Week 4: MedTech + Art

Image 1: Plastic Body (Medicine Pt 3)

I grew up surrounded by the medical world, being that my mother is an Emergency Room physician. I currently work in the Emergency Department and I am exposed to modern medical technologies all the time, such as X-rays and CT scans.

In Vesna's third lecture, I was fascinated to learn plastic surgery was not a modern phenomenon. "Physicians in ancient India were utilizing skin grafts for reconstructive work as early at 800 B.C."  Also, plastic does not necessarily mean artificial, rather it means to give something form, derived from the Greek word Plasticos. 

Image 2: Pregnant Woman - Body World Exhibit

In my experience in art galleries, the artist's meaning is often up to your own interpretation and imagination.  I'm no expert in the art world, just as many are not experts in the medical world.  "The appeal of brain imaging as a technique of self-portrait is powerful for an audience outside the medical field, because information is conveyed through images--for example, through MRI scans" (Casani).  When viewing an MRI scan, there are findings that are often indisputable.  However to an outsider, it is left to their imagination, much like art.

Years ago, I attended The Body World exhibit as discussed by Vesna in Lecture 1.  I resonated with how the perception of our bodies has changed with the increase in technology from cadavers to X-rays, CT scans, and MRI Scans.  Artist renditions of the anatomy of the human body were how diseases were originally diagnosed.  The Body World exhibit opened my eyes and was the perfect mixture of medicine and art, and both fields certainly benefit from one another.

Image 3: MRI Brain Scan

In my research, I came across the article, Dissecting Da Vinci, What makes a modern medical artist. It explains how "medical artists today are usually graphic artists." With enhanced medical technologies, artists are able to make computerized three dimensional models.

Da Vinci had an enormous influence in the early medical world.  The Vitruvian Man was designed for medical use.  Da Vinci had countless notebooks of his work, and he designed a surgical robot prototype.  Although he did not build it, "his prototype was successful, showing us that Leonardo had a full understanding of how the human body and joints worked in order to design the robot"(Da Vinci's Impact Upon the Medical World). I truly am amazed at the accuracy of artists renditions of the function and anatomy of the human body before modern medical technology.


References:

Casini, Silvia. "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts." Configurations 19.1 (2001): 73-99. Web.

"Da Vinci's Impact Upon the Medical World." Leonardo Da Vinci. Weebly, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2017. <http://leonartodavinci.weebly.com/medical-impact.html>.

Hastie, Pail. "Dissecting Da Vinci: What Makes a Modern Medical Artists?" BBC News. BBC, 09 Aug. 2013. Web. 29 2017. <http://www/bbc.co.uk/arts/0/23631844>.

Medicine Pt 1. Victoria Vesna. YouTuve, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0M2bOM9Tk>.

Medicine Pt 3. Victoria Vesna. YouTuve, 22 Apr. 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIX-9mXd3Y4>.

MRI Brain Scan. Digital Image. Diffen. N.p., n.d. Web. 29. 2017. <http://www.diffen..com/difference/MRI_vsMRA>.

Pregnant Woman Body World Exhibit. Digital Image. Protrudent.info. Getty Images, 18 May 2016. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. <http://protrudent.info/human-muscle-exhibit/>.