- Email: [email protected]
Feature: Medical interventions—visual art meets medical technology
Feature Medical interventions—visual art meets medical technology Wynn Abbott
www.thelancet.com Medicine and Creativity Vol 368 December 2006
body, particularly medical imaging and communications technologies. Her aim is “to provoke an enquiry into human interaction that is increasingly being mediated by digital media and to find new ways to sustain intimacy in a disembodied environment”. At her MA degree show at the Royal College of Art in London in 2001, she presented a sculpture called I Know You Inside Out. It was a reconstruction of the 39-year-old convicted murderer Joseph Paul Jernigan (more commonly known in the medical world as the National Library of Medicine’s Visible Human), who, before his execution, was persuaded to donate his body to medical science. Once dead, his body was frozen and sliced into more than 1000 cryosections, which were individually photographed; the images were put on the internet in November, 1994. Oliver undertook the project of downloading the images and “putting him back together again” by screen-printing 20 mm interval slices of his body onto sheets of acrylic, then stacking them into a column. The technique developed results in a body that appears at certain angles to be solid and whole but then vanishes at eye level; it becomes intangible. The vanishing point that exists between the virtual and the physical forms the poetic crux of the work both visually and conceptually. Since exhibiting this sculpture, Oliver has gone on to experiment with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In 2002, she unveiled Family Portrait, a series of four MRIderived sculptural portraits of her parents, her sister
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration Wynn Abbott is Director of SciCult, a specialist science-art gallery and agency, which promotes the work of artists who mix science with creativity SciCult, 67 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8JL, UK (W Abbott MA) Correspondence to: Mr Wynn Abbott [email protected]
See Essay What can the arts bring to medical training? by Suzy Willson page S15
Image courtesy of Beaux Arts, London
Artists have had an experimental romance with science for centuries, unravelling its complexities to form new taxonomies with which we can organise and relate to our world. Nowhere is this relationship more evident than in the countless historical and contemporary representations of the human body. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the dominance of the body in post-Renaissance art was challenged by a shift from figurative representations to dehumanised depictions of the body in conditions of disintegration, decay, or deformity. In Modern Art, realistic representation of a subject was no longer important; the invention of photography had made this function obsolete. However, as art historian Edward Lucie-Smith explains, “The human figure re-emerged in avant-garde art thanks to the rise of Performance Art during the 1960s. Real bodies—rather than bodies represented in painting and sculpture—began to be perceived as the animated, or at any rate animate, equivalents of Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades (everyday objects).” So, the body has once again come to occupy a central position in visual art. That medicine and visual art should merge in abundance therefore seems inevitable. The artist whose appearance has been most dramatically altered for the sake of art is the French performance artist Orlan. This artist’s chosen form of expression is plastic surgery. In The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan she has, since 1990, undergone a series of surgical operations to transform herself into a new being, modelling this new self on figures from art of the past, such as Venus and Mona Lisa. In her Carnal Art Manifesto Orlan says, “Carnal Art is self-portraiture in the classical sense, but realised through the possibility of technology. It swings between defiguration and refiguration. Its inscription in the flesh is a function of our age. The body has become a ‘modified ready-made’, no longer seen as the ideal it once represented.” She explains: “Psychoanalysis and religion agree in saying: ‘One must not attack the body’, ‘One must accept oneself’. These are primitive, ancestral, anachronistic concepts. We think that the sky will fall on our heads if we touch the body … Are we still convinced that we must bend ourselves to the decisions of nature, this lottery of genes distributed by chance?” Like many contemporary artists, Orlan is drawn to the use of modern medical techniques to convey her artistic message, and, this trend seems to be gathering momentum, especially in the UK. Nowadays it isn’t art that is accused of dehumanising humankind, but modern technology. The work of British artist Marilene Oliver, for example, addresses new digital media in relation to the human
Lancet 2006; 368: S17–S18
Marilene Oliver, Family Portrait, 2002; Dad, Mum, Sophie, and Self-portrait
S17
Image courtesy of Peter Cattrell
Annie Cattrell, Seeing and Hearing, 2003
