Not Just for Sailors: A Sceptical Look at Media Perceptions of Tattooing in the West with Matt Lodder

As an opening line for an article in a popular newspaper about tattoos, the suggestion that "tattoos are not just for sailors anymore" is a familiar one. Indeed, it often feels as if the same sentiment graces every article about tattooing in the mainstream press: Tattooing, we've been told again and again recently, is coming of age - finally coming out of the murky shadows of the deviant underworld to leave its mark on the most well-heeled. Tattoos are now to be seen on catwalks, on trading floors and around the chicest tables.

The hacks who churn out these stories might be surprised to learn,then, that the popular media has been reporting the arrival of tattooing in high society for nearly one hundred years.

In a talk drawing on his doctoral thesis, Matt will be presenting a sceptical look at media perceptions of tattooing in recent decades, and present an alternative way of looking at, and thinking about tattoos: as art objects in their own right.

Dr Matt Lodder is an academic art historian, based in London. His work is concerned with the artistic status of body art and body modification practices, including tattooing, body piercing and cosmetic surgery, applying art-theoretical and art-historical methodologies to the study of the modified body specifically as an art object rather than a site for psychological, psychiatric, anthropological or ethnographic interest. He has acted as a contributor and expert consultant for various radio and television projects on body art and body modification, including BBC's 'Coast', on BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio Sheffield, on Channel 4 and on Australia's Triple J, and is currently working on a book which presents an art historical survey of tattooing from the 16th century to the present day.

http://reading.academia.edu/MattLodder

Chances are you know someone with a hip replacement - it's the medical success story of the 20th century and has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. However, in the 21st century, hip replacements are becoming a “public health nightmare” (New England Journal of Medicine), since it was discovered that some devices, called metal-on-metal, are leaking cobalt and chromium into people's blood and may be causing major health problems. Hundreds of thousands of these devices have been implanted into patients.

Tom Joyce is part of a team of orthopaedic surgeons and biomedical engineers in the North East of England who are at the forefront of identifying the problems with metal-on-metal hips and their causes. Tom is the only independent biomedical engineer in the world who tests these devices after they have been removed from the body and examines them for specific design flaws. In this talk he'll discuss how problems with metal-on-metal hips have arisen and what we need to do to prevent such problems happening again.

Tom Joyce is a biomedical engineer at Newcastle University specialising in the design, testing and evaluation of joint replacements, including hips, knees, shoulders and fingers. As a professional engineer, he has wider interests in the regulation of medical devices and in the personal experiences of people whose joint replacements have failed. He is the author of over 240 academic publications on the subject and his work is regularly featured in the written and broadcast media. You can find him on Twitter. Tom can also be seen in action on various television programmes, including this Australian investigative show on ABC.

Building on recent scientific discoveries, Mark Lynas explains that there are nine 'planetary' boundaries that humanity must not cross if Earth is to continue to support life and our civilisation. Climate change is one, but others - like ocean acidification, nitrogen use and biodiversity loss - are less well known, though equally crucial.

But this is no depressing lamentation of eco-doom. Instead Lynas presents a radical manifesto that calls for the increased use of controversial but environmentally friendly-technologies, such as genetic engineering and nuclear power, as part of a global effort to protect and nurture the biosphere. Ripping up years of 'green' orthodoxy, he reveals how the prescriptions of the current environmental movement are likely to hinder as much as help our vitally-needed effort to use science and technology to play God and save the planet.

Mark Lynas is the author of The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, published by Fourth Estate in July 2011. He has previous written two major books on climate change – High Tide: News from a warming world (2004) and Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet (2007). 

High Tide was long listed for the Samuel Johnson Award for Non-Fiction, and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. Six Degrees was long-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2008, and won the prestigious Royal Society Prize for Science Books in the same year. Six Degrees became a TV hit for National Geographic, whose Six Degrees Could Change the World – voiced by Alec Baldwin – has been watched by tens of millions around the globe on the National Geographic Channel. The book has now been translated into 22 languages around the world.

In November 2009 he was appointed advisor on climate change to the President of the Maldives, His Excellency Mohammed Nasheed, and is involved in the Maldives’ effort to be the first carbon neutral country on Earth by 2020. He is a frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy, focusing in particular on how carbon neutral targets can break the international logjam on climate mitigation, and how emissions reduction should be seen as an opportunity not a sacrifice. He is also a Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment.