PART 2
Initially, as you can tell from the previous and first part of this ongoing discussion, I never intended to delve into the theoretical s side of things because I know too well of the usual direction such discussion tend to lead – deep into theoretical wonderland. Such is difficult to overcome and brought back into our usual realm of reality and straight-forward talking. Indeed, the ability to do so with ease comes only from those skilled and well-versed in the English language. Likewise, and on the otherhand, I am not one with such abilities. However, I hope something useful and simple may come out of it at the end.
Continuing from the previous part, I want to get into discussing the idea of the ‘palimpsest’ as a way to understand how elements of popular culture as a mechanism operate. There aren’t much texts (if non what-so-ever) floating around linking this idea with tattooing, but I thought since tattooing features prominently in popular images in conjunction with the body as an important site for expressing dimensions and layers of the self otherwise inaccessible to the outside world, it might be interesting to see where the mechanism of popular culture is/are most affective in the recent interest in tattooing.
Basically, anything that is understood through the idea of the palimpsest is firstly understood as multidimensional and multilayered. Using the ‘palimpsest’ as a conceptual conduit through which to better understand the multiplicity of such things indicate such things’ complex nature. So that a thing or things that are considered in this light have multiple elements or layers of meanings that are read simultaneously.
Whether I am talking about popular culture, tattooing or whatever, ‘palimpsest’ is a useful concept from which to designate and initiate my argument because it assumes from the outset that these things are complex weaves. People use a lot of metaphors in their writing mainly because a metaphor is useful to explain the complexity of what they talk about. If you think of culture, it is a very broad concept with multiple layers of history and meanings, almost as if the word ‘culture’ is merely a gateway to those meanings and history, and its pronunciation announces these meanings/histories to our attention. Hence, I use the idea of a ‘complex weave’ metaphorically to speak of these complexities and dynamics because I am too lazy to explain them everytime the idea comes to mind or enters the discussion. Tongan women weave mats together with flaxes and the process is very complicated but once its completed, the result is a single mat – yet the patterns of how these flaxes are weaved together are still evident. This is what we mean by the ‘complex weave’ as a metaphor and it’s a very useful one too.
When you talk of the image of Jesus, there are many different narratives simultaneously echoing. You know that Jesus in this case is firstly a religious image, but you can also see that Jesus’ image is used for other means as well. Jewish beliefs don’t see Jesus the same way as Christianity do. Feel-good hippies don’t embrace the entirety of Jesus’ teaching, and I would also say the same of rap musicians such as Kanye West ‘s appeal to Jesus in their fashion and music. Hence, there are different narratives appealing both negatively and positively to the iconic image of Jesus, but however they utilize this image, it is clear that there are different weaves creating and forming new and anew old narratives, bringing into contact narratives that were otherwise existing and weaving at opposite sides of history.
The way we see tattooing in its contemporary form and subforms is similar in that a certain tattoo initially associated with a style can be dissected and undone in terms of its history as such. An image of Jesus is intensely popular and such an image is tattooed to speak in and about different circumstances important and specific to that wearer’s experience. Each of these truths create a weave of narrative contributing to the ongoing building and weaving of an overarching historical narrative that demands the identification of each weave in its understanding. This demand is also its resistance to essential and deductive articulation and reasoning regarding its nature as a multilayered weave of narratives that are at certain perspective dynamically contesting existence.
Where such or similar contestations are dynamic, a palimpsest-like effect can be metaphorized, lending also to the idea that such dynamism mirrors the process of weaving.
As is with before, I hope this topic remain interesting for me so that I am able to come back with more bull..see you next time..
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