Week 4 Medicine + Technology + Art

This weeks reading’s really made me reflect upon my interactions with medical technologies and how they can be seen as art. My entire life I have been surrounded by advance medical technology and can now appreciate it for what it is. It is art. The abbot reading was very influential in my understanding of this weeks topic. 

A couple of years ago I attended Bodies: The Exhibit and it shows the body as a form of art. It shows the body in athletic poses and the bodies have been stripped down to the tendons and even to the veins.  This exhibit was evoking emotion from the audience and the human body is created into a piece of art by an advancement in medical technology, the chemicals that were created to help preserve and dissect these bodies in a way that has never been done before.

I have had many medical issues while I was growing up and one of these medical problems involved a brain tumor. My doctor utilized the MRI machine to capture and image of what my brain tumor would look like. This medical technology helped doctors capture what the inside of my brain would look like without any kind of invasive surgery. The video that I have linked to this blog shows an artist Angela Palmer as she shows us a journey through the human body on what an MRI machine can capture. It is beautiful and will make you realize just how far the human body has come in giving us the means to capture such amazing things.

"Bodies: The Exhibition." N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.premierexhibitions.com/exhibitions/4/4/bodies-exhibition>.

Adorno30. "Angela Palmer - Artist | MRI Scan Art Video." YouTube. YouTube, 19 May 2007. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn-wCiGjCeU>.

"Angela Palmer | Artist." Angela Palmer Artist RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.angelaspalmer.com/>.

"Genome Research." Genome Research RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.gene-sis.net/artists_fontcuberta.html/>.

"Virgil Wong | Artist and Health Cognition Researcher, Columbia University | Cofounder and Inventor, Medical Avatar." Virgil Wong. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://virgilwong.com/>.
"Flatland." , by E. A. Abbott, 1884. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM>.

Images:

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://atlanticstation.s3.amazonaws.com/media/2015/01/bodies-1.jpg>.

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.brainfacts.org/~/media/Brainfacts/Article%20Multimedia/About%20Neuroscience/Technologies/MRI_blackandwhite.ashx>.
Adorno30. "Angela Palmer - Artist | MRI Scan Art Video." YouTube. YouTube, 19 May 2007. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn-wCiGjCeU>.