We’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. 
Shaken. Not stirred, bartender.
So I was literally reading to hate this blog post because I could not think of anything in the past year that would qualify as multi-modal. To be honest, I was ready to just skip this post all together. I have never created a film, performed a song, done poetry, or written a blog and used images. After stressing over this since Wednesday’s class, I realized I just did not feel like I would be able to come up with something to write about but in re watching Kress’s videos and especially in “What is multi-modality?”, something he said about what multi-modality is used for really struck with me. It is used to communicate something, to convey a meaning, and the requirement for multi-modal forms to address multiple needs. As I was watching this video, I was actually sketching out some tattoo ideas. This made me wonder if tattoos could be considered a multi-modality and I think it does. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I am trying to convey with my tattoos and the personal meaning that connects with me. All my tattoos are meant to communicate something to myself and others while the meaning is a personal significance to myself. The time needed to finish the sketching and designing a tattoo can also vary depending on if the ideas flow and mesh together. I’ve had drawings that take me multiple years while same take a day or two. I have a multiple sketchbooks filled with drawings. Sometimes I use pencil or ink or watercolor or marker. I also really enjoy sketching out tattoos for friends because I get to be apart of something that means a lot to them and becomes a permanent part of their life. I thought about putting a few pictures with my post to show what I’ve been sketching but I get really self conscious showing people my ideas so verbally, a few of the ones that I am working on right now is a wanderlust globe tattoo since I want to become a foreign English teacher and travel the world and the other idea is a spine tattoo of moon flowers with their leaves. Anyway, hope this makes sense!
2 Replies to “Shaken. Not stirred, bartender.”
I know what you mean about sharing your creative stuff to others. It’s never an easy thing to put your stuff out there to be seen. But I do like how you connect with Kress’s idea in using multi-modality in all its forms to express something with your tattoo designs. I think that’s what is kind of great about multi-modality is that you’re allowed to be creative and express meaning by being able to utilize things like color or pictures. Tattoos are interesting in that aspect because, like you said, they do convey a kind of meaning by mixing and combining different types of designs. With something like a tattoo, that meaning might be something deeper like immortalizing someone that person loved onto their skin, or it can be simply because the person thought it was a cool design that they really liked and I find it fascinating how people can use art of any kind to form personal significance.
(And, as always, your cat is adorable. ก₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎ค)
So glad you wrote about tattoos as multimodal texts. Yassss. In fact, without a framework like Kress offers, it would be challenging to study tattoos from a rhetorical perspective. We could ask all kinds of questions about tattoos and meaning: is the meaning in the image or words? What role does color play in the meaning? What about font? And placement on the body? Cool ideas here.