Week 4 Blog

Week 4: Art, Medicine, Technology



The common ancestor between this weeks topics of Art, Medicine, and Technology is curiosity. Humans have always been obsessively curious about the workings of the human body. Professor Vensa stated in her lecture that “human dissection marks point where art and medicine really combined”. Human dissection created a better understanding of the workings that led to medical advances like Andreas Vesalius’ book “De humani corporis fabrica”. As medical technology advanced, artists were inspired by the new understanding and technology.





ORLAN reading during one of her performances. ORLAN
would read aloud during her surgeries as part of her performance
art.

One of these artists is ORLAN. ORLAN used plastic surgery on herself as a part of her body performance art. ORLAN used her body as a canvas and surgeons knives as her brush. In one performance, she took the most beautiful aspects of women in famous classical paintings. For instance, she used the forehead from Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The augmentations she does on her body are picked carefully to comment on what it means to be beautiful or what it means to age. ORLAN’s work disturbs me. I am not a fan of augmentation unless for medical necessity. ORLAN’s work did help me understand the connection between art and medicine. She would use medical technology to create her own commentary on society. Her creative choices, while not aesthetically pleasing to everyone, convey her message. I would never choose to use my own body as a canvas in the manner she does, but I do understand what her art is saying. 
ORLAN during surgery. You can see the marks on her face signifying the alteration that she chose to make on her self. 




Both of Professor Warwick’s Project Cyborgs also connected art, medicine, and technology for me. In Project Cyborg 1.0, Warwick inserted a silicon chip in his arm that connected him to computers in the building he was working in. As he moved about the building, doors would open, lights would turn on, and computers would greet him. In his project Project Cyborg 2.0, Warwick implanted a chip into his arm that would transmit nerve signals remotely to a robotic hand. Warwick could then control the robotic arm remotely using just nerve signals.
Professor Warwick during his Cyborg Project 2.0


Warwick’s cyborg projects really connected last week’s lecture and this week’s material. Some would say that his projects are technological innovations not art, but I have realized that his creation is in fact art. He combined cybernetics and medical technology to create something that had not been done before. Warwick is a great modern day example of art and technology growing together.


Sources:
Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine Pt 1.” Youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0M2bOM9Tk. Accessed 29 Apr. 2017.

“Vesalius Biography.” Vesalius Biography | Vesalius, www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/vesalius/biography/vesalius-biography.html. Accessed 30 Apr. 2017.

“Who is Orlan?” Who is Orlan?, oldsite.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ecook/courses/eng114em/whoisorlan.htm. Accessed 30 Apr. 2017.

Wingfield, Jonathan. “I, Robot.” W Magazine, 16 Dec. 2016, www.wmagazine.com/story/kevin-warwick-cyborg-scientist. Accessed 30 Apr. 2017.

Engineer, The. “Cyborg pioneer Prof Kevin Warwick.” The Engineer, www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/3-october-2011/cyborg-pioneer-prof-kevin-warwick/. Accessed 30 Apr. 2017.


Image Sources:
http://www.creative-mapping.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/An-interview-with-artist-Orlan-Operation-Reussie-1024x667.jpg

http://situations.fotomuseum.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ORLAN_1-1200x783.png

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02936/Kevin-Warwick_2936650b.jpg


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