PHILOSOPHY OF TATTOOS

As the shock factor of tattooing decreases in the West, tattoos are becoming more extensive, public and inventive. The tattoo - once the ultimate symbol of deviance - is now as commodifiable as anything else. Resisting this apparent loss of the 'magic' of tattooing, John Miller - 'a conventionally dressed middle-aged academic with a full bodysuit' - returns to its origins in cultural locations as disparate as Polynesia, the Amazon and the Arctic to interrogate the human desire to mark the skin.