Cultural Modifications of the Body

This article examines tattooing as an ancient and contemporary form of body inscription and modification. It frames the
popularity of tattooing in the Western World in relation to other modern body modifications and within the landscape of
consumer culture. Showing parallels between the motivations and meanings of contemporary tattoo practices, a historical
overview of tattoos in premodern and non-Western cultures is presented. The divergent ways in which scholars have
approached tattooing is examined, juxtaposing research in the behavioral sciences that links tattoos to deviant and antisocial
behaviors with ethnographic and social–scientific studies that place tattoos within cultural, symbolic, esthetic, and prosocial
frameworks.

El presente trabajo es el resultado de una investigación acerca de la práctica y la estética del tatuaje. Consiste en un análisis de argumentos, motivaciones e intereses con respecto al tatuaje, presentados por un grupo de individuos tatuados y por un grupo de tatuadores, en Chile. En su sección introductoria, analiza el tatuaje desde una perspectiva histórica. En su desarrollo, se concentra en la reflexión acerca de las respuestas obtenidas en el estudio de campo. En su parte final, esboza conclusiones emanadas del análisis efectuado y presenta una interesante entrevista con un tatuador de renombre internacional.

This is a revision of the previous essay, "If the Shoe Fits: Women Defining Personal and Social Identity by Means of Wearing Permanent Metal Adornments from the Early to Middle European Bronze Age".
Our appearance matters, it is as simple as that. Why our appearance matters and what it can signify is rooted within our diverse cultures. We often dress according to what our specific cultures dictate or encourage. Therefore, through our dressing traditions, we have the ability to establish our personal identity as belonging to a specific social category of which the surrounding society would be able to comprehend, as long as they consider themselves to be of the same or similar culture. This essay will focus on permanent metal adornments that some women wore during the Early to Middle European Bronze Age. Could wearing such permanent metal adornments be symbolic of these women’s personally and socially perceived identity within their community and how could such a practice be continuously reinforced across several generations? To discover this, I will predominately use the research on Bronze Age female identity from the archaeologist, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen. I will also briefly cross-examine these ancient practices with the women from one unique modern day culture, whom much of the Westernized world perceives as taboo.

Our appearance matters, it is as simple as that. Why our appearance matters and what it can signify is rooted within our diverse cultures. We often dress according to what our specific cultures dictate or encourage. Therefore, through our dressing traditions, we have the ability to establish our personal identity as belonging to a specific social category of which the surrounding society would be able to comprehend, as long as they consider themselves to be of the same or similar culture. This essay will focus on permanent metal adornments that some women wore during the Early to Middle European Bronze Age. It will be established that such adornments would have likely been continuously part of their personally and socially perceived identity within the community. I will also briefly cross-examine such ancient practices with that of one unique modern day culture, whom much of the Westernized world perceives as taboo.

Melentie Pandilovski curates The Institute of Fungus by Ian Haig at the Riddoch Art Gallery in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Technology and mediated realities are having an impact on our physical bodies. We are confronted by the messy and irrational reality of our bodies as the rational world technology and digital screens all around us remind us of who and what we truly are: meat bodies. With over 14 different video works, sculptural pieces and real time video, The Institute of Fungus gives an overview of Ian Haig’s intensely visceral and body centric art practice. With works exploring individual themes of selfie culture, violent video games, re-animated organs, interior bodies, hyper visceral simulation and the mutating conditions of the body all with the overriding theme of the confrontation of the body through technology. The exhibition offers new ways of considering what the body is in relationship to the contemporary media landscape.

Culturally modified teeth are one of the few personal identity markers to survive into the archaeological record, have modern comparatives, and exist as a global deep-time behaviour. Typology and description, however, have suffered from a multitude of, often misinterpreted, classification systems usually restricted to specialized geographical areas and local publication. With the high variation of designs, a lack of consistent codified definitions makes cohesive discussion frustratingly difficult: highlighting that a new, clear global classification system is overdue. Expanding on the frequently-used works of Romero (1958-1986), a renewed classification model is presented, supplying continuity between past and future work. It provides an integrated system synthesizing previously temporally and spatially scattered examples, located via the literature and online museum collections. Pursuing a logical structure, modifications are integrated by more precise, defined descriptions and clear drawings. Usability and successfulness were assessed via both standardized participant evaluations and examples held at the Natural History Museum, London; results adjusted and improved the classification. This classification system provides a functional tool for global comparisons, supplying a framework to discuss designs in clear, unified codes rather than confusing or imprecise descriptions while also removing the necessity to access scattered, rarely reprinted classifications.