Embracing female tattoo culture
It’s time to pull out those fluffy jumpers, sip on pumpkin spiced lattes and fall in love with the sound of crisp leaves crunching under foot. What better way to celebrate the new season than a collection of some of our favourite autumn inspired tattoos?
Thursday 18 October 2018,
7.30pm – 10pm (doors 7pm)
Science and Industry Museum
Liverpool Road, Castlefield
Manchester M3 4FP
You Have Been Upgraded, a live conference responding to theme of Future Bodies. Looking at how we choose to enhance our sensory and physical selves, with talks, interactions and performances that share a positive open approach to considering body enhancement. The curators have included tattoo in this discussion programme, and you can get involved with this traditional form of human enhancement.
Do you want to be part of the event?
Unlimited Theatre is looking for a model to be tattooed live as the headline performance at You Have Been Upgraded. One applicant will be selected to receive a free tattoo by Rebecca De Cadorette, a blackwork tattoo artist and former biologist at the University of Manchester with a particular interest in human evolution and futurology. Working out of her studio in Stretford, Manchester, ‘DC’ uses her backgrounds in research, science and art to design future bodies and ritual tattoo to transform the wearer beyond the ‘normal’. This piece will be fitted to suit the body of the successful applicant: fully custom, the client will receive a blackwork, hand span sized original design.
Unlimited Theatre invites Manchester or North West based sci-art enthusiasts to apply for a free tattoo here. (application is open for longer for blog readers).
The curators would like to hear from applicants who:
– Have an interest in transhumanism
– Are passionate about science and art
– Are enthusiastic about sharing their experience with press and social media
– Are over 18 years old
– Are based in Manchester or the North West of England
– Are willing to submit to the artists’s final say on the look of the design
– Are available to participate in You Have Been Upgraded on October 18th in Manchester
– Are available to attend two sessions at a Long Time Dead Tattoo Studio during the months of September-October.
Tattooist Rebecca De Cadorette speaking on the power of tattoos:
Tattoo is ancient as well as transhuman. visual and honest – it’s the blood magic of self ownership. Building our future selves. Post-trauma. Post-joy. Transformative literally, brave because it is painful, committed because it is permanent and joyful because it is honest. Determinism and being the master of your fate for whatever small snippet of time and however many square inches of matter you are give, and knowing that all of this can be filled with choices made, experiments in self run, skins shed and cast aside. Who am I – who do I want to be and how will I become. How you do anything is how you do everything – so choose. People have been choosing to mark and alter their bodies with ink for thousands of years, and it’s a process that transforms. Adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine are the chemistry of our transformation. There’s some old fashioned alchemy of having that tattoo with the right person, at the right time for the right reasons is very powerful. And no, it’s not all that permanent,we all die, we are all mortal and it’s all going in the bin sooner or later. How you do anything is how you do everything. This is the philosophy of Long Time Dead. Get mortal.
Sept 15th to Oct 7th, 2018
MF Gallery: 213 Bond St. Brooklyn, New York
(Opening Party Saturday September 15th, 7-10pm
)
Curated by Elzia Iannaccone Gezlev and Martina Secondo Russo
The event was born as a platform to show the diversity of art in the feminine universe of professional tattooing. The tattoo scene has been historically a male dominated playground, but in the last 30 years or so, the number of women in the tattooing industry has grown exponentially and like never before. Tattooing itself has gone from being a subculture practice to a widespread cultural/social phenomenon. As the number of people getting tattooed has grown, so has the massive presence of many talented women choosing tattooing as their professional career and their creative voice!
Participating artists:
Cloditta, Kate Collins, Lara Scotton, Katya Krasnova, Elvia Guadian, Pat Sinatra, Virginia Elwood, Miss Juliet, Danielle Rose, Zoe Bean, Gill Gold, Anna Sandberg, Electric Martina, Debra Yarian, Kari Barba, Totemica, Denise de la Cerda, Sara Mae, Dorothy Lyczek, Jen Carmean, Itoyo, Olivia Olivier, Ol Ash, Cindy Stroemple
, Gaia Leone, Johanna Elvira
, Sara Purr, Karen Glass
, Drew Linden
, Valeria Marinaci, Holly Ellis
, Shannon Marie
, Brittany Bauza
, Claudia Ducalia
, Inma Alted
, Stina Sardinha
, Lady Bonsai
, Emma Griffiths
, Krista Cheri
, Sara Antoinette Martin
, Linn Aasne
, Anna Melo
, Magie Serpica
, Rose Whittaker
, Dawn Cooke
, Jemma Jones, Minka Sicklinger, Anem Illus, Erin Lavinia, Federica Ferrera, Margaux Ulrich, Jackie Dunn Smith, Blair Maxine Hewitt, Erica Flannes, Katie Gray, Holly Ashby, Miss Elvia and Martina Secondo Russo.
Art by Gaia Leone
Art by Dawn Cooke
Art by Totemica
Art by Katie Gray
Berlin based, artist, photographer and designer Marius Sperlich creates macro-style photography that is provocative in the way that it aims to question social norms and break beauty standards…
Throughout our lives, our interactions with different people, environments and experiences are what makes us who we are. Now, imagine if these inputs left a mark on the surface of the skin. That’s what tattoos are: reminders of what made you who you are. With the Body of Reverbs (B.O.R), I’m emphasising those moments.
