Week 4: Medicine + Technology + Art

While at the doctors office looking at a MRI scan, Pet scan, x-ray, ultrasound or anything related you rarely think about the images as a piece of artwork. But in fact these digital images of various parts of our body produce art within our culture. Justine Cooper was one of the first artists who examine the connection between art, science and medicine. Cooper uses many medical technologies including MRI and ultrasound in her works.

This week recognizes the idea of Brain art. “What I find interesting are the translations/transformations it is possible to put ourselves through and how they emblemize technology’s ability to impact and shape our conceptions of space” (Justine Cooper). Like professor discussed the way we see ourselves and the way our bodies are being manipulated by technology and in turn is making a huge impact on our culture. It has truly been fascinating this week opening my eyes to the many different perspectives technology, science and medicine has had on art.

Art can be pictures and images that people look at. When the medical industry created the ultrasound this developed digital pictures for the parents to take home with them. This was a huge advancement for people to discover things about their bodies. I would not personally think of art while seeing a babies photo on the ultrasound machine at the hospital but after this week I realized that with the help of technology ultrasounds can be viewed as art. We display kids art on the fridge when they come home from school with a painted picture correct? Isn’t it fair enough to say that parents are displaying art when they come home from doctor and hang a picture of their baby inside the womb on their fridge? I believe so. These days the ultrasound is continuing to advance and technology is making it possible to see your baby in 3-d images.

The medicine industry is booming and the technological advancements that being made are created a world of art and culture through digital images and pictures. Now when I am at the doctors office I will look at these medical machines as producing a work of art. Medical technology is revolutionizing the way we perceive and are able to look at our own bodies. For example with our brains. Art is a form of self-expression and medical technology is allowing people to portray themselves on a whole new level. In Virgil Wong’s artwork she designed a fascinating way to improve doctor patient communication through data visualization of symptoms. The ability to take something in the medical tech industry and develop a piece of artwork is something that is continuing to advance and will only develop in the future. 

Sources:

 "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science              and the Arts." Silvia Casini
Ca’ Foscari Università Di Venezia. Web.

"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. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.                <http://justinecooper.com/>.

"Terri Smith Photo." » Ultrasound Art. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. 
<http://terrismithphotoblog.com/?p=3503>.

"Art Exhibited in Museums and Galleries around the World." Virgil Wong. Web. 22 Apr. 2015. <http://virgilwong.com/art/>.

Vesna, Victoria. “Http://www.youtube.com/v/Ep0M2bOM9Tk.” Lecture. Medicine pt1 . Youtube, 21 Apr. 2015.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0M2bOM9Tk>.

Week 3: Robotics + Art

This week’s assignment had us retracing the steps all the way back to the beginning of the industrialization era and even the printing press. Ford who started the assembly line provided so many people jobs although it was tough manual labor. Then it struck me when reading Walter Benjamin’s article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” that times has changed immeasurably and are only going to continue becoming more and more about mechanics and robotics. This authentic way of living is going to be gone within the next 500 years. That is a scary thought.

Professor Vesna reiterates that robotics is in everything we do related to manufacturing and it is quite an amazing field that is really booming. The more intelligent robots are becoming the more intelligent our society will become and I agree with Rodney Brooks when he states in his TED talk that it would not be a surprise if in the next 500 years that there wont be robots everywhere, doing everything. It is insane to think years ago I owned Furby but I didn’t think of it as a robot. They have been around and are only continuing to grow.

“Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art”(Benjamin, 3). Culture and society formed the imagery of the first robots we saw and continue to have a major impact on the way digital art is perceived. For instance the way we perceive a piece of artwork in person is different then the way we perceive it in a movie. Specifically, in the movie blade runner. This idea of human replicates are presented and shown how they are indistinguishable from humans. These manufactured creatures are able to dangerous work without fear because they have no soul.  

VERSE

After researching more in depth about Karel Capek who invented the first robot it bothered me even more thinking that our society could possibly be taken over by robots in the future. Robots have no souls. This means that our world will have no emotion, no energy, no communication just strictly machines completing tasks with no soul attached. This connects back again to how our society is so influenced by art. Art is in fact behind all the technology driven and manufactured robots that are to come. Humans produce art and robots are a product of the genius minds behind it.

Sources:

Benjamin, Walter. "“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. 1936.

Web.

"Blade Runner (1/10) Movie CLIP - She's a Replicant (1982) HD." YouTube. YouTube.

Web.14 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ>.

"Rodney Brooks." Rodney Brooks. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

<http://www.ted.com/speakers/rodney_brooks>.

"San Francisco Robotics Society of America (SFRSA)." San Francisco Robotics Society

of America (SFRSA). Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://www.robots.org/>.