Modern Primitives

MODERN PRIMITIVES
The Heart of Darkness — In the Name of Things

Using an Edding 3000 marker, the content was to be updated. The photographs were to be revised, redrawn, and thus redesigned.
The double-page spreads shown here are therefore original hand-drawn illustrations.   

Humans are the only species that intentionally alter their own appearance. This modification can take the form of tattoos, piercings, scarring, or body adornment. Even the actual shape of the body can be altered—compressed with corsets or padded in the right places. This work explores the increasingly popular revival of ancient human decorative practices such as symbolic/deeply personal tattoos, multiple piercings, and ritual scarification. Primitive acts that break through conventional boundaries of behavior and aesthetics are objectively examined. In the context of the death of global boundaries, this volume highlights the realm of the last underdeveloped source of firsthand experience—the human body. AND SO WE DON’T HAVE TO BE SCARED, WE HAVE THE RIGHT MATERIALS FOR THE COVER.

Some cultures revere androgynous characters and people who are different—fools, dwarves, eccentrics—as “godlike.” In our (European, Western) culture, these people could only find a place in a carnival. But even that went out of style. Now you can’t have a late-night show anymore because all the freaks are in institutions or have been fixed up with plastic surgery or something—more normalized. Ever since 1945, it’s been impossible to put on a freak show—I know some people who tried to find enough freaks to put one on, and they couldn’t find any! It’s hell: you can’t even find freaks anymore! Everyone has to “look the same”!

Text by Karl Baumgartner — Founder of TIPREGO