These are the words of Michele Servadio, a multi-disciplinary artist based in London and the creator of the Body of Reverbs (B.O.R), a contemporary ritual that uses the tattoo machine as a musical instrument, translating the vibrations of the needle on skin into a sound. Performed in front of a crowd, the tattoo itself is abstract and spontaneous. This is because it is the experience, the connection between body, sound and space that is central, not the result.
B.O.R was born out of the necessity to bring tattooing back to its archaic identity, at a time when it has become a mass consumed product. “The aim was to create a total art practice with tattooing at its centre”, explains Servadio.
Since its birth in 2014, B.O.R has launched New Rituals for Contemporary Bodies LP+ Book, featuring recordings of two performances from 2016 with Years of Denial and Hexn. The record will be launched on 7 September during GESTURES01, an evening of alternative performance art in The Old Baths, Hackney Wick and featuring guests such as Dahc Dermur VIII (Chadd Curry), Nick Tee, Matteo Vallicelli and Olivier de Sagazan. In anticipation of the launch, Mele Couvreur, a social development practitioner based in London, with a passion for art and ink, spoke briefly with Michele about the event, his views on art and tattooing and his desire to merge them both.
The line-up of GESTURES01 is pretty impressive and includes a diverse mix of artists. Yet, all of them have something in common: the body and its transformation. Can you tell us a bit more about what’s behind that?
There isn’t really a specific message, it’s more about raising questions about the body, about identity, about personality, and who you can be. The event is intended as a celebration of the body, personality and subjectivity in a time of constant mutation.
That’s why we have this sort of line-up: from Olivier de Sagazan and his performance on stage, B.O.R. and body modification, to Chad who is a living product of this constant mutation. I see a strong connection between Olivier and Chad: We will start with Sagazan, who mutates his appearance with paint and clay, in the context of a stage, and in the span of a performance. Then we end up with Chad, who changes his appearance daily, but in the span of a life time.
I would say GESTURES01 is a celebration of changes.
GESTURES01 puts tattooing next to other art forms such as painting, sculpture etc. Do you think this will happen more in the future and that tattooing in art will become more prominent? Yes, for sure. Tattoo is developing in unexpected ways. More and more people are coming into the culture from very different backgrounds. You can have a conceptual artist who starts tattooing just because he/she has a certain idea he wants to express. Or a graphic designer, a painter, a sculptor, a chef…
What is coming out of the tattoo world right now is coming from different realities. To me this is extremely interesting. It shows that there are different ways to deal with the body, many different ways to mark your body, and many reasons why you would do it. It’s bringing tattooing out from shops and into the galleries, venues, private spaces, and rural areas.
This is, to an extent, how we knew tattooing before, before the commercialisation. It brings tattooing back to what it once was. So I guess, putting tattooing next to painting and sculpture, is sort of making a little statement.
What are the main differences for you between art and tattooing Tattooing is dealing with the most beautiful thing there is: the human body. You are creating something on a human body that will live only a little, considering the lifetime of an art work.
When you create a work of art, you probably also do it for different reasons. Art has always been a way to talk about the problem of our existence. Art is very religious in that way. It talks about our existence, our society and our subjectivity, and what is tattooing, if not that? It is a direct act from our subjectivity through our body. Tattoos are feedback directly on our society. I think in the end we are talking about the same things. That’s why I want to unify those things.
What I like about art is that it is very transversal. I like printmaking, photography. I like experimenting in a dark room with chemicals. I like painting and life drawing. Life drawing is one of my favourite things.
That’s academic in a way. It’s extremely classic. It is a drawing on paper and it is one of the most beautiful things. It is so simple and such a powerful tool of research. When you draw something on a piece paper, you are drawing something that you copy, but the way in which you copy that thing, is according to the way you perceive the world. So you are showing the world your perspective. As simple as that you can say plenty of things. When you apply this on a body, you sort of closing that circle I like to think.
Why do you want to bring them together? I think it is a duty of an artist, of a young artist, to fill the gap when there is a lack of something in the culture that we live in. I perceived, and felt, a lack of spirituality in tattooing for example. I felt this gap between art and tattooing. Or the struggle of trying to understand tattoo, not just as a product, but as something deeper than that, as something non- professional. Art is not professional. That doesn’t exist, a professional artist. Nor does a professional tattooer, but I don’t want to go too far…
Sticking to art, if you see what is lacking, then I believe it is your duty to fill that gap. To me, there is a big gap between art and tattooing, and I want to fill that gap and bring the two together. That is why I love tattooing the same subject on someone, and then doing a painting or a print of the same subject. They are all part of the same universe. But one is made to live on someone’s body, and one is made to live on paper and live forever.
B.O.R is that total art concept where you bring everything together. In a way, I’m trying to fill that gap by bringing tattooing back to its own spirituality. That is why we are connecting it with the power of sound, trance and pain.
Will there be a GESTURES02? I’d love to do that, at least once a year. I’m not an organizer, but I’d love to do it. I love the struggle. If I have the chance, yes, I’d totally do it.