A young woman using social media to show off her new tattoo sounds like a story that could have been written 10 years ago. But in 2018, the tattoo is high tech and the tweet has gone viral.
Sakyrah Angelique, 19, of Chicago, posted a video on Tuesday in which she reveals her new sound wave tattoo, which plays a voicemail from her late grandmother through a smartphone app that scans the ink on her chest.
The message is a birthday wish from her grandmother, who died a month after leaving it in 2015. Angelique has kept the recording for three years.
My grandma passed away my junior year of high school. A month before she passed, she left me a voicemail wishing me happy birthday. Today I got that exact waveform tattooed across my heart, and I am able to play it just by holding my camera over it❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/nwoQ2Bn1DM
— ✨s.o.s. (@sakyrahhh) January 3, 2018
“I waited until now because I was still at a young age once she passed away, which was in 2015,” Angelique said in a story on BET News. “It took me a while to finally accept her passing away, so it wasn’t until now that I finally got the courage to do something in honor of her. I’ve held onto the voicemail for almost three years now trying to figure out what I would do with it. I create music on a regular basis, and I’m constantly seeing visuals of sound waves”
The augmented reality tattoo is the creation of Los Angeles-based Skin Motion, which uses licensed artists all over the world to create the interactive designs from audio recordings. Here’s how it works, according to the company’s website:
Upload a sound that you want to use as a Soundwave Tattoo.
We generate the shape of Soundwave from that file which you can trim the beginning and end off and change the height and width.
You take the Soundwave Tattoo stencil to a tattoo artist from our Tattoo Artist Directory. Tattoo artists must register to learn the requirements and limitations of our patent-pending technology as they apply to tattoo placement, size, and customization of the design of a Soundwave Tattoo in order to provide a 15 day money-back guarantee on the Soundwave Tattoo activation.
After the Artist does the tattoo, you can activate it to be played back by the Skin Motion app for $39.99 for the first year of service and $9.99 a year after that.
After we process your tattoo and the tattoo activation is complete, you can log in to your account using the Skin Motion™ app to point the camera in your mobile device at the tattoo to play it back.
“Call me tomorrow when you get a chance. I love you. Happy birthday,” the voice on Angelique’s tattoo says.
Angelique, who is a singer herself, told BET that she could not believe that the voice of her grandmother “would forever be across my heart.”