Further reading Marilene Oliver’s website: www.marilene.co.uk The Visible Human: www.nlm.nih. gov/research/visible Nick Veasey’s website: www.nickveasey.com The Wellcome Trust ‘Science & Art’ Programme: www.wellcome. ac.uk/doc_WTD003251.html SciCult: www.scicult.com
S18
Sophie, and herself, using the same sculptural techniques as above but with living “sitters”. In talking to artists, doctors, and the general public about their response, Oliver has realised a huge potential in a poetic subversion of medical imaging. Translation of flat or screen-based medical imagery into a sculptural object allows the viewer to identify spatially with the imaged body as well as repairing its fragmentation or dislocation. Turning the body inside-out, Oliver has redefined the portrait, and so touched on a contemporary scientific issue, the implications of digital storage of medical information. Another British artist who has utilised the power of MRI to explore relations between the inside and outside world is Annie Cattrell, who was the first Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Royal Institution in London in 2002. Cattrell had previously been artist in residence in several hospitals. “I have always been fascinated by the subject of medicine, and the relationship between art and science”, says the artist, who often uses ductile materials, such as glass and plastic, to create “a new grammar of the human body”. The brain itself is the subject of her most enduring labour; during 2001 and 2002 she researched brain-scanning techniques that reveal the mapping of thoughts and the senses. Cattrell collaborated with several neuroscientists, including Steve Smith and Morten Kringelbach at the University of Oxford, and Mark Lythgoe at the Institute of Child Health in London, who provided access to functional MRI data. The California-based company, 3D Systems, used computer programming and rapid prototyping to translate data into three-dimensional forms. The first fruits of this research were a pair of cubic resin sculptures Seeing and Hearing, which were completed in 2002 and shown publicly for the first time in the Head On exhibition at the Science Museum, London. Cattrell has since completed a set of five cubic resin sculptures, called Sense, creating a stunning visual depiction of the five
senses. Martin Kemp, an art historian, explains that this work “allowed her to seek the physicality of consciousness” by exploring the “delicate dialogue between the exterior world and our individual blueprint. In imaging the brain by casting and modelling, Cattrell stands in a long line going back to Leonardo da Vinci, who cast the ventricles of an ox brain, believing that the fluid in the ventricles was the medium within which the mental faculties operated.” Using medical technology in a completely different context, British artist Nick Veasey was one of the first to take full advantage of X-rays in experimental imagemaking, to dazzling effect. While working as a television photographer and designer, he was assigned the tedious task of testing drink cans with X-rays to find out which ones contained a winning code for a contest sponsored by the manufacturer. After several days without locating a winner, he radiographed one of his shoes for fun. Veasey recalls, “It was a great image and I thought ‘there’s something to this’”. It was to become a life-changing experience. Veasey spent the next 3 months working with scientists, refining his technique. He learnt to gauge object density and structure by experimenting with various materials including metals, plastics, plants, and people. His artistic discovery propelled his career into the commercial stratosphere. 10 years on, Veasey’s work retains originality in its quality, and his experiments with microscopy and surface-scanning equipment have produced equally dramatic results. Artists such as Oliver and Cattrell use medical technology to question medical issues ethically, socially, and historically within both fine art and scientific contexts. The British writer, Jeanette Winterson, has pointed out “Freud and Jung made the inside of our heads fashionable. The inside of our bodies is still taboo.” Are the artists working alongside medicine confronting these medical taboos, aiding and influencing social change? They are not seeking to interact with medicine in an illustrative sense. Instead, they are translating technical ideas and information into forms that act as a vehicle to explore the conceptual ideas behind the scientific research. Taking a less pragmatic approach, artists like Veasey use new medical technologies to create visual puns, illustrating the machinery’s artistic capabilities, which may previously have been obscured by medical practice. These transgressive experimentations between medicine and visual art also hold valuable lessons for the new movement to engage the public with science and technology. Study of how medicine operates in the realm of visual art uncovers new communicative possibilities for science engagement outlets such as science museums and centres. As former Assistant-Director of the Science Museum, London, John Durant puts it, “Genuine experimentation in the art of communication with visitors is more common in museums of art than it is in museums of science.” www.thelancet.com Medicine and Creativity Vol 368 December 2006
