Skin: A Mortal Work of Art

I thought it was high time for another tattoo post here. (Who would have thought that the Thursday Thirteen post about the “13 tattoos I would like to get someday” would turn out to be the most popular post of the whole damn blog? Certainly not me when I wrote it.)

Yesterday I stumbled upon a very strange tattoo in a blog (contrariwise.org): somebody had got the word “the” tattooed on his wrist. When I saw the picture I thought this was a particularly stupid tattoo. But then I saw that this guy, or rather his tattoo, is part of a work of art by artist Shelley Jackson.

Having never heard of her before, naturally I checked out her website to find out what it is all about. Turns out she wrote a story and is looking for 2095 volunteers to each get one word of this story tattooed on their bodies. The text will be published nowhere else, and only the volunteers who actually get the tattoo, will be mailed the full story. As if that wasn’t an imposing enough idea, the participants are not even able to choose “their” word. To quote from the guidelines of the project:

You will receive a letter from the author specifying the word you are assigned.

NB: The words will be passed out in strict order. A participant who does not want the word s/he is given may withdraw from the project altogether, but will not be allowed to apply for another word in hopes of getting a “better” one.
The words have been chosen for the purposes of the story, not for their suitability as decorations. Participants must be prepared for the possibility that the word they receive, once tattooed on their body, will suggest meanings unintended by the author and/or bearer.
Some words will come with a period, comma or other punctuation mark attached. For example, you might receive as your word something resembling one of the following:

(if
example,
following:
all.
“I

One would think it would be hard to find people willing to participate in such a project, but apparently there are some out there. The project was started in August 2003 and as of now, according to the status page, the numbers are quite impressive:

Number of volunteers provisionally accepted to date: approx. 1875 of 2095

Words mailed out: 1422

Words inked: approx. 510

Especially nice I found the last paragraph of the guidelines:

From this time on, participants will be known as “words”. They are not understood as carriers or agents of the words they bear, but as their embodiments. As a result, injuries to the printed text, such as dermabrasion, laser surgery, tattoo cover work or the loss of body parts, will not be considered to alter the work. Only the death of words effaces them from the text. As words die the story will change; when the last word dies the story will also have died. The author will make every effort to attend the funerals of her words.

Would you like to be a word?

As with all art one can ask oneself if this is a spectacularly silly idea, or a fantastic one. Personally, I tend to the second opinion meanwhile. I’m not quite ready to actually try to be a part of this project yet, but the thought is certainly intriguing. Especially in light of the fact that this mysterious story will only be known to the participants of the whole thing. And I am nothing if not curious. I will keep track of the progress the project makes, who knows maybe I will participate one day. Certainly looks like I will have a few years time yet to make up my mind.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Can you fuckin’ believe that?
I never really understood why people would get huffy about seeing somebody else having the same tattoo. Now I do.
Except, luckily, it is not exactly the same as my dragon tat, because my tattoo artist Marcus insisted on customizing the design I found in one of his books. Which was exactly the one up there on the photo. Now thanks to him my dragon is still recognizably based on this design, but it looks way better than this straggly thing up there.
And I am suddenly so glad I never put up a picture of my tattoos anywhere on the web.