homes: our shelves are full of my ancestors. I can breathe them in, touch them and read their lives” (Broadway, 2017, p. 9).
- 13.
Within the entry “Memory and theory of memory,” in Nünning, Trávníček, and Holý (2006, p. 579).
- 14.
Landsberg writes as follows: “This book argues that modernity makes possible and necessary a new form of public cultural memory. This new form of memory, which I call prosthetic memory, emerges at the interface between a person and a historical narrative about the past, at an experiential site such as a movie theater or museum. In this moment of contact, an experience occurs through which the person sutures himself or herself into a larger history, just as Bess does with her ‘memories’ of seventeenth-century England. In the process that I am describing, the person does not simply apprehend a historical narrative but takes on a more personal, deeply felt memory of a past event through he or she did not live. The resulting prosthetic memory has the ability to shape that person’s subjectivity and politics” (Landsberg, 2004, p. 2).
- 15.
In the episode a former member of the MC, Kyle, someone, who seriously betrayed the moral code of the MC by leaving a “brother” behind, comes to Charming and, as it turns out, he has kept his back patch tattoo, because, as he says in a tense dialogue with the others, it is all he has got. Eventually, at the end of the episode, he has to make a decision about how his tattoo is going to be removed by the club members, choosing fire, not a knife.
- 16.
This is probably in this connection the most important part of the Phaedrus dialogue: “Soc. At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have he benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.” (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html).
References
Anon. (n.d). The tattooist of Auschwitz. http://thetattooistofauschwitz.com/.
Arp, R. (2012). Tattoos: Philosophy for everyone: I ink, therefore I am. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bennett, T. (2014). Sons of anarchy. The official collector’s edition. New York, NY: Time Home Entertainment.
Bradbury, R. (2008). The illustrated man. London: Harper Voyager.
Broadway, A. (2017). Ink. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Derrida, J. (1981). Plato’s pharmacy (B. Johnson, Trans.). Retrieved from: http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/derrida_platos_pharmacy.pdf.
Eco, U. (2006). Skeptikové a těšitelé [Apocalypse postponed] (Z. Frýbort, Trans.). Prague: Argo.
Elkins, J. (2015). Foreword. In A. Friedman (Ed.), The world atlas of tattoo (pp. 6–7). London: Thames & Hudson/Quintessence Editions.
Friedman, A. (Ed.). (2015). The world atlas of tattoo. London: Thames & Hudson/Quintessence Editions.
Hainzl, M., & Pinkl, P. (2003). Lebensspuren hautna: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Tätowierung [Tracks of life at first hand. A cultural history of tattoos]. Wels: Trod.ART Verlag/Lebensspuren/Museum der Siegel und Stempel.
Kuba, O. (1971). Doslov [Afterword]. In M. Merleau-Ponty (Ed.), Oko a duch a jiné eseje [Eye and Mind and other Essays] (O. Kuba, Trans.) (pp. 149–153). Prague: Obelisk–nakladatelství umění a architektury.
Landsberg, A. (2004). Prosthetic memory: The transformation of American remembrance in the age of mass culture. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Malíček, J. (2012). Popkultúra: návod na použitie [Popculture: Instructions for use]. Nitra: Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre, Filozofická fakulta.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
McNelly, W. (2017). Kronikářem představivosti. O žánrové mnoholičnosti Raya Bradburyho (Doslov) [Chronicler of the imagination. On the genre polygonality of Ray Bradbury (Afterword)] (J. Hron, Trans.). In R. Bradbury (Ed.), Ilustrovaný muž [The illustrated man] (J. Emmerová et. al., Trans.) (pp. 261–269). Prague: Plus.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1971). Oko a duch a jiné eseje [Eye and Mind and other Essays] (O. Kuba, Trans.). Prague: Obelisk–nakladatelství umění a architektury.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Morris, H. (2018). The tattooist of Auschwitz. London: Zaffre.
Nünning, A., Trávníček, J., & Holý, J. (Eds.). (2006). Lexikon teorie literatury a kultury [Lexicon of literary theory and culture] (A. Urválek & Z. Adamová, Trans.). Brno: Host.
Plato. Phaedrus. Internet classics archive. Retrieved from: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html.
Shusterman, R. (2000). Pragmatist aesthetics: Living beauty, rethinking art (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Soukup, M. (Ed.). (2014). Tělo: čichat, česat, hmatat, propichovat, řezat [Body: to Sniff, to Comb, to Grope, to Pierce, to Cut]. Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart.
Tanizaki, J. (1983). Most snů [The Bridge of Dreams] (V. Winkelhöferová, Trans.). Prague: Vyšehrad.
Thomas, P. (2016). An unreliable history of tattoos. London: Nobrow.
Funding
This paper was supported by the grant VEGA 1/0461/16 Re-interpretácia obrazov kultúrnej pamäti v súčasnej estetickej a umeleckej reflexii.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boszorád, M. (2019). The Tattooed Body as a Vehicle of the Self and Memory. In: Callahan, D., Barker, A. (eds) Body and Text: Cultural Transformations in New Media Environments. Second Language Learning and Teaching(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25189-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25189-5_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25188-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25189-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)