www.thelancet.com Medicine and Creativity Vol 368 December 2006
body, particularly medical imaging and communications technologies. Her aim is “to provoke an enquiry into human interaction that is increasingly being mediated by digital media and to find new ways to sustain intimacy in a disembodied environment”. At her MA degree show at the Royal College of Art in London in 2001, she presented a sculpture called I Know You Inside Out. It was a reconstruction of the 39-year-old convicted murderer Joseph Paul Jernigan (more commonly known in the medical world as the National Library of Medicine’s Visible Human), who, before his execution, was persuaded to donate his body to medical science. Once dead, his body was frozen and sliced into more than 1000 cryosections, which were individually photographed; the images were put on the internet in November, 1994. Oliver undertook the project of downloading the images and “putting him back together again” by screen-printing 20 mm interval slices of his body onto sheets of acrylic, then stacking them into a column. The technique developed results in a body that appears at certain angles to be solid and whole but then vanishes at eye level; it becomes intangible. The vanishing point that exists between the virtual and the physical forms the poetic crux of the work both visually and conceptually. Since exhibiting this sculpture, Oliver has gone on to experiment with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In 2002, she unveiled Family Portrait, a series of four MRIderived sculptural portraits of her parents, her sister
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration Wynn Abbott is Director of SciCult, a specialist science-art gallery and agency, which promotes the work of artists who mix science with creativity SciCult, 67 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8JL, UK (W Abbott MA) Correspondence to: Mr Wynn Abbott [email protected]
See Essay What can the arts bring to medical training? by Suzy Willson page S15
Image courtesy of Beaux Arts, London
Artists have had an experimental romance with science for centuries, unravelling its complexities to form new taxonomies with which we can organise and relate to our world. Nowhere is this relationship more evident than in the countless historical and contemporary representations of the human body. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the dominance of the body in post-Renaissance art was challenged by a shift from figurative representations to dehumanised depictions of the body in conditions of disintegration, decay, or deformity. In Modern Art, realistic representation of a subject was no longer important; the invention of photography had made this function obsolete. However, as art historian Edward Lucie-Smith explains, “The human figure re-emerged in avant-garde art thanks to the rise of Performance Art during the 1960s. Real bodies—rather than bodies represented in painting and sculpture—began to be perceived as the animated, or at any rate animate, equivalents of Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades (everyday objects).” So, the body has once again come to occupy a central position in visual art. That medicine and visual art should merge in abundance therefore seems inevitable. The artist whose appearance has been most dramatically altered for the sake of art is the French performance artist Orlan. This artist’s chosen form of expression is plastic surgery. In The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan she has, since 1990, undergone a series of surgical operations to transform herself into a new being, modelling this new self on figures from art of the past, such as Venus and Mona Lisa. In her Carnal Art Manifesto Orlan says, “Carnal Art is self-portraiture in the classical sense, but realised through the possibility of technology. It swings between defiguration and refiguration. Its inscription in the flesh is a function of our age. The body has become a ‘modified ready-made’, no longer seen as the ideal it once represented.” She explains: “Psychoanalysis and religion agree in saying: ‘One must not attack the body’, ‘One must accept oneself’. These are primitive, ancestral, anachronistic concepts. We think that the sky will fall on our heads if we touch the body … Are we still convinced that we must bend ourselves to the decisions of nature, this lottery of genes distributed by chance?” Like many contemporary artists, Orlan is drawn to the use of modern medical techniques to convey her artistic message, and, this trend seems to be gathering momentum, especially in the UK. Nowadays it isn’t art that is accused of dehumanising humankind, but modern technology. The work of British artist Marilene Oliver, for example, addresses new digital media in relation to the human
Lancet 2006; 368: S17–S18
Marilene Oliver, Family Portrait, 2002; Dad, Mum, Sophie, and Self-portrait
S17
Image courtesy of Peter Cattrell
Annie Cattrell, Seeing and Hearing, 2003
Further reading Marilene Oliver’s website: www.marilene.co.uk The Visible Human: www.nlm.nih. gov/research/visible Nick Veasey’s website: www.nickveasey.com The Wellcome Trust ‘Science & Art’ Programme: www.wellcome. ac.uk/doc_WTD003251.html SciCult: www.scicult.com
