Image above found here.
i clearly haven't been paying much attention.
In my my map tattoos post from April of 2006, I wrote that "Putting the map onto you, far from removing your control of its contents, actually intensifies your control of the map's contents by personalizing them, making them not just a part of your claim of identity, but an actual part of your body." Then I asked, if that was the case then why weren't there more map tattoos out there.
The answer is: there are.
First of all, the tattoo post was hands down this blog's most popular post evarrr, featuring as it did a colored map of the world on a model's ass ... clearly not a tattoo, but meant to look like one. For a while the photo of the world map on the woman's ass was turning up on the second page of google image search. There was a point, when my blog went into remission, that I was getting a thousand hits a day just from people google-image-searching "tattoos."
I hadn't know people were so hungry for tattoo ideas. I'm glad--for the thousandth time--that I don't have one.
Since then, folks have been sending me pointers--both by email and in comments--to their own map tattoos and I haven't even been noticing all that much. But clearly it's time to update, and post some of these images. And maybe look again at the analysis.
So this one, to the left, is the first one I was sent, about a year ago, by email. Not to be mean, but I wouldn't have known it was a map if the emailer hadn't told me. She also didn't specify what the map was of, just that she planned to wrap another map around it.
I hope she's well on her way to finding the right map tattoo, and hope that some of the images below will give her inspiration.
This one is via Strange Maps. The woman depicted, Britta Oelschlaeger, is "a fan of [her hometown of] Hannover’s football team and ... completely crazy about maps.”
In comments, Desiree "got this cool map tattoo done by Jim at River of Ink in Appleton." It's on her back. Apparently, her lower back. It's more old school than the butt tattoos, but then those probably aren't real tattoos.
Nick Benson of ottergoose.net got this done on vacation in Hawai'i
I've now got the 8 primary islands of Hawaii on display for anyone who lifts of my sleeve**. The three islands I've been to are shaded red. Assuming that I'll be back to visit the remaining islands (and need to get more of the islands filled in), I asked the artist which shade of red he used. The answer? Monthly red. How classy... at least it's easy to remember.
Clearly whoever named that color has never seen anyone's "monthlies."
Yoni, who is apparently more of the lingam sort, has the whole world on his forearm.
So much for the commenters. My previously rather disappointing google search for "map tattoo" turned up a much richer store this time, including the new ass map tattoo at the top of this post (which also appears to be fake. And what is it with ass tattoos on women?). Other treasures:
From the URL at the top of the guy's back, this appears to be a fake put together by a site specifically created to mashup funky tattoo images. But I could be wrong. If you have the time/inclination to dig, please correct me in comments.
Google image search picked up this much cooler, but equally fake looking, underground map here. Also no info.
Nebraska's Creighton University has a website where they posted a spread of students with tattoos. The very cool, seemingly small one above is from
Kevin Miles,
Arts & Sciences seniorHow many tattoos?
A solid map of the world on the upper inside of his right forearm.
A compass and sun with the words “Adventure” and “Explore”.
Why get tattoos?
Had both tattoos done while in Thailand with his roommate two years ago. He loves to travel and wants to join the Peace Corps when he graduates.
Do people know you have tattoos?
Most people do since they are in pretty visible spots
Apparently, Napoleon's Australia pirate map tattoo sort of shows the extent of our trip. Whatever that means. This is creepily Pillow Bookish, in its visual invitation to peel it off when the wearer is dead.
And here's a more patriotic map of Australia.
Alejandro uses the three dimensional nature of his body (there's a back and a side!) to depict the world, in shiny shininess. If the shape weren't so familiar, it might look like a medical photo of a skin disease. (see also Kevin Miles.)
Tatiana's political map of Brazil is sexier, I think, and not because she's wearing a bikini over it.
But I think the pièce de résistance is this article about Brangelina, which tells us that not only does Ange have "over a dozen tattoos, including the
geographical co-ordinates for all four of her children" (begging one to ask: geographic coordinates for what? Where they were born? Where they were
jacked adopted from? Where they are right this second, Mrs. Weasley-style?) but this tattoo, depicted to the left, on Brad's broadening flank, is supposedly a diagram of the levees of New Orleans. The article sez:
Brad's unusual back tattoo comprises groupings of horizontal black lines, with bizarre boxed shapings below.
The strangest combination appears to be inspired by a map of the levees in New Orleans, which was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when the systems failed.
More than 1,800 people died in the storm and during the rescue debacle which followed, mostly the poor, sick and disadvantaged. Costing around $81billion, it was also the costliest disaster in U.S. history.
Since Hurricane Katrina, Brad and Angelina have bought a home in the Louisiana city and the actor has been heavily involved in local building projects.
So, what about map tattoos and identity? Well, let's mention a few really obvious things first. Tattoos are by now pretty much universally accepted in the industrialized West, except in certain subcultures. So de rigueur are they, in fact, that the internet has helpfully provided us with multiple tattoo design sites and blogs (many of which provided the tattoo photos above) designed specifically to help people find tattoos they haven't already seen on everyone and their little brother.
Second: maps and mapping are really, really popular at the mo'. I'm not going to go into this right now. I'm planning a post on it later, when I've had the time to read some more of the books that have come out recently about mapping 'n' stuff. But it is; it's in the air, mapping. Third: in the past two years, Web 2.0 has gone from an industry catchphrase to an embarrassing anachronism, and everyone knows how to post pictures online now. So the above two obvious things might mean that we have a sudden spate of map tattoos, but it also might be that the people with map tattoos are just posting them now, where they weren't before.
