December 4, 2014 • 27 mins
Whether you're a tattoo virgin or a sleeved-and-stamped ink enthusiast, there's no denying the cultural staying power of the tattoo. But where do we go from here? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, explore the world of cutting-edge and near-future high-tech tattoos, from glowing raver ink to tattoos that actually serve as technological interfaces.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. In
our last episode, the Science of Tattooing, The Sammy's the Tattoos,
we discussed the history of the culture of tattoos a
(00:23):
little bit kind of an overview, and then we broke
down the science of getting that that symbol, that name,
that deity, that dolphin put into your flesh in a
this semi permanent way. Indeed, and we even talked about
some of the more unusual tattooing practices, like having your
(00:43):
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,
(01:07):
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
(01:31):
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
(01:53):
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
(02:15):
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
(02:37):
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
(02:59):
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,
(03:22):
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,
(03:45):
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,
(04:06):
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
(04:29):
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
(04:50):
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
(05:13):
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
(05:33):
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
(05:55):
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,
(06:17):
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
(06:41):
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.
(07:03):
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
(07:25):
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,
(07:49):
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
(08:12):
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
(08:32):
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
(08:55):
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
(09:17):
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
(09:39):
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
(09:59):
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
(10:20):
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,
(10:42):
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
(11:05):
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
(11:28):
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
(11:51):
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
(12:14):
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
(12:36):
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
(13:04):
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
(13:26):
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
(13:50):
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,
(14:11):
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
(14:34):
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
(14:55):
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,
(15:16):
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
(15:37):
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
(15:59):
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
(16:21):
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
(16:43):
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,
(17:03):
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
(17:24):
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
(17:46):
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.
(18:06):
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,
(18:28):
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
(18:48):
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
(19:09):
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
(19:31):
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
(19:53):
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
(20:15):
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
(20:36):
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
(20:58):
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
(21:20):
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
(21:40):
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,
(22:02):
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
(22:24):
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
(22:46):
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
(23:07):
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
(23:28):
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,
(23:49):
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.
(24:10):
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
(24:31):
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
(24:51):
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
(25:12):
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
(25:33):
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
(25:54):
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
(26:16):
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
(26:38):
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
(26:58):
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
to Play your right dot com. That's right. You'll find
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(27:18):
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dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. In
our last episode, the Science of Tattooing, The Sammy's the Tattoos,
we discussed the history of the culture of tattoos a
(00:23):
little bit kind of an overview, and then we broke
down the science of getting that that symbol, that name,
that deity, that dolphin put into your flesh in a
this semi permanent way. Indeed, and we even talked about
some of the more unusual tattooing practices, like having your
(00:43):
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,
(01:07):
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
(01:31):
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
(01:53):
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
(02:15):
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
(02:37):
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
(02:59):
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,
(03:22):
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,
(03:45):
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,
(04:06):
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
(04:29):
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
(04:50):
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
(05:13):
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
(05:33):
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
(05:55):
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,
(06:17):
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
(06:41):
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.
(07:03):
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
(07:25):
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,
(07:49):
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
(08:12):
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
(08:32):
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
(08:55):
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
(09:17):
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
(09:39):
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
(09:59):
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
(10:20):
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,
(10:42):
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
(11:05):
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
(11:28):
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
(11:51):
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
(12:14):
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
(12:36):
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
(13:04):
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
(13:26):
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
(13:50):
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,
(14:11):
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
(14:34):
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
(14:55):
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,
(15:16):
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
(15:37):
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
(15:59):
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
(16:21):
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
(16:43):
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,
(17:03):
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
(17:24):
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
(17:46):
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.
(18:06):
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,
(18:28):
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
(18:48):
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
(19:09):
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
(19:31):
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
(19:53):
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
(20:15):
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
(20:36):
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
(20:58):
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
(21:20):
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
(21:40):
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,
(22:02):
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
(22:24):
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
(22:46):
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
(23:07):
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
(23:28):
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,
(23:49):
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.
(24:10):
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
(24:31):
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
(24:51):
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
(25:12):
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
(25:33):
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
(25:54):
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
(26:16):
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
(26:38):
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
(26:58):
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
to Play your right dot com. That's right. You'll find
all the blog posts, all the podcast, all the videos,
(27:18):
everything we do and links out to our social media
accounts right there. Yes, some ideas on the future of tattoos.
Send them to us. You can do that by sending
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