The Future of Tattoos

this semi permanent way. Indeed, and we even talked about some of the more unusual tattooing practices, like having your medical condition tattooed on you. Um. We didn't talk about scleral tattooing. We did not, yeah, which is tattooing the whites of your eyes. Yeah, which is doable, not necessarily advised, but it is possible, just to show you just how

how extreme your tattooing can go. Uh And and indeed, uh we also didn't get into some of the ways that individuals augment their tattoos, uh, such as by adding additional implants. We were looking at an example, uh of an individual who gave breast implants to his tattoo back in two thousand seven. Um, yeah, on his on his leg to be specific, mermaid. Yeah, yeah, or it was I can't tell when the picture was a mermaid or possibly just a cowgirl. Can I see again? Oh, you're right,

it as a cowgirl. I don't know why I thought that was a mermaid with like a cowboy hat. Well, you know, there are a lot of mermaid tattoos, and essentially it's a mermaid tattoo. It's very much in that same genre. But yeah, he apparently decided it needs implants and uh apparently there's not a lot of specifics on what he used, but uh, Canadian body art enthusiast Lane Jensen had the implants done too in hants the chest

of this particular emblem. So our topographical tattoo, if you will. Yeah. Now, we bring all of this up because as long as there have been humans with access to a needle in some dye, there have been tattoos. So the question now becomes what are some of the more cutting edge technologies available and what will the future hold, because in general, we're gonna keep getting them for the same reasons we thought we've always gotten tattoos. We want to express ourselves

in darker areas. We want to dehumanize people. Hopefully we won't go as much to that route in the future, but who knows. Uh. We want to treat the illness illnesses so somehow improve the functioning of our bodies. And uh we see all of these energies in our in our future and emerging. Uh tattooing technology. Now, the maker

movement has a foothold in tattoo technology. Parish design studio Appropriate Audiences combined a three D printer with a tattoo with needle to form an automated tattoo printer that can create tattoos. They adapted software produced by something or by a company called Autodesk to turn tattoo designs into digital files that can be downloaded to the machine. And then the user inserts his or her limb into the printer

and the needle draws the design into their skin. Yeah, and uh, apparently the needle replaces the part of the printer that would usually extrude melted plastic to make objects interesting. I mean, it's very much in keeping with the origins of the tattoo gun itself, which was based on a

believe Edison's model for the electric pencil type device. Yeah, the electric pen um And this is I mean, this is fairly nuanced for just being a hacked three D printer, because what they did is they made some bespoke three D printed parts to work with it, and then they have a sensor that reads the surface of the skin of the user, meaning that the needle can respond to changes in skin texture and the dimensions of the limb.

So it makes me think, you know, who knows, this could be more of a d I O Y endeavor in the future with three D printers. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Oh, I'm just looking beyond do it yourself. And as I say this, I certainly hope that the human tattoo artist never goes away, because I feel like it's a vital part. You know, it's the ritual, that's the thing, and you need. You don't want a machine, you want a high priest.

It's taking care of your your semi religious ritual of pain and so that human touch. But maybe we little reach the top of the day when instead of a cigarette machine in the back of your local bar, there's a tattoo machine. And that would be the perfect place for it. You just go back there and you suddenly have an idea. Yes, I want the name of this individual I just met put into my skin. Yes I want that football team on my shin, and you just stick your arm or leg or what have you into

the machine. It clamps down and then just prints that sucker right into your skin. Okay. The problem with that is that you would have a bunch of sort of well would you call like clip art designs available, So that will any tattoo place, So you're gonna have a lot of clip art available, although some tattoo artists will create their own designs, right, so it's not necessarily from the clip art available. So what I'm saying is that I think that the artistry there could be lost in

a three D machine. Oh oh indeed, I mean unless you you're really looking far into the future and you're looking at at the possibilities of artificial intelligence being a part of that machine. Oh yeah, And if you want to look more into that, you should check out our episode on I think we titled it can Machines Be Creative? Yes, I will make sure to include a link to that podcast episode on the landing page for this episode at

