Regarding this week's content on medicine and art, I have had no real experience with medical technologies like MRI or CT scans - for a long period of my life I didn't even have medical insurance so there was no access nor need. However, the works of Eduardo Kac and Ken Warwick were most helpful in helping me understand the relationship between art and medicine.
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| Photo of Kevin Warwick holding his RFID chip implant (left) and photo of Eduardo Kac (right). Left retrieved from NY Times | Chip Technology Implant. Right retrieved from Kac | Biographical Note. |
Kac and Warwick both implanted microchips within their bodies but utilized them for different purposes. Kac used the microchip, alongside other uses, as a time capsule, within it containing family mementos (Kac), while Warwick's chip had material utility to it, as it was linked to access doors and switch lights within his lab, and even later for sending morse code messages to his partner (Vesna 00:06:30 - 00:06:40). On the one hand, Kac utilizes new medical technologies to capture and store his past as photographs, and on the other, Warwick uses similar medical tools to enhance the capabilities of the human body.
The implications for these microchips in the future are interesting, and perhaps scary. Many science fiction authors and storytellers have displayed how cybernetic implants could alter the way humans interact with each other and the environment around each other. The Cyberpunk universe is a good example of this, as many individuals have the capacity to enhance their human attributes like strength, speed, intelligence, and even knowledge of dancing. Of course, these are fictional works, but the rapid acceleration of medical technologies in the contemporary age could usher in additional avenues for human strife.
Today, one could recognize how the normalization of cosmetic medical operations like plastic surgery can cause further stresses on groups of people by increasing competition. The artist Orlan, who used her face as a canvas to reproduce the most beautiful and revered features of women in history (Vesna 00:07:00 - 00:08:00) demonstrates how we can alter the standard of human art and beauty through medical technologies. Although Orlan's intention wasn't to just capture to the admired features of these women, the notion of improving one's facial features is still conveyed through her work. Thus, from plastic surgery to microchips/implants, medical technology in relation to art is pushing human competition for resources like education, work, and even interpersonal affection/love, which could spell disaster for future generations.
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| Photo of Orlan before her broadcasted operation. Photograph by Sipa Press/REX/Shutterstock. |
Works Cited
Kac, Eduardo. Time Capsule. 1997. Beep/Data Logic, Reus. https://www.ekac.org/timcap.html.
Accessed 24 April 2023.
King-Holmes, James/Science Photo Library. 2019. Kevin Warwick holding a chip implant. Getty
Images. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/opinion/chip-technology-implant.html. Accessed 24
April 2023.
Sipa Press/REX/Shutterstock. 2016. Photo of Orlan before the cosmetic surgery.
Shutterstock. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/15/orlan-i-walked-a-long-way-for
women. Accessed 24 April 2023.
Vesna, Victoria. "Human Body & Medical Technologies part 3". DESMA9 Bruinlearn Course
Website. https://bruinlearn.ucla.edu