Before reviewing the materials of Medicine and Art I thought to
myself how are these two going to relate or help each other. I did not think
they would, but now I actually have an idea and a bigger respect for the
medical field.
What surprised me the most was that plastic surgery was a very old
innovation; I honestly thought it had been "discovered" around the
early 1900s and perfected in the 80s. Watching ORLAN was mind blowing because
she is so courageous and dedicated to her art form. I did not see her work as a
pain toleration or mutilation piece. It was more of an identity change every
time she underwent a surgery. There was also a blur between art and
med-tech because she was using her body as a piece of art.
I do think that the medicine field started off as an art form. The
curiosity of people opening up cadavers and looking at how the body was
structurally formed paved the way toward researching how the body works. I
really loved the photos of the slicing of the body because it showed the
different sections and how the different organs fall into place. I found the
photographs to be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing.
This curiosity has not stopped as shown in the lecture videos;
there are people examining on themselves even today. In the future we will be a
new kind of breed; that of technology and human together. We have started to
see this in cyborgs. People who incorporate technology into their bodies to
excel their bodies or to fix problems they may have.
In my linguistics class we were shown a linguist performing x-rays
on himself to see how the movement of the tongue, jaw, and throat work together
to perform a very taken for granted thing we do each and every day ; speech.
Seeing all these different forms to view the body was really
helpful and exiting because I want to now explore more ways to view the human
body.
1. "Orlan - Carnal Art (2001) Documentary." . N.p., n.d. Web. 13 July 2014. <http://img2.hungertv.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Screen-shot-2012-09-20-at-13.20.31.png>.
2. "The visible human project (HQ)." YouTube. YouTube, 15 Feb. 2009. Web. 13 July 2014. <http://youtu.be/iWP2HnPSMyo>.
3. "Ken Stevens x-ray film." YouTube. YouTube, 8 Mar. 2009. Web. 13 July 2014. <http://youtu.be/DcNMCB-Gsn8>.
4. Vesna, Victoria. "Medicine pt1." YouTube. YouTube, 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0M2bOM9Tk>.
5. Tyson, Peter. "The Hippocratic Oath Today." PBS. PBS, 27 Mar. 2001. Web. 13 July 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html>.
I thought that it was interesting that you pointed out that medicine started out as an art form…I have never seen it that way. However, through looking at anatomy, I can totally see your point.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with you about the Orlan piece, as I feel like the pain tolerance and self-mutilation was a part of the art itself, similar to how Van Gogh cut off his ear and then painted a picture of it.
I liked your videos :)
Hi Kelly! I would like to comment on your view of Orlan. If you saw the Orlan documentary she herself said that Van Gogh's mutilation was not the same as her surgeries. If the piece was about pain tolerance and self mutilation then she would have not opted to use the anesthetics, even while performing the surgery she stopped because she started to feel pain and uncomfortable. She even said that no woman should suffer through child birth because there are epidurals. Which I found funny.
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