stuff to Blow your mind dot com. Now, as we discussed this, we're gonna inevitably hit on ideas that really resonate with sci fi fans out there. And I was trying to think of some really great examples of science fiction tattoos, and two came to mind. First, Uh, dr Amy Wong from Futurama, because she has several tattoos um

that come up throughout the course of the show. But a particularly note, there's there's one episode where she has this, uh, really obscene tattoo, but we can't see it because our TVs in the past aka the current the modern age. Uh, we we don't have high enough deaf to see what's going on in this obscene tattoo. And uh and then there there seemed to be at least four talking tattoos that pop up throughout the course of the show, including a devil that on her shoulder that that says also

sorts of obnoxious things. But it's essentially an animated tattoo, which actually kind of exists kind of in a kind of very sketchy sense. But but yeah, it's certainly something that is already on the minds of tattoo enthusiasts and uh and and and anyone that's looking into the future is like, what what else can we do with the tattooing medium? What can we do with our current and emerging technology to change the shape of what it does?

Is um. Another example that comes to mind in Ian M. Bank's Surface Detail, which is one of his culture novels, which I've talked about those before, wonderful books. UM. In that particular book, there's a character who's covered with congenitally administered tattoos uh and it had there's a kind of a complex plot with her where she's essentially born into a kind of an indentured service kind of environment, and so she's kind of like tattooed at a genetic level

to show that she property. But yeah, in the book, she eventually acquires this uh, this kind of nanotechnology uh thin layer that covers her body and it serves as like a space suit, but it also allows sort of like customized animated tattoos to pop up. Now it's you know, it's not under the skin, so it's not technically a tattoo, but it's very much in the in the spirit of augmenting your body with with high technology, which which kind of brings us back to now out and what we

can do in terms of animated tattoos. In two thousand eleven, a Paris based tattoo artist who goes by the name of Carl K A R L like all initials, uh ink at QR code on a willing participant named Marco. I think you just we should say willing um. And what happens is that QR code When you put an iPhone over it, the phone plays an animated tattoo design of a top head hatted kind of character. Yeah, with

a thin, long mustache, almost like the Monopoly dude. Yeah. Yeah, And that's kind of a rudimentary idea of what an animated tattoo can be, because we think animated tattoo, that's like independently animated. But no, it has to interact with technology. Yeah, and that's that's really the I think the cool part about this particular tattoo is that it is a tattoo that interacts with technology. And we'll discuss some more examples of that as we move forward. Now, I would do

want to point out that how stuff works. Do us have an article how animated tattoos? Work. There'll there will be a link to that on the landing page for this episode. But that one deals with a particular individual, uh, a pair of individuals, J. Shawn Singer and carl A. Pinter who back in two thousand six, we're working with the idea of a programmable subcutaneous visible implant, which is essentially an l c D under the skin like sin. Yeah, so,

and there's like a control model power supply. The article goes into more depth about how this supposedly worked. Uh, but it's not something you can get at your local tattoo parliament, and it's very much uh some do it

yourself cybernetic tinkering in the flesh. Um, it's interesting. It's not completely out of keeping with the idea of the tattoo, but it's uh, it's certainly a very crude example of where we may be going in the future and thinks novel, right, Yeah, Like it's basically the do it yourself two thousand six version of that under the skin. Now. Um, the next

example we're gonna bring up is based in biometric recognition. Okay, and we know what that is, right, That's been around for a while, this idea that you can plug information in you can identify people based on physical characteristics like fingerprints, the iris of an eye, or a face. Facebook facial recognition uses something similar and attempt to try to semi automate their photo tagging system. But we've got an upgrade to that, and it comes by way of Aneil Jane

at Michigan State University, professor of computers. Yeah, back in two thousand he created an automatic image retrieval system whereby law enforcement agencies would be able to unmatch scars, marks, and of course tattoos to identify suspects and victims. H And as if you've ever seen a cop show, you know that like tattoos always come up. You know, are there any tattoos or just singuishing marks, right, that's always

a key part of it and find somebody. So it makes sense that you'd want to uh incorporate that into your biometric information. And so this is the idea behind tattoo i D. And this identification tool would be then be made available to law enforcement, government, military agencies. And in fact, in two thousand ten, Michigan State University licensed tattoo i D technology to morphoe track the world's quote

