Tattoos² have always been considered a visual medium, but thanks to an innovative³ blend of art and technology, you can now listen to your skin art by using a smartphone app. Be it the voice of a loved one, your favorite song or a motivational quote, you’ll be able to take it everywhere with you and listen to it anytime you like.

纹身一直以来都被视作一种视觉媒介，但因为有了艺术和科技的创造性融合，现在你可以通过一款智能手机应用倾听你皮肤上的这些艺术作品。无论是一段来自爱人的声音、一首你最喜欢的歌或者是一段励志名言，你都可以把它一直带在身边，随时聆听。

Los Angeles-based tattoo¹ artist Nate Siggard came up with the idea for audible tattoos when two friends came in to get the opening line from Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” inked into their skin. The artist’s girlfriend casually⁴ said that it would be cool if you could actually listen to it, and her comment was apparently⁵ enough for Nate to pursue this seemingly crazy idea further.

纳特•西嘉德是一位洛杉矶的纹身艺术家，他的两位朋友找他把艾尔顿•约翰的《小小舞者》歌词的第一句纹在身上，才让他有了这个点子。纳特的女朋友无意中说，如果这句歌词能听就太酷了。虽然纳特的女朋友只是随口一说，但这足以启发纳特将这个看似疯狂的想法付诸实践。

Siggard realized that there was a way to make sound come alive on someone’s skin, by tattooing⁶ the sound waves generated by a computer. He tried it out on himself first, inking the voice of his girlfriend and his baby and posting the result on Facebook. It went viral almost instantly, and people started bombarding him with questions and requests for their own soundwave tattoos. And that’s how Skin Motion, the company for tattoos that you can listen to was born.

西嘉德发现确实有一种方法可以让皮肤发出声音，那就是把电脑生成的声波图做成纹身。他先在自己身上做实验，把他女朋友和宝宝声音的声波图纹在身上，然后在脸书上分享了成果。这个作品立刻在网上疯狂传播，人们开始不停地追问纳特，并且也想制作自己的声波纹身。于是，专门制作可以收听纹身的Skin Motion公司应运而生。

So what’s the secret behind this innovative type of tattoos? Well, as I mentioned, it’s a blend of classic inking and technology. The Skin Motion website of mobile app allows people to generate a minute-worth of wave pattern of any sound they would like to have on their skin, be it a voice, a song, a dog barking, virtually anything. Once you have the pattern, you have to get it tattooed⁷ onto your skin by a certified⁸ Skin Motion artist, and 24 hours later, the company adds an overlay that gets picked up by your smartphone camera, allowing you to play your skin art whenever you want.

那么，这款创意纹身生成的秘诀是什么呢？就像之前提到的，这是传统纹身和科技的结合。Skin Motion的手机应用网站能够把人们想要纹在身上的声音生成一段一分钟的声波图，这段声音可以是一句语音、一首歌、一声狗吠，总之可以是任何声音。获得了声波图之后，你就可以让经过资格认证的Skin Motion技师把它纹在皮肤上。24小时后，公司在纹身图案上添加一层可由智能手机摄像头获取的图层，然后你就可以随时随地收听这段声音了。

For now, the Skin Motion app is still in development, but will launch officially in June 2017. Founder⁹ Nate Siggard is currently focusing on building up a network of certified Skin Motion artists, and is partnering up with tattoo artists all around the world. They will be trained and authorized¹⁰ to perform “soundwave tattoos”.

目前，这款手机应用还在研发阶段，将会在2017年6月正式发布。创始人纳特•西嘉德现在正与全球纹身艺术家合作，一起致力于创建一个经过资格认证的Skin Motion艺术家网络。所有的纹身艺术家都将接受培训，然后才能得到授权进行声波纹身。

The technology used by Siggard doesn’t work as a general sound wave reader. It only works with Skin Motion designs right now, but the L.A. tattoo artist and his team are working on improving the technology to the point where it will be able to read any sound wave tattoo.

西嘉德采用的技术并不能读取所有的声波图。目前他的手机应用只能读取Skin Motion设计的声波纹身。但是这位洛杉矶的纹身艺术家和他的团队正在改进技术，希望未来的手机应用可以读取所有声波纹身。