Description

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Interviews with 15 tattoo and body modification artists. Modern
Primitives examines a vivid contemporary enigma: the growing revival of
highly visual (and sometimes shocking) "primitive" body modification
practices - tattooing, multiple piercing, and scarification.

Also added is a new community section, where current practitioners have been invited to have their cards displayed. Modern Primitives
was the first book to investigate not only the "how" but also the "why"
of body modification practices. It reaches far back into history to
multiform cultural traditions to illuminate one of today's most
wide-spread youth culture visual signifiers. Heavily illustrated with
detailed, contemporary photographs, as well as archival anthropological
images and drawings of ancient tattoo traditions, Modern Primitives was ground-zero for today's body-modification trends.

About the Author

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Fakir Musafar: By the time he was twelve, Fakir had begun a systematic, personal exploration of virtually every body modification and ritual practiceknown to man--all done clandestinely until the '80s. Since the release of the 1985 film Dances Sacred andProfane (in which he did the primitive rituals of a Sun Dance and a KavandiBearing), Fakir has given numerous lectures accompanied by slide shows, "live"demonstrations of rituals and practices, and showings of Dances Sacred andProfane for which he is the booking agent. He has published a series ofpublications titled Body Play, and has been featured in several videosby Charles Gatewood and others. Fakir is now world-renowned for his workshops, performances and publishing. What follows is a condensation of conversationsconducted 1982 to 1986, and is representative of his philosophy and thought tothat date. Ed Hardy: One of the foremost practitioners of the ancient art oftattoo is Don Ed Hardy, a philosopher, historian, painter and innovator who, ona global scale, has greatly advanced the cultural credibility of his profession.As editor of Tattootime he chronicled and disseminated little-knownmythology, anthropology, history, and photo documentation about tattoos. Healso spotlights current innovative trends both in technique and content. Hisgoal: to raise artistic standards and extend the range and complexity of symbolismdepicted, while reinvestigating and preserving past traditions... Monte Cazazza: A founding theoretician of the IndustrialCulture movement, Monte Cazazza has continued producing videos (having recentlycompleted a successor to True Gore); music (with his band the AtomSmashers); media studies (Marshall McLuhan being a perennial favorite); filmscreenplays; and other project/collaborations with Psychic Television (PTV) andartist Deborah Valentine. Genesis and Paula P-Orridge were known for theirmusic and video projects under the names Psychic Television (PTV) and TheTemple of Psychic Youth (TOPY). Previously, Genesis had been a primeinnovator in the Industrial Culture Movement, producing dozens of albums aspart of the groundbreaking quartet, Throbbing Gristle, as well as releasingrecordings by SPK and others on the Industrial Records label. In the followinginterview Genesis and Paula reveal motivations and philosophical imperativesfor their tattooing, piercing and scarification explorations.