Week 4: Art + Medicine + Technology

    The fields of art and medicine are often deemed separate on the surface, yet they are more connected than we presume, which was evident after this week’s lectures and readings. One prime example of how the two fields work together is in the practice of plastic surgery, which combines both art and medicine. Originally developed by Indian’s in 800 B.C. to treat wounded soldiers, and popularized after gruesome and scarring wars such as World War 1, the practice of plastic surgery has become a very interesting art form within the field of medicine.


Soldiers from WW1 who had Plastic Surgery (from National Army Museum)

    Performed by medically educated and trained doctors around the world, plastic surgery goes beyond medicine and into the world of art. Often these plastic surgeons are even regarded more as artists than doctors, as told by Philippa Snow in her article on plastic surgery, who says “anybody who performs surgeries, or injections, has to be a student of beauty: to be able to please the human eye and the lens of the camera equally” (Snow). Jeongho Choi, who published an article on cosmetic surgery in the US National Library of Medicine, made a similar comparison between the surgeon and artist, writing that “Even surgery's most dramatic component, the operation, is no more a feat of manual dexterity than is the painting of a beautiful landscape” (Choi). The world of art and medicine has continually evolved together, and now more than ever the roles of artist and doctor are not so separate.


Andy Warhol is a famous example of Art and Plastic Surgery (from Daze Digital)

    Another way that the worlds of art and medicine have blended is in the development of the MRI machine. The MRI has revolutionized the way doctors scan the bodies of their patients since its creation in 1977. These scans, which upon my first glance seemed to be purely for the purpose of medicine, are forms of art as well. As put by Silvia Casini in their article on MRIs as portraits, “MRI images can become portraits and self-portraits—and by doing so, they can look back at us” (Casini 99). Many artists have utilized this medicinal technology to create stunning work. Dr. Denis Ducreux, a French radiologist, has used MRIs to create a beautiful gallery of brain scans that has received praise from around the world. And, as he has created these images for artistic purposes, he has simultaneously been utilizing his access to MRIs to study the neurological processes of humans to solve diseases like Alzheimer’s, showing how art and medicine can work together with great effect. 


A Piece By Denis Ducreux (from Medgadget editors)

    Through the combination of art and medicine, I learned this week that it is evident that both great advances in the fields of medicine can be made in tandem with the creation and evolution of art and culture, which is amazing considering I used to believe the two were separate. 

Sources:

Casini, Silvia. "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts." Ca’ Foscari Università di Venezia. Print.

Choi, Jeongho. "Cosmetic Surgery: Is It Science or Art?" US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, 15 Sept. 2015. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579193/. Web.

Medgadget. "Radiology Professor Creates Beautiful Art." Medgadget.com, 31 May 2019. https://www.medgadget.com/2019/05/radiology-professor-creates-beautiful-art-using-mri-scanner.html. Web.

"MRI as Art: How One Radiologist Uses MRI Images as His Artistic Muse." GE Healthcare, 22 Nov. 2018. https://www.gehealthcare.com/article/mri-as-art-how-one-radiologist-uses-mri-images-as-his-artistic-muse. Web.

Snow, Philippa. "Dissecting the Idea of Plastic Surgery as Art." Daze Digital, 05 Jan. 2019. https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/soul/article/44257/1/plastic-surgery-art-form-artists-body-modification. Web.

"The Birth of Plastic Surgery." National Army Museum. https://www.nam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/slice_lg/public/2017-02/IMG_1093_FoB2007_slice.jpg?itok=_bA1l5Mh. Web.

Vesna, Victoria. "Medecine pt3." Youtube, 22 Apr. 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIX-9mXd3Y4&t=206s. Web.

"Warhol Portrait." Daze Digital. https://dazedimg-dazedgroup.netdna-ssl.com/875/azure/dazed-prod/1260/6/1266334.jpg. Web.


Comments

  1. Adam_MerensteinDESMA9April 25, 2021 at 3:57 PM

    I really liked how you connected all the ideas of the week into just two main ideas. I found the way that you elaborated on plastic surgery and connected it to art really interesting. I like that you gave a lot of background with the plastic surgery and it was very interesting to read about it. Finally, the way you tied the MRI with the art was also very engaging and very well done.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 6: Art + Biotech

Image
       As the world of biotech has evolved and grown over the last century, it has become very intertwined with the arts. Scientists working with genomes and DNA of living creatures have been able to create some of the most advanced and unique experiments, and in doing so have also unlocked a whole new realm for the arts. One of these experiments/art pieces, which has been both praised and scrutinized by the public, is the famous rabbit Alba created by Eduardo Kac. Alba is an albino rabbit that was genetically modified to glow fluorescent green.      Alba the Bunny (from New Scientist)           To create Alba, scientists took a protein that originates in a certain glow in dark Jellyfish and inserted the gene into a fertilized rabbit egg, which grew up to be Alba. Once Alba developed into a fully grown rabbit, the glow-in-the-dark gene had replicated and made it into every cell in Alba causing the rabbit to glow brigh...
Read more

Week 8: Nanotech + Art

Image
    Nanotechnology goes beyond what most humans believe they can comprehend. As put by Jim Gimzewksi and Victoria Vesna in their piece on nanotechnology, “When working on this kind of scale, we immediately reach the limits of rational human experience, and the imaginary takes over.” The scale that nanotechnology operates on is far beyond what we can see (nanotech is on a scale of 1-100 nanometers, and a human hair is typically 80,000 nanometers), yet it has great potential for impacting our lives in many different ways, especially in the fields of art and science. Blue Morpho Wings (from Web Exhibits )      Take the beautiful wings of the Morpho Butterflies for example. The amazing blue color that we see on the wings of the butterfly leads us to believe that the wings are blue themselves, yet the blue color is actually produced by light interacting with nanostructures on the wings of the butterflies. The nanostructures diffract incoming light and cause som...
Read more

Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

Image
    After researching neuroscience this week, it became evident that the worlds of neuroscience and art are interconnected. One of the specific fields of neuroscience that I took interest in this week was the connection between art, the brain, and LSD. LSD was first experimented with in the early 1950s, where it was famously studied as a treatment for various mental disorders, including illnesses such as alcoholism. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s LSD continued to grow in the world of psychiatric medicine, and through 1965 over 40,000 patients were prescribed LSD to treat alcoholism, schizophrenia, and psychopathy.  1950's Housewife Describes her LSD Experience during a Study (from ABC News )      However, the early hope for LSD to become the next big drug treatment in neuroscience ended when the drug was banned in the US in 1968. Following the ban, LSD took existence only off the official and legal medical market. Only recently has the emergence of new...
Read more