unquote top provider of biometric and identity management systems. So we see this not just as a sort of cutting edge technology, but a technology that's being adopted on a wide scale. Yeah, I mean it makes perfect sense. Right now, you have an individual with the distinguishing marked, distinguishing tattoo, you want that to be a part of your record keeping. So yeah, you want to bump that up against the database,

right and see what comes out. And it turns out that it determines the suspect's identity with a really high accuracy rate. And while you know this identifying mark, whether it be a scar or tattoo, can't uniquely identify a person, that can help authorities narrow down the list of potential identities, and it can indicate membership in a gang, social and

religious group, or a military unit. Of course, this wouldn't stop savvy criminals with means, right because even in a d I Y since we've seen criminals obscure their fingerprints by slicing them off, so obviously tattoo removal or you know, even covering up would change those marks are identifying marks. Yeah, you just change the tattoo every time you commit a crime, like the first time it's a rabbit, the second time

it's a rabbit on a donkey. Then it's jousting with a with a windmill or something, you know, and just add some new element to it, and just and just keep the the tattoo I D system ever, you know, on its on its feet, trying to catch up with you. I hope interpoll isn't listening, right, because that's sort of your m O. Right, you just revealed it to the world.

I know now they know, now they know. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we will discuss more about the future in near future of crazy high tech tattooks. We're back in this uh this next entry. I guess we could say that the nineties rave scene helped to spawn it. Oh yeah, yeah, because you're if you're going to a rave of it's, particularly in the nineties, you know, what are you gonna encounter. You're gonna go into a room with some some hopefully

really awesome electronic music going on, really fierce. Yeah, it's it's likely going to be dark, except with some crazy lighting something glow sticks, glow sticks, perhaps some ultra violet lighting going on as well, and that ultraviolet light will be illuminating certain colors, certain tones, and really changing the the visual world that you're that you're taking part in. And if you have ultra violet die pumped into you

into a tattoo, it will reveal itself under this black light. Yeah, you essentially have a black light tattoo that that under normal normals from stances doesn't even show up, is essentially invisible. But then when you enter the rave environment, you were a different person, not only because you took that ecstasy, but also because you have this tattoo. Indeed, now, um, it's not clear if using ultra violet ink poses any health risks. Um, so we should you know, throw that

out there. Um. But it does kind of make some very cool tattoos, even cool. I saw one tattoo of Yoda poised for battle in regular light, but then you put the black light over him, and his eyes glow and you know he's his lightsaber is blue and menacing looking. I like I like it. I mean I like the idea of it because it's it's the idea that you could have a tattoo that that changes it's uh, it's

essential form, depending them on your environment. And if you enter into an environment with black lights, such as a rave or a um, yeah, I guess a rave such as well, only a rave mainly mainly raves or puppet shows that use black live or ironically like some of these kids joints, you know, these jumpy houses. Goodness. Yeah, you show up there and you just think, you know, you think you're just another mom and other dad taking your kid there to the bounce place, and then lo

and behold the black lights reveal your your alternate persona. Yeah, there you go. Oops. Now we talked about radiation tattoos in the last podcast. This is the practice of inking for freckled sized dots in a configuration usually a square on a patch of skin, usually impressed cancer radiology, and that helps the radiologists to better line up the area

to be treated. And we bring this up again because, um, having those tattoos, as discreet as they are for some people, can be troubling because it's a reminder of the cancer or this feeling that you know, the cancer come back and this you know, you know, a lot of magical thinking happens. Um as well, it should with something that

is this weighty of a subject. Yeah, indeed, so I mean, you can just basically understand why someone in this situation might choose to have less permanent marks on their body if it were at all possible, and this style of tattooing makes that possible. You could get essentially an invisible tattoo that only shows up under black light. That when you're receiving the treatment, they use a black light to identify where the marks are so that they can they

can aim everything correctly. But then the rest of the time it's not an issue. Yeah. Researchers based at the Royal Marston Hospital in London asked forty two brust cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy to rate how they felt about their body before the treatment, and then one month later and half the women were offered fluorescent tattoos, again only visible under the UV light, while the other half had conventional

