Indelible: A Tattoo Documentary
Here is my video about tattoo and its implications for literacy and education. I chose Movie Maker because I have a lot of experience with it. This is probably the most involved project I have done with that program and it is likely the last. For little projects, Movie Maker is very user friendly, but as my product grew it became quite bogged down and glitchy.
I certainly learned a lot in the process of making this film, not least of which is that these things take time. The citing of the photographs alone took me several hours. Ensuring that everything I found was in the creative commons was also a challenge. I feel that if I had more time, the scholarship would have been better. Unfortunately, as in life, one never has enough time and a balance must be struck between what one wants to do and what one can get done. At first I thought getting 8.5 minutes would be impossible and by the end I was ruthlessly cutting to get under 11.5. I hope Ernesto will not count the indulgent 50 seconds of intro against my final time calculation.
Tattoo is an incredibly rich topic that I barely scratched the surface of. There are some amazingly in-depth documentaries and some very detailed research that has been carried out. I hope my efforts have added some small perspective to the current narrative.
Find my script here and my video here.
Enjoy.
Hello Stephen,
Thanks for that very interesting video. I had never thought of tattooing as a form of text however you made some very compelling arguments. I like the idea that tattooing is almost a logographic language akin to hieroglyphs. Each tattoo (glyph) can have several meanings depending on context. I thought the video was well done and had some great visuals. The use of the interviews was well done and added a nice personal element.
Thanks for the viewing experince,
Ben
Hello Ben.
I can’t believe that I never thought of hieroglyphs. In hindsight it seems like a natural in-between of pictures and text that could have added an interesting angle to my “wild theories” at the beginning.
Thanks for watching and for the comments.
Stephen, what an intriguing topic you’ve chosen for Orality and Literacy. I appreciate yourvideo as it’s really well produced and rather inspiring. How did you achieve such a clear audio narration, if you don’t mind me asking?
It’s interesting that Perry (2012) considers literacy as something that can be behavioural (something one does) as opposed to skill-based (something one uses). The term “off the page” also makes for an interesting discussion because literacy education has long been removed from “on the page” (e.g. the muliliteracies of New London Group, 1996).
In a digitally-connected world, a message is visible on one or more screens, subject to impermanence, belongs to self and others who can access it, and is meaning made using behavioural and neurological actions (coordination of hands, mind and devices). Behaviour and skill can’t be separated in a discussion of literacy.
Exploring your work further, I read the articles by New London Group (1996) and Kirkland (2009). Being a Kiwi, I also looked up Maori tattooing and stumbled upon a picture of a supposedly historic full-body Maori tattoo at http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-08-09/getting-inked-story-behind-traditional-maori-tattoo. I wonder how many contemporary tattoos are anything like that?
Kirkland’s (2009) perspective is that tattooing is a symbolic mode of representation. He gave the case of the black American male named Derek, claiming he is “symbolically literate” because he chooses his tattoo symbols to “make meaning on his body”. It is easy to understand how Derek and also subjects interviewed in your video come to feel they belong in a family or culture through the “meanings on their bodies”. The meanings presumably are significant to others in the same family or culture.
Are we saying from the work of Perry and Kirkland, that education needs to nurture the “meaning-making on bodies”? New London Group (1996) describe the range of literacy skills necessary for youths to succeed and find work in a culturally-diverse and digitally-connected world. They report multiple literacies, of which symbolic literacy is just one, and add the importance for students to learn to be critical thinkers and problem solvers. Behavioural literacy (as Perry describes it) or symbolic literacy (as Kirkland explains it) seem to be a very small part of the “skill set” that students need to be effective in their future world of work.
The opportunity for educators seems to be more in engagement of students who might not otherwise be strong in visual literacy to become more engaged through the example or presence of tattoos born by other students. Your thoughts?
Hello Janette.
Thanks for watching and for the kind words. The audio narration was simply recorded on my smartphone and emailed to myself. I’m glad you think the quality was good but I found it a rather round about way to do it that left me with little control. At one point you can hear my fridge ice-maker causing a racket that I was too pressed for time to take out.
I think ‘off the page’ in this context simply means, ‘more than just written words’.
I agree that “Behaviour and skill can’t be separated in a discussion of literacy.” Think about the student that texts his friends a mile a minute, misspells every word, and is understood perfectly. It would be hard to call him anything less than literate.
I’m glad you read more of Derrick’s story. I found it very compelling but could not go into it because of the time restrictions on the assignment. That man’s life story is literally written on his skin.
I agree that this type of literacy may be a small part of the skill set that students need in today’s world. I needed to accentuate a point in my movie. However, I think the authors I chose do make important points about literacy. I was unable to go into the critical pedagogy aspect of this issue but there are power dynamics at work in any definition of literacy. By defining it, we allow in certain things and disallow others. Some groups are being under-represented because the necessity (or habit) of definition.
For example, I remember the story of early IQ tests being used on immigrants and minorities and coming to the conclusion that they had lower IQs then the rest of the population. From our modern perspective we see that language and culture had a profound impact on the score. I have probably gone too far on a tangent, but as educators we must ask ourselves questions about what (and whose) skills we consider important.
Thank you for your insightful comments and questions.
Although I don’t have any tattoos (yet), I have always been fascinated by them. I found your documentary extremely interesting. I lived in Japan for 2 years and tattoos are still scene as criminal by older Japanese individuals. Tattoos had to be covered at certain gyms and at the traditional baths,because criminals were tattooed and the Japanese Mafia (yakuza) are also heavily tattooed. Great job!