S18
Sophie, and herself, using the same sculptural techniques as above but with living “sitters”. In talking to artists, doctors, and the general public about their response, Oliver has realised a huge potential in a poetic subversion of medical imaging. Translation of flat or screen-based medical imagery into a sculptural object allows the viewer to identify spatially with the imaged body as well as repairing its fragmentation or dislocation. Turning the body inside-out, Oliver has redefined the portrait, and so touched on a contemporary scientific issue, the implications of digital storage of medical information. Another British artist who has utilised the power of MRI to explore relations between the inside and outside world is Annie Cattrell, who was the first Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Royal Institution in London in 2002. Cattrell had previously been artist in residence in several hospitals. “I have always been fascinated by the subject of medicine, and the relationship between art and science”, says the artist, who often uses ductile materials, such as glass and plastic, to create “a new grammar of the human body”. The brain itself is the subject of her most enduring labour; during 2001 and 2002 she researched brain-scanning techniques that reveal the mapping of thoughts and the senses. Cattrell collaborated with several neuroscientists, including Steve Smith and Morten Kringelbach at the University of Oxford, and Mark Lythgoe at the Institute of Child Health in London, who provided access to functional MRI data. The California-based company, 3D Systems, used computer programming and rapid prototyping to translate data into three-dimensional forms. The first fruits of this research were a pair of cubic resin sculptures Seeing and Hearing, which were completed in 2002 and shown publicly for the first time in the Head On exhibition at the Science Museum, London. Cattrell has since completed a set of five cubic resin sculptures, called Sense, creating a stunning visual depiction of the five
senses. Martin Kemp, an art historian, explains that this work “allowed her to seek the physicality of consciousness” by exploring the “delicate dialogue between the exterior world and our individual blueprint. In imaging the brain by casting and modelling, Cattrell stands in a long line going back to Leonardo da Vinci, who cast the ventricles of an ox brain, believing that the fluid in the ventricles was the medium within which the mental faculties operated.” Using medical technology in a completely different context, British artist Nick Veasey was one of the first to take full advantage of X-rays in experimental imagemaking, to dazzling effect. While working as a television photographer and designer, he was assigned the tedious task of testing drink cans with X-rays to find out which ones contained a winning code for a contest sponsored by the manufacturer. After several days without locating a winner, he radiographed one of his shoes for fun. Veasey recalls, “It was a great image and I thought ‘there’s something to this’”. It was to become a life-changing experience. Veasey spent the next 3 months working with scientists, refining his technique. He learnt to gauge object density and structure by experimenting with various materials including metals, plastics, plants, and people. His artistic discovery propelled his career into the commercial stratosphere. 10 years on, Veasey’s work retains originality in its quality, and his experiments with microscopy and surface-scanning equipment have produced equally dramatic results. Artists such as Oliver and Cattrell use medical technology to question medical issues ethically, socially, and historically within both fine art and scientific contexts. The British writer, Jeanette Winterson, has pointed out “Freud and Jung made the inside of our heads fashionable. The inside of our bodies is still taboo.” Are the artists working alongside medicine confronting these medical taboos, aiding and influencing social change? They are not seeking to interact with medicine in an illustrative sense. Instead, they are translating technical ideas and information into forms that act as a vehicle to explore the conceptual ideas behind the scientific research. Taking a less pragmatic approach, artists like Veasey use new medical technologies to create visual puns, illustrating the machinery’s artistic capabilities, which may previously have been obscured by medical practice. These transgressive experimentations between medicine and visual art also hold valuable lessons for the new movement to engage the public with science and technology. Study of how medicine operates in the realm of visual art uncovers new communicative possibilities for science engagement outlets such as science museums and centres. As former Assistant-Director of the Science Museum, London, John Durant puts it, “Genuine experimentation in the art of communication with visitors is more common in museums of art than it is in museums of science.” www.thelancet.com Medicine and Creativity Vol 368 December 2006