Image result for ucsb chemistryImage result for ucsb art buildingEve Laramee says “I am interested in the ways in which cultures use science and art as devices or maps to construct belief systems.” This quote sparked my attention because I completely relate to it. In general, we never think about how art and medicine are related. Being in college, art majors and medical field majors are considered complete opposites and classes as well as buildings designated for those majors, are place are opposite sides of campus. However, this week’s lectures and readings have shown me that in some ways medicine and art are, in fact, related.
Chemistry building(right side), located on North side of campus
Arts building(left side), located on Southside of campus
Image result for kardashian's plastic surgery
The body in itself is art. From our skin color and body shape, to the different textures we obtain. As Professor Vesna says in lecture “ MedTech+Art”, medicine is a form of art. But how ? What aspects of medicine are considered artistic ? When thinking about the medicine and art worlds coming together, I instantly think of plastic surgery. Plastic surgery is basically considered an artistic medical procedure. While doctors do utilise medical equipment to perform these procedures, they need to be artistically fit to successfully complete them. For example women like the Kardashians are well known to be plastic surgery queens but still look natural, for the most part because their doctors had an eye for the arts.

Image result for human modifications Also in this week’s lecture, we learned about an artist named Orlan, who has had several surgeries in order to modify herself. Some of her surgical procedures I would consider art however, her horns makes me look at her in a different light. When you begin to modify your body and try to have non humanlike features, it isn’t art anymore. It is a game against nature. Yes, your body is a canvas and you should use it to your full potential. However, Orlan, like many others took it too far and were questioned because their surgeries went against nature. Some people do not mind going against nature and that really depends on their personal beliefs. I would say that medicine is an art with barriers.

Pictured below are some well known modified humans
Image result for man with hornsImage result for human modifications
Works Cited :
1. Eve Andree Laramee. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.
2. "17 Human Canvases Whose Body Modifications Are Basically Works of Art." (Slide #1) - Offbeat. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.
3. TheGuardian. "French artist Orlan: 'Narcissism is important'" YouTube. YouTube, 14 July 2009. Web. 01 May 2017.
4. "Meet The Man Behind The Mug: Jesse Thornhill." Oklahoma's Own News On 6. N.p., 23 July 2010. Web. 01 May 2017.
5. Becenstein. "Weird Sideshow Freaks - Cool Things World." Pinterest. N.p., 22 Mar. 2012. Web. 01 May 2017.
6. Vesna, Victoria. Medicine Body Lecture. Video. 26 Oct 2012.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
NEUROSCIENCE + ART The relationship between neuroscience and art is quite intriguing. They go hand in hand. I believe that without neuroscience, or more specifically the brain, would be no art. There would be no creativity. In this week’s lesson we brought light to the significant role in which neuroscience plays in relation to art. In my opinion the most interesting section of this week’s lesson was the effects of certains drugs on the brain and the way in which they create art. The term that is now being used to describe the meshing of neuroscience and art is “neuroaesthetics”. As obvious as it is, we all know that art creation and perception comes from the brain and certain things can trigger that such as drugs. I found that Professor Vesna’s talk about different the drugs including, LSD & cocaine, and their effects in lecture was very interesting because it is fascinating how these drugs can make us create art out of our everyday surroundings. For example, the effect
Read more
Image
Nanotechnology is a field that we, as a society, are pretty uneducated on because it is not mentioned to us nor is it well known. However, in this week’s lesson, Professor Vesna introduced us to nanotechnology. Before this lesson, I had no idea what nanotechnology is. To my surprise, nanotechnology is all around us. It is in our food packaging, the clothes we wear, and even in our electronic devices and its accessories ! The meshing of nanotechnology and art is something I didn’t think was possible. However Rothemund, the speaker at the TED talk for DNA folding showed us how they do in fact go hand in hand at time. Rothemund showed us DNA folding into what resembled a smiley face ! Who knew that scientist could manipulate DNA and change the way that it folds ? Companies like Apple are well known for using nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has made life more efficient for us in certain ways. Dr. Gimzewski was very helpful in making us understand the concept of nanotech
Read more
Image
In lecture we were exposed to an interesting topic about “degenius”. Buckminster Fuller says,  ”Everyone is a genius but the process of living de-geniuses them.” I found this to be interesting because even as early as his time , he knew the education system was going to be a fail for humans , at least in America. This week’s topic was about math and art. Some math subjects, such as geometry, have always been dependent on art since the start of their existence. Math allows for art to be a lot more detail and realistic because it’s based of off numbers. From this week’s readings , I learned about origami and its uniqueness. Of course I had heard of origami before , but I had no idea how much it was related to math , geometry to be specific. Origami is a perfect representation of the relationship between math and art. Why ? Because origami is geometry based art. To be successful in creating an origami piece, we have to know that geometry , and symmetry will be used. Because of th
Read more