And some of these, like the subway maps, which might be fake anyway, or the outline world maps, seem to have been chosen simply because they look cool ... or are cool, conceptually.
But then there are the travelers' tattoos, like the one of Hawai'i, or Australia, or the one of China in the original post, where the tattoo is a marker of the place one has been to. It's a way of claiming possession of the places you've been, a possession similar to Henry VIII's brother Arthur's boast the morning after his wedding night with Catherine of Aragon: "I've been to Spain." That's what the reddening of the Hawai'ian islands the traveler has been to reminds me of: hymen blood, not monthly. Interesting that the travelers' tattoos are all on men. The Hawai'i tattooed guy's girlfriend wife got a tattoo with a similar intent on the same trip ... of Hawai'ian flowers.
The student's blacked-in world map is explained by his wanting to travel and join the Peace Corps. In this case, the map is a promise made to himself, to possess the world through travel. There's an added element here, embodied in the Peace Corps ideal, of the pending "citizen of the world," or the nascent member of the "international community," that group of geographically and nationally unmoored "experts" whose job is to make one part of the world intelligible to the other, but not necessarily vice versa. (I won't go into it now, but having grown up on the fringes of the "international community," I have isshooz.)
So it's all the more interesting to analyze Brangelina's tattoos about their children. Brad apparently has a tattoo of a blessing to celebrate Maddox's existence: not the child's name, not his birthdate or symbolic words or numbers, but a Buddhist blessing in Sanskrit. Pitt saves the possessive tattooing of names and dates for Ange alone, with a tat of her birthdate in Khmer. The womb raider, on the other hand---already widely reviled for laying claim to countries and cultures by adopting their children---doubles this notion back on itself, by making geographical coordinates symbolize her children (rather than something more individual, like a name or a birthdate), and then laying claim to the whole---nations, cultures, geographical place, and children---by tattooing these coordinates on her body.
And the "New Orleans" tat seems to be a fairly benign identity tattoo, a symbol trailing behind the Jolie-Pitts' purchase of a NOLA house. If it's actually what the media says it is, it's a mild protest of a historical wrong; turning New Orleans and its levees into a metonym for the Katrina disaster, and associating Pitt with both the protest, and the amelioration efforts. It's not him taking over a location to associate himself with it, it's him taking over a metonym to mark himself a good guy.
There's more to say about all of this, but I'm tapped for now. Maybe I'll check in on map tattoos again.
ETA:
This map tattoo by a cartographer of the US interstate system. Tip from comments below.
Wow some of those are unreal. Wonder what makes someone want to do something like that... what meaning is behind it, etc...
Those coords that Angelina Jolie have on her arm are cool though... something that I'd consider for myself.
Posted by: GeoHunt.ca | Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 06:30 PM
here is mine
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatguyinalittlecoat/1880738550/
i'm a cartographer, its the US interstate system (not done yet!)
Posted by: Justin | Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 06:37 PM
I'm the owner of the "Hawaiian Hymen." Your analysis, while interesting, overlooks the fact that I got my degree in geography, enjoy making maps, have a lifelong fondness of traveling, and absolutely love Hawaii. The red color is used because it's my mother's favorite color, and she organized our first family trip to Hawaii. I could have gotten a depiction of some indigenous Hawaiian species, but it wouldn't have meant as much to me.
I should also mention that it was my wife (again with the possession), not girlfriend, who got the flower tattoo.
Posted by: Nick Benson | Monday, September 15, 2008 at 02:48 PM
thanks for the correction, nick!
Posted by: claire | Monday, September 15, 2008 at 05:24 PM
Wow! Great pieces. I would have never thought about using a map as tattoo art.
Posted by: Omar | Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 05:40 AM
I like the world map in the top pic. Checking out central Africa could be quite interesting!! Great post BTW.
Posted by: Peter Towler | Friday, July 31, 2009 at 06:04 AM
Wow - you really have found agreat collection of map tattoos here! :-D
Posted by: Tattoo Kits | Saturday, September 05, 2009 at 11:30 AM
I have a map of Australia tattoo as well - however I have the southern cross flag not the Aussie flag with the Union jack in mine
Posted by: Tattoo Kits | Monday, September 14, 2009 at 05:10 AM
Collection of jerks! LOL
Posted by: coso | Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 07:14 AM
This is by far the best one. http://matte0.altervista.org/immagini/asshole.jpeg
Posted by: Brandon | Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Real or not, the subway map is Washington, DC.
Posted by: John | Monday, February 15, 2010 at 07:28 PM
As a traveller, I love maps and whatever reminds me of travelling. I lived in five different countries and they were all meaningful to me, so I payed hommage to them by tattooing the geographical coordinates of the cities where I lived (and loved!).
Posted by: Mari | Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 08:09 PM
I think this type of thing is catching on especially among the college crowd. I work in a college town and see more and more tattoos of our state with a star positioned within the border to identify our location. These seem rather bland in comparison to some of the artwork shown above.
Posted by: tattoo me now | Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 01:57 PM
where is hawaii in the world map on Kevin Miles, Arts & Sciences senior tattoo?
Posted by: tom | Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 08:06 PM
Heres my map tattoo :-)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=633943686623615&set=a.536414269709891.122556.100000239674250&type=1&theater
The world is extraordinary and that's why I got mine!
Posted by: Hale | Tuesday, August 06, 2013 at 09:11 AM