Week 4 Medicine+Tech+Art

Throughout history, societies have always placed an interest in depicting humans in an accurate manner. To achieve this they had to understand the anatomy of the human body. With the crude mechanical dissection tools, scientists opened up cadavers for study. Jess Righthand states that the Renaissance time period, an era filled with developments in art and science, produced great works of art that reflected the most current knowledge of human anatomy. According to Garabed Eknoyan, Michelangelo, the famous Renaissance artist, studied anatomy carefully and carried out dissections in his artistic training. His sculptures and frescoes such as the Creation of Man show great care taken in making the subjects appear anatomically similar to humans. As societies understood themselves better, they expressed this knowledge not only through textbook diagrams but also through grand works of art. Still, the images of human anatomy in even the most general biology textbooks are artistically drawn too and general biology students must be able to identify the anatomical structures in exams.

Creation of Man

  In a more modern time period, art and medicine continue informing one another. The X-ray and the MRI scan allowed less invasive ways of viewing and portraying the human body . The perspectives change with the prevalence of these techniques. Rather than seeing tissues and organs under the wavelengths of visible light through dissection, the X-ray and MRI coupled with specialized detectors allow medical workers to view a living human body with little harm.  From Abi Berger, the wavelengths of the X-ray and MRI also allow emphasis on certain tissues or tissue dynamics (35).  In addition to the artistry of imaging technologies, Elisabeth Rosenthal reports that with changing issues  in medicine, there is a significant, controversial push in the field for a more humanistic focus similar to the past rather than the modern science and technology based approach. 

MRI scans, with the colored regions highlighting the area being studied

Artists have incorporated medicine into their works such as prosthetic robotic arms, implanted microchips, or plastic surgery on themselves and bring up. These works can be viewed as commentaries on the future of medical technology in their relation to humans, such as Eduardo Katz's implanted chip in 1997 and how prevalent RFID chips are today. Many phones contain an RFID chip, and I carry around an RFID door access card, which reduces the weight of keys. Others such as Orlan and her work of having multiple, dramatized plastic surgeries reflect society's standards of beauty. Orlan's work also brings out the complex issue of medical ethics. According to Dr. Michelle Wright, the oath of Hippocrates and today's medical ethics teachings state doctors must first do no harm but respect their client's wishes in the art of medicine. In Orlan's case, they could be causing harm in the creation of art. 

RFID implants in each hand, viewed under X-ray

References

Berger, Abi. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” BMJ : British Medical Journal 324.7328 (2002): 35. Print.

Eknoyan, Garabed. "Michelangelo: Art, Anatomy, and the Kidney." Kidney International. Nature Publishing Group, 12 Oct. 1999. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nature.com/ki/journal/v57/n3/full/4491441a.html>.

Righthand, Jess. "The Anatomy of Renaissance Art." Smithsonian.com. 10 Oct. 2010. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-anatomy-of-renaissance-art-36887285/?no-ist>.

Rosenthal, Elisabeth. "Pre-Med’s New Priorities: Heart and Soul and Social Science." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/education/edlife/pre-meds-new-priorities-heart-and-soul-and-social-science.html?_r=0>.

Wright, Michelle. "Ideals and the Hippocratic Oath." Patient.co.uk. 22 June 2011. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Ideals-and-the-Hippocratic-Oath.htm>.

Week 3 Robotics and Art

Week 3 Robotics and Art

Mechanization has advantages and disadvantages. With the printing press's mechanical qualities that allow automation, Marcus Brunelle believes society has become more educated through the ability to disseminate  educational material. Joseph Montagna states that mechanization has also reduced the amount of mechanical labor in certain tasks such as farming, transport, and construction. Productivity and safety are increased. In their relation to me, robotic pipettors have allowed me to rapidly set up a screen of thousands compounds in my research. I have also seen medical care such as surgeries utilize robots to carry out incisions smaller than any human hand can do.

The train is one of the products of mechanization.

However this automation does come at a price. The sense of humanity is lost in general. Walter Benjamin states that the "aura" of the piece of copied art is lost due to modern techniques of art reproduction such as printing. Benjamin defines the "aura" as a description of the context and authenticity of a work. Long after Benjamin's time, other writers and film directors have criticized the loss of authenticity. Samuel Beckett, a playwright, has similar views in his work "Endgame". Endgame depicts a society that has lost its meaning due in part to the massive industrialization that arose in the 1950's. For example, elements of mechanized production such as the world's first mass produced dog food brand "Spratts medium" are used to show the drabness of life and loss of uniqueness (Beckett 13). Similarly, Arnold Schwarznegger's "The Terminator" is a movie from the 1980's that shows humankind battling mass produced robots, products of allowing industrialization too much power. At the end of the film, humankind wins the battle and thus warns viewers of giving industrialization too much power.  Thus these examples are a commentary on western society's suspicion towards the effect of industrialization on humanity's identity. The reproducibility of robots prevents them from becoming an artistic form, and only objects to be used for industry.

Spratt's dog biscuits, featured in Endgame as an element of industry destroying identity.  

 Other cultures, specifically Japan, show more optimism towards robotics and industrialization. Unlike the robotic arms that built the car I use to get to school or change the samples in my experiments, the Japanese give robotics a more humanistic and thus artistic form. This can be seen in the humanoid robots working alongside with humans as equals. For example , in the modern Japanese novel "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World", Haruki Murakami optimistically shows humans and cyborg minds as a unique identity and culture (400).

This robot by Sony, a Japanese corporation, is humanoid in appearance and embodies robots as an artistic form.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Marxists. 1936. N.p. Web. 19  Apr  2015. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm>.

Beckett, Samuel, and Samuel Beckett. Endgame: A Play in One Act, Followed by Act Without Words, a Mime for One Player. New York: Grove Press, 1958. Print.

Brunelle, Marcus. "How the Printing Press Revolutionized Humanity." Scientiareview.        Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.       <http://www.scientiareview.org/pdfs/382.pdf>.

Montagna, Joseph. "The Industrial Revolution." An Interdisciplinary Approach to British Studies. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 1 Jan. 1981. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html>.

Murakami, Haruki, Ian Porter, and Adam Sims. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World.  S.l.: Naxos, 2010. Print.

Schwarzenegger, Arnold, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The Terminator. New York: HBO Cannon Video, 1984.