dark ink tattoos. And the researchers found that fifty of the women who had those fluorescent tattoos felt better about their bodies one month after treatment, compared to only four percent among those who have the traditional black dye tattoos. Interesting, alright, we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, more future and more tattoos. So you probably want where do we go from here? We've already talked about a tattoo that it essentially is invisible, that only comes to

life during a mid nineties rave. So so so what's next on the list? Well, how about Pharaoh magnetic ink in your tattoo? Yeah, because think about regular inc just sits so quietly deposited into those specialized cells called macro fishes and fibroblasts sitting in your dermis, just trapped there. But if you're ink was enriched with metallic compounds, your tattoo might tingle if say, your phone rings. Shall we explain? Yeah? Yes, I mean, well, you don't have to explain why someone

would want this. Obviously, we all wish that our cell phones would actually have an even more bodily effect on us, that we would actually feel it in our bodies. Uh. I say this because I do have a hard time imagining why you would want that. Like the just yesterday I was working at a coffee shop and everybody who was a head their laptop on a single bar, and like multiple people had their cell phones out on the table.

And so if if one person's cell phone would vibrate we'd all feel it, and we'd all have that momentary bodily reaction to a phone going off, and then you're wondering, who's trying to get in touch with me? Is it good news? Is it bad news? And you just go through all of that. So, yes, if you want that feeling to actually be a part of your anenemy on some level, then farromagnetic inc is is what you need to look into. Yeah. So once that ink is enriched

with metallic compounds and sort of skin, it's demagnetized. But when the tattoo is healed, it's remagnetized without side magnets right exterior ones, and it becomes responsive to magnetic pulses, which theoretically can be emitted by a cell phone. Right. And Nokia submitted a patent for this in two thousand and twelve as part of of their haptic technology to

interact with their products. And whether they intend to actually produce and market this technology or whether it was just sort of a pre emptive move to prevent others from developing the technology is not known. Um, I can't imagine a big corporation would be of the mindset. No, No, we don't want people to have this, so we getting I imagine it was more in line with people might want this eventually. So if they're going to do it,

we're gonna make money off of it. Well, I mean, especially when you consider all the brain and body technological interfaces that are being developed already. Yeah, I mean, you know it as repugnant as the idea of my my phone reaching into my body is. As we inevitably merge with the machine, we we want it to be as h as painless the process as possible. We want we want to be able to to feel our machines on some levels. So well, you guys know this to be true.

And this is why I bet all of you at some point have been reaching for a memory or a fact and you're just sitting there without the benefit of Google, and you think to yourself, if only I had that Google implant right now, I could keyword this mother and it would be done. I would I would retrieve the information that I'm looking for. So um, speaking of Google, they're Motorola Division patent at a device that looks like

a neck tattoo. And uh, this device is attached directly to the skin, where it picks up vibrations from the vocal cords, creating a microphone with virtually no interference. And again it's not known if this is like a preemptive patent they really are going to create this, or if it's just maybe even an attempt to get some attention by Google. So again it brings to mind the animated

tattoo that we discussed earlier. We see sort of the early do it yourself um rumblings of what what is present in these patents, The idea that we can take technology that that is emerging and place it underneath the skin, make it, you know, part of our body and and allow us to better interface with our technology, which when you consider the fitbit right and what it does for us, and then sort of making that sub cutaneous thing, makes you realize that this may very well be in the

future and you have one of these. I don't have a fit bit, but Holly has one, Holly fry of history stuff and she loves it because it shows her sleeping patterns, like how much she wakes up during the night and um, you know she's she's a runner, so it calculates all of that good stuff. But she normally she just has a clip to her right like not's not attached to her skin. Well, you know, she's a costume designer, so she may have already inserted this subcutaneo.

