BODY MODIFICATION: IS BEAUTY SKIN DEEP?

His hand begins to coil around a motorised pen filled with jet-black ink. As the artist presses down gently onto a foot pedal to control the movement of the machine, the rhythmic sounds of the buzzzzzz, buzzzzz, buzzzzzzzzzzzzing gun fills the room. “I am just going to do it slowly so that you get used to the sensation of the needle”. I step away from the situation and turn to face another. “Ok take a nice deep breath in for me…”. A surgical needle injects quickly through a student’s nose and then…it’s all over.

Just off the outskirts of the Eastern Cape, in the small community of Grahamstown, lies the one and only tattoo parlour – Full Sail Tattoos. Current owner, Quintin Carnage along with his best friend of 8 to 9 years, Burt Viljoen, have been in the body modification business for most of their lives. “I have been doing this for over 13 years” claims Viljoen “when I was younger I did this freelance around the east coast in bigger companies but now I have settled down in Grahamstown”. Before the owner made his mark, Carnage studied Graphic Design in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and decided to pursue his career of opening up a shop closer to home. With Full Sail Tattoos being the only body modification specialisation in town, the Afrikaans-bred artists are reeling in locals and students time and time again.

However, with an incredible rise in the number of studios over the years happening worldwide, this subculture that has existed for centuries still seem to have negative connotations attached to them. To most westerners a tattoo means a skull and crossbones on a bikers’ arm, an arrangement of hearts, flowers or the words ‘MOM’ inked onto a sailors’ hand.

Those who choose to modify their bodies in ways that violate appearance norms or reject prescribed alterations, risk being defined as socially or morally inferior to those who choose not to. A popular misconception that body modification, of any kind, is that they are usually assigned to people who should be ‘avoided’ at all costs and can immediately be identified as jailbirds, gangsters or misfits. However, in today’s generation this has changed drastically.

From the moment you are born we are bombarded with images of what society wants us to look like, and with a subculture of people who have various tattoos or piercings, they are essentially taking back power from a culture that doesn’t want them to stand out or be different. In contemporary western society, limited body piercings, especially of women’s ears, for decorative purposes, seems to be a conventional norm. For example, majority of woman have one ear piercing, whereas nose, lips, nipples and other piercings of any kind are viewed with disfavour, thereby making it a form of body alteration that diverts away from the mainstream values within society.

“People still associate tattoos and piercings with thugs and prisoners but today it is so much more than that. Today it’s an art.” – customer at Full Sail Tattoos.

Throughout history and across cultures, tattoos have been used to mark status, display religious devotion, celebrate bravery and bring good fortune or proclaim love. For many young people body art is a way to make their own mark on society and express themselves. In essence they are used in much the same way in the modern world, although many contemporary tattoo wearers would add beautification of the body to the list. People are now using body modification to enhance the good parts and camouflage the bad. In fact, many people use body art to cover scars, birthmarks, stretch marks and blemishes.

“Having a tattoo changes how you see yourself. It is a way of choosing to change your body. I enjoy having a tattoo because it makes me different from other people. Tattooing is a way of expressing that difference. It is a way of saying ‘I am unique’” – Sanders, 2008.

Tattoos and piercings have been around for centuries but the most ancient and widely employed form of permanent body alteration is getting inked. The Indian tribes of Indonesia and Polynesia, where the practise has been handed down from generation to generation have provided the best anthropological evidence of tattooing. It has even been found on Egyptian mummies dating back to over 3000 years ago.

In comparison with the electric needle of today, some cultures created tattoo marks by bones and teeth of animals or hand-tapped the ink into the skin using sharpened sticks with clay-formed disks or needles to create ink stained scars embedded within their skin. Luckily for us, tattoo machines have come a long way from the tools used in the past.

Getting a tattoo is a notoriously painful process but that doesn't stop people from getting their skin inked.

However, tattoo seekers will experience varying degrees of pain when getting permanent skin markings and at times will hardly feel any discomfort at all. People often describe the process of getting tattoo similar to a bee sting or having a sunburn. Some describe it as a burning sensation or a small electrical impulse that is more of an aggravating than painful sensation.

“It’s more of a mind over matter. You get accustomed to the pain and soon it becomes a kind of obsession” said Megan Crous, a post-grad BA student from Rhodes University.

In order for a tattoo to be permanent, ink has to get into the tissue just underneath the outer layer of your skin, called the epidermis. Once ink is deposited into the second layer of skin known as the dermis, the wound scabs over and the skin heals to expose a design under the new layer. This is done by making thousands of tiny pricks in the skin by either a rotary or a coil machine

“Tattoos are so much more than just ‘art’, there is a whole technical side to it. You have to learn things that have nothing to do with art like how the machine works or how the body works when piercing and tattooing people”- stated Viljoen

The tattoo needle is actually one piece of metal that has several ends to it and can have three ends or as many as 25. Each type of needle can achieve different effects, for example; needles with fewer ends are used for outlining, while needles with more ends can be used for shading or colouring. In fact, your skin is pricked between 50 and 3000 times per minute by a tattoo needle. This is why today, tattoo parlours are extremely cautious when it comes to hygiene and are nowadays clean, sterile places.

Sterilisation of non-disposable materials are crucial to tattooing as tattoos are created by thousands of puncture marks to the skin- each of which could become infected. This is why they use surgical gloves, cover everything in cling-wrap and use an autoclave. An autoclave works like a pressure cooker but instead uses a system whereby a combination of heat, steam and pressure kills all the bacteria on the equipment that is not disposable.

The reasons why people undergo body modification vary from person to person but in a society that puts ever greater value on conformity, being tattooed is a way of declaring your difference. Many choose to do it because they feel it is a good way to mark a life-changing occasion, to identify themselves, honour loved ones, for fashion or style purposes, symbolism or to heal especially when they want to cover up deformities’ or natural scarring.

While the reasons people get tattooed vary and piercings are known to be a cosmetic fashion statement, the end result is always the same. It's permanent.