Cybersigilism: The New Tattoo Trend That’s Tailored Towards “Tribal-Like Patterns And Cyberpunk Precision”
by Sidra Lackey
There’s a new tattoo trend in town called: Cybersigilism. Its design is a mix of the popular 1990’s and early 2000’s tribal tattoo trend — but by its name — has a futuristic flair too.
The Daily Beast’s culture section reports on this new style in the world of tattoos calling Cybersigilism: “a design category defined by long, spearlike lines, symmetrical, tribal-like patterns and cyberpunk precision is flooding the social media feeds of permanent ink enthusiasts. Some of these tattoos look like armor, or veins, or a lattice of tributaries flowing into a river. The effect is simultaneously alien, natural and futuristic. It’s also undeniably hard to describe.”
Noel Garcia, a New York City tattoo artist from Brooklyn tells The Daily Beast the tattoo style Cybersigilism’s name is derived from “sigil” — a Latin word that refers to, “a sign or symbol thought to hold occult or magical power.” Garcia further explains the style of abstracted Cybersigilist tattoo designs are, “harder to pin down” unlike Traditional American tattoos that “tend to be characterized by thick lines of ink, bright colors and a narrow series of imagistic reference points (ships, maidens, “I Love Mom”).” Garcia points out, “people always want a strong meaning behind their tattoos, and I think with these tattoos, you usually find the meaning after getting them tattooed.” He says when a client gets a Cybersigilist tattoo design it, “just become a part of the person’s body, and that person becomes their own video game character or fashion character or warrior, or whatever you want to call it. They almost act like jewelry adornments that flow with the body.”
Last year, Garcia tattooed Grimes, the eclectic music artist and Elon Musk’s ex partner. Grimes got a Cybersigilist design in white ink on her chest. Garcia says on tattooing her, “she said she’d had bad luck with creating concepts or finding artists that could realize a vision for her, so she said she just wanted to pick out the cooler artists and have them take control and tell her what looks best on her body.” He also says that after having a big name like Grimes as a client and her being happy with her Cybersigilist tattoo design, he got “a ton more clients looking to replicate their tattoo style.”
Garcia tells The Daily Beast that while they were one of the first tattoo artists to push the Cybersigilist tattoo style, they found out about it through tattoo artists in Mexico City. Garcia remarks, “I feel like the Mexican side of tattooing is a little bit more spooky and punk.”
Ernesto Ramirez is a Mexico City based tattoo artist, “fluent in Cybersigilist designs” who goes by @neto_rabia on Instagram. According to The Daily Beast, Ramirez says he’s seen, “requests for the style really start to pick up in the last six months.” He further says, “but when I started to do it maybe four years ago, a lot of people were asking me about how I make the tattoos and what kind of tools I used to do it. One of the things I want to do is spread this kind of feeling—I don’t know if in my fantasy it’s like a disease or a kind of poison. In the way that I do it, I try to feel something like horror or a dark side, and I want to make the world turn into more of this kind of feeling."
Another Cybersigilist tattoo artist is Aingel, whose handle is @aingelblood on Instagram. The Daily Beast reports the Los Angeles / Atlanta artist has been tattooing for six years. Aingel says, “after about three years of really trying to push this style, I started to do some bigger pieces and haven’t really turned back since. For me, the sigils kind of started as something that just helped me get through a really dark time, and at first I really wasn’t able to tattoo them. It was more of a side thing and they were just for me and helped me feel better. After a while, I started being able to offer that to other people. At the end of the day, as long as the people that I’m giving tattoos are walking out happy and feeling good about their body, that’s the most important meaning.”
Everyone however isn’t a fan of Cybersigilism. Jackson Johnson, a “fashion engineer” on Twitter tweeted about the style: “Someone please name that popular style of tattooing that everyone does now which has all the ornate, medieval, spiky, fine-line detailing and unconnected lines. Name it so we can put a stop to it.”
The tattoo style of Cybersigilism seems to be a very niche style within the tattoo community and among tattoo collectors. Tattoo collectors, are you a fan of the very bold yet intricate, extraterrestrial-esque style? Tattoo artists, do you think the trend of Cybersigilist designs will continue to grow or have they already reached their popularity peak?