Week 4: Medicine + Art

Week 4: Medicine + Art 

April 27, 2019

Having seen many X-rays and MRI's I always knew these type of imageries are important in diagnosing problems in the body but never really thought further than that. Now when reading about how medicine is related to art, I googled some X-rays and MRI's and analyzed them in ways. I never did before and I realized these are very detailed and in fact very artistic. Also, this creates room for creativity from doctors since they're the ones analyzing the photos. Different doctors can analyze the same MRI or X-Ray differently which clearly shows a relationship between medicine and art. 

Also, MRI's can be used. as art themselves, which Justine Cooper demonstrates with her RAPT project (to the right). Cooper used various forms of artistic media to create her artworks, including animation, video, and photography, and she frequently incorporates medical imaging technologies including MRI, ultrasound, DNA sequencing, scanning electron microscopy into her works. Cooper's work has been exhibited at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Singapore Art Museum, the Netherlands Media Art Institute and at the NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, RiAus in Adelaide, and in the exhibition WetLab: The New Nexus Between Art and Science in 2005. Specifically, the one that most relates to this weeks topic though is her 1998 work, Rapt, she uses MRI scans of her own body.

Additionally, when watching Professor Vesna’s lectures from this week and it made me look at the body in relation to art. After thinking about this I began to see a similarity to the Egyptians and their burial practices and how it is seen as an art as well.

Sources:

“Burial Practices, Afterlife, & Mummies.” Burial Practices, Afterlife, & Mummies, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, 2014, www.egyptianmuseum.org/burialpracticesgallery.

“j u s t i n e c o o p e r.” j u s t i n e c o o p e r, justinecooper.com/.

Kedmey, Dan. “MRI Scans Detect Parkinson's Disease in It's Earliest Stages, Study Finds.” Time, Time, 11 June 2014, time.com/2860630/mri-scans-can-detect-early-onset-of-parkinsons-study-finds/.

Lucas, Jim. “What Are X-Rays?” LiveScience, Purch, 5 Oct. 2018, www.livescience.com/32344-what-are-x-rays.html.

“Making Art from Science.” Filter, Australian Network for Art and Technology, filter.org.au/issue-68/making-art-from-science/.