![]() ![]() On the other hand, my aesthetic choices say a lot about who I am, my tastes, my personality, and therefore what drives me. I am not part of any group asking for a tattoo as a sign of belonging and I don’t want my tattoos to tell my “criminal career” as it can be the case for mobsters. If I take myself as a point of reference, tattooing has a purely aesthetic role, and very little significance. Tattoos have become mainstream and with that some part of the meaning has been lost. We don’t use it to track our ancestors’ lineage, our ranks, or even our achievements in life. Today tattoos don’t carry the same kind of meaning as they used to do. It follows a codification, and it has been through Dark Ages because of the colonization, losing all its accumulated knowledge because of the ban on tattoos that was imposed by Christian missionaries. For those ethnicities, the tattoo on their faces (the tā moko) is a way to show their courage, their strength, and their belonging (formerly) to the high caste of warriors. The most famous tribal tattoos are those from Polynesia or New Zealand. It is hard to believe that at the time, the purpose of the tattoo was to put the name of your child in the flesh. Until this discovery, it was according to an Egyptian mummy dating back to 2000 BC that the first tattoo was dated. If we go back in time, the oldest tattoo identified was found the body of Ötzy, a hunter taken more than 7000 years ago in the ice of the Alps between Austria and Italy. ![]() The reason why I am taking the time to introduce this, is because I firmly believe that this cultural approach to tattoos has given me some refined knowledge about it, and that it is an underestimated medium to convey meaning in our favourite hobby: tabletop roleplaying games. One of the reasons I spent so much time getting interested in tattooing is because it is an art in its own right, and like any art, it is influenced by history, and has cultural importance. I made a documentary on one of the most prominent artists in the history of tattooing in France, and I also hosted a show called Color My Skin on YouTube during those two years. I am tattooed, I have frequented many tattoo artists, and I worked in this field for two years when I was still doing my studies. Tattoos are an important part of my life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |