untitled (tattoo, 2025) 5 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jan 31 2025

Location: 

Online

tattoo on someone's thigh which reads "FEAR IS THE MOST ELEGANT WEAPON. YOUR HANDS ARE NEVER MESSY. THREATENING HARM IS CRUEL. WORK INSTEAD ON MINDS AND BELIEFS. PLAY INSECURITIES LIKE A PIANO. BE CREATIVE IN APPROACH. FORCE ANXIETY TO EXCRUCIATING LEVELS OR GENTLY UNDERMINE THE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE. PANIC DRIVES HUMAN HERDS OVER CLIFFS; AN ALTERNATIVE IS TERROR-INDUCED IMMOBILIZATION. FEAR FEEDS ON FEAR. PUT THIS EFFICIENT PROCESS IN MOTION. MANIPULATION IS NOT LIMITED TO PEOPLE. ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS CAN BE SHAKEN. IT WILL BE DEMONSTRATED THAT NOTHING IS SAFE, SACRED OR SANE. THERE IS NO RESPITE FROM HORROR. ABSOLUTES ARE QUICKSILVER. RESULTS ARE SPECTACULAR."

External sources: 

https://www.instagram.com/jennyholzerstudio/?hl=en
Posted by leviya on Feb 3 2025

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Shifts (culture)Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
jenny holzer is describing how fascism uses fear to immobilize people. this text serves as a way we can see the signs around us, and the medium of a tattoo makes it 'permanent' in a way not many other mediums are.

Notes

it's emotionally affective and definitely got me to think a little more about fear-based propaganda around me.