Week 6: BioTech + Art

     To me, this weeks section on biotechnology feels like the culmination of two previous units, Medtech + Art and Math + Art. During the Math + Art section we learned how math helped artists create the perfect proportions for humans, buildings, and animals alike. The medtech portion showed how medicine is an art form in and of itself. Biotechnology is the fusion of these two sections in that it directly allows humans to create living tissues and modify genes. Through biotechnology we can be the artists who design our own children or ourselves. Gene modification allows soon-to-be parents to specify the traits they want their children to have, essentially allowing you to build the child of your dreams. This also extends past physical appearance. Gene modification can be used to help children avoid cancer as well as other life threatening illnesses or deformations.

     The movie Gattaca explores potential issues with gene modification. In this futuristic society, every individual has been perfected en utero which has led every individual who was not modified to be segregated and oppressed. This movie warns us of how gene modification could become problematic, with humans playing god and the ethical implications that creates.

     Biotechnology is not only used on humans, it is also used to modify plants to make them more draught resistant, extend their blooming season, or even to fuse multiple plants into one. A pluot is a fusion between a plum and an apricot. While that modification is simply for taste, the artistry of other genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have helped prevent starvation and allowed more widespread farming of different fruits and vegetables.

References

Ball, Philip. “Designer Babies: an Ethical Horror Waiting to Happen?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Jan. 2017.

“GMOs Help Farmers Keep America Growing.” Coalition for Safe Affordable Food.

“Math and Art: The Good, the Bad, and the Pretty.” Math and Art: The Good, the Bad, and the Pretty | Mathematical Association of America.

Stutz, Bruce. “Seed Magazineabout.” On Overconfidence § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM.

Tyson, Peter. “Describing Nature With Math.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 10 Nov. 2011.

Week 4: Medicine+Technology+Art

www.cctvcambridge.org

What I have learned from my four weeks in this course, and what has been reinforced with this weeks lecture material, is that art is far more expansive than most people realize. I would have never considered medicine a form of art, but when you break art down to its most simple components I realize that it is art. In its most basic respect, the act of surgery is an art requiring extreme precision.

It is much easier to see medicine’s relationship with art when looking at an art form such as plastic surgery. In this field doctors are directly affecting the human physical appearance and reshaping it to someone else’s desire. When this connection was first made I immediately remembered “The Lizard Man”, a man I had watched a documentary on who used plastic surgery and other body modifications to make himself look like a lizard. “Performance plastic surgery” was not an art form I had ever been exposed to, so at the time I didn’t think of his surgeries as art.

Lastly, I was surprised by the way medicine has influenced art outside of being an art form of its own. The invention of the MRI gave many artists a first look at the inside of a human body. Medicine has also had artistic influence as MRI and CAT Scans have been used in the creation of art. From brain-imaged self-portraits to VR experiences inside the human sternum, art has always been strongly influenced by medicine and medtech.  

            

Works Cited

Casini, Silvia. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts.” Configurations, vol. 19, no. 1, 2011, pp. 73–99., doi:10.1353/con.2011.0008. 

Herman, Joseph. “Medicine: the Science and the Art.” Medical Humanities, Institute of Medical Ethics, 1 June 2001, mh.bmj.com/content/27/1/42. 

“History, Present and Future of Medical Art.” Medical Art Through History | Vesalius, www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/related-reading/karger-gazette/medical-art-through-history.html. 

Lecher, Colin. “Amazing Art Inspired By MRIs.” Popular Science, 5 June 2013, www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-06/amazing-art-inspired-mris. 

TEDxTalks. “Why Medicine Needs Art | Jill Sonke | TEDxUF.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Apr. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=23mve5S90Ws.

Casini, Silvia. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts.” Configurations, vol. 19, no. 1, 2011, pp. 73–99.

Herman, Joseph. “Medicine: the Science and the Art.” Medical Humanities, Institute of Medical Ethics, 1 June 2001

“History, Present and Future of Medical Art.” Medical Art Through History | Vesalius

Lecher, Colin. “Amazing Art Inspired By MRIs.” Popular Science, 5 June 2013

TEDxTalks. “Why Medicine Needs Art | Jill Sonke | TEDxUF.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Apr. 2015

Casini, Silvia. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts.” Configurations, vol. 19, no. 1, 2011, pp. 73–99., doi:10.1353/con.2011.0008. 

Herman, Joseph. “Medicine: the Science and the Art.” Medical Humanities, Institute of Medical Ethics, 1 June 2001, mh.bmj.com/content/27/1/42. 

“History, Present and Future of Medical Art.” Medical Art Through History | Vesalius, www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/related-reading/karger-gazette/medical-art-through-history.html. 

Lecher, Colin. “Amazing Art Inspired By MRIs.” Popular Science, 5 June 2013, www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-06/amazing-art-inspired-mris. 

TEDxTalks. “Why Medicine Needs Art | Jill Sonke | TEDxUF.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Apr. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=23mve5S90Ws.