Tattoos.
Piercing. Dreadlocks. Body Art.
What is the world coming to?
It would seem if we follow the lead of much of the popular press a minority of degenerates are corrupting our sensibilities, and so we are doomed. However, if you take the time to stop and look a little longer, it seems more likely that we actually want to be corrupted. And this desire is not new.
There is currently an interest in utilising the body as a site
on which we can extend our creative and psychic desires, and as such
has found itself reflected in a growing literature of its own. One
such book is Housk Randall and Ted Polhemus'The Customised Body. As Polhemus and Randall make clear from the start, the impetus
for this fashion in changing the body is the influence of 'traditional
peoples'. Other cultures, which have been traditionally termed
primitive, have a history of altering their physical appearance
for either religious and social purposes. A
nd it is this that the later-day primitives of our culture are
trying to tap into. Thus the piercing or the tattoos of these
'modern primitives' are legitimated through the idea that they are
some how more pure, honest and true, because they reflect the more
positive aspects of these so-called 'simpler' societies. Attempts
are also made to suggest a lineage for the use
of such body art by the
examination of early pre-Christian practices in the west. However,
though this may provide a precedent for body art, it is more
pertinent to question why such practices fell from fashion for
several thousand years, and in turn, why they would have any
pertinence now.
Much is made in the literature that surrounds
this particular subculture about the need for self-expression, and
the desire to feel part of a community. The subtext of such an
argument is that a certain sector of our society feel that they
can not adequately express themselves through the more conventional
means of visual expression, be it clothes or art. The notion that
other cultures will provide us with a visual language that will
release us from this empasse is, however, not new. In art alone it
can be traced back through the major canon of western artist,
through Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and back into
the depths of the
eighteenth century at least. What is new is the transition from the
canvas and the gallery, to t
he body and the street. This
phenomena, I feel, must be a result of the late twentieth
century, or dare I say it, post-modern, belief in the
breakdown of artist as unassailable god. Instead, the
artist can be any man, and as a result of the comments of
Duchamp and the whole dada movement, art can be anything.
Also written into the unspoken creed of this grouping is heart-felt belief that there is a direct correlation between the increase in the isolation in our post-industrial society and the desire for primitivism. It is almost as if that as God was once usurped by science and money, it too shall necessarily collapse, but his time under the force of this new godless mass who have found belief in some crypto-primitivism and a new hybrid culture. As such fashion, in all its manifestations, is the tool by which these new pioneers of culture seek to bind themselves: through self-expression one finds those who hold similar beliefs, those who have similar aims.
However,
there is also an ideological factor to be considered when
we consider modes of dress or rituals of display. It can
clearly be seen that the members of this 'fashion', or as
Polhemus describes them, members of a 'style tribe', are
generally of an underclass which wishes to identify
itself. If, then, the disenfranchised and the
disheartened give up on conventional codes or symbols
they are signalling to the dominant culture, and to those
who have not yet made that step to identify themselves,
that they are out there on the edge. And more
importantly, if they are not happy to be there, as some
surely are, they are issuing a rallying call to join
them, as there is surely safety in numbers.
The way the people who operate in this cultural
space are in actuality, however, very different from the theory. The
more you look at this phenomena the more you realise that there is
no one answer, but instead we are able to perceive a set of answers
that make up a larger question. That question I
believe, is along the lines of this: we
have a culture, one which is straining at its edges. The
more diverse the world becomes, or we perceive it to
become, the more it pulls at its seams. The more we
question it and pry at its secrets the more the stitches
loosen. What we really want to know is, where do we go
from here? The answer I think is found in this new
interest in primitivism, and especially in the ways in
which we can combine it with ideas of the future.
This article previously appeared in SPIKE
LINKS
CyberAnthropology
Fascinating collection of essays about the
fusing of organic and digital
Body
Piercing
Good info and links
Gauntlet
International
The place to shop for all your
scarification needs
Body
Piercing FAQ
Everything you ever wanted to know but
were too sqeamish to ask
BME: Body Modification
Ezine
Some of the most extreme modification
available
Serpent's Tail
Publishers of The Customised Body and
numerous other transgressive titles