She likes to hack things. Um. But people behind fitbit have drafted a concept called Project under Skin. And again, this is a digital tattoo that would be implanted in your hand and allow you to try trade data with handshake,

monitor your vital signs, or even unlock a door. Yes, this is this is pretty pretty pretty amazing, especially when you get into some of the even crazier details like the even more high tech details for instance, which which seems kind of remarkable that there would be more details to this that that are stunning. But the team actually envisions that the device will run off the body's own electrochemical energy, so it's it's on all the time, Uh, so you don't have to to worry about charging your

hand at night or anything of that nature. Like it's essentially a cybernetic part of your body and a very real and meaningful way, and and then allowing you to interact with the cybernetic bodies of others. Like you you shake somebody's hand, you end up exchanging the data. But

if it's just a fist pump. You might exchange different data because they talk about it being there being a sensor on the outer part of the hand and then on the inner part because the idea of the inner part of the hand is more more personal UM and so that would be maybe be the connection point more personal data for UH for the unlocking of doors, etcetera. It's very odd to me because the implications of that

are pretty far reaching. You can extrapolate that out and you could even sort of you could look at someone's microbial colony on their hands, which could kind of give you some sort of profile on them, especially since we are beginning to know more and more about the micro biome.

But anyway, you know how I love that. Yeah, I mean this technology plays directly into some of the the technology who've discussed before for real time health monitoring and how important that would be to h to just to the overall health of the individual, being able to just check in on in a real time basis to see what's going on with conditions of the body and not depending upon um annual or semi annual checkups to see

how much damage has been done by a condition. Right now, Project underscan again this is more of an abstracognition of what could be. Uh. There is an actual concrete device in the works by material scientists On Rogers, who created something called Epidural Electronics lovely um only because epidural and

you seem to associate with procedures that are medical. Um. It sticks to your skin like a temporary tattoo, and it can do anything from monitor your body's vital signals to alerting you when you're starting to get a sunburn. And Rogers and his company m C tent are currently trying to figure out ways to get the electronics to to communicate with other devices like smartphones, so that they

can start building apps for this. Yeah. I want to also point out that New Deal Design people behind Underskin, they believe that they can actually build this within the next five years given the state of current electronics. And they say that the the hard part is actually going to be the flexible display that would be involved here, rather than the sensor communication and implantation, or even that that the means by which would siphon off your own

bodily energy. You know the thing I'm thinking about this beyond like personal security risks here or that, what about the inflammation site. And was this due to your immune system to have this thing that's that's semi permanent in your body? Yeah? And then can you overdo it? Do you end up with you have to worry about having too many um dermal or epidermal implants in your body? Can you go too far with this? Yeah? And I

mean I really I keep thinking about this. It's gotta be probably at the Nanni less scale really for your body to give it a path. Yeah, and it and it also comes down to the the power of the tattoo itself. You know that you're making something a permanent or at least semipermanent part of your body. And do we really want to forge a permanent bond with our electronics? Do you want to form a permanent bond with with

your iPhone? I mean, because even the iPhone is exciting as that new iPhone is, you know, it's it's it's gonna be obsolete and a number of years it's not going to be the cutting edge thing. And this is just a thing that goes in your pocket, not something that is implanted in your skin. Moreover, if this really takes off and and it's out there everywhere as ubiquitous. Everybody has some sort of interactive tattoo. Does it make

tattoos less special? Does it make it kind of like this boogie uh consumer driven thing that everybody is now using. Is it's sort of like the I don't want to say the Google glasses that have nothing against them, but you know, eventually, if everybody wears those and everybody has this interactive tattoo, it loses some of the magic. Yeah. I don't know. It's it's gonna be interesting to see how it how it goes. Maybe it'll just be something

we all get used to and we're all cool with. Yeah, it's so cool because it offers lots of stuff, right, Yeah. Or maybe it'll you know, it'll be the mark of the Beast. I kept running across that when I was reading these articles. Inevitably, somebody in the comics would say that sounds like the mark of the Beast to make you know what we know, what we need is an interactive mark of the Beast tattoo. Right when that's animated, Yeah, and then you can uh, and then it'll also there'll

be an app for it. You can actually you can pull up on your phone to see who in your area is uh the tune to the Anti Christ uh. So you know you'll know who to hang out with. Sore you go a sort of crash course and where the technology is right now and where conceivably tattoos will take us in the future. Indeed, all right, if you guys want more, make sure to check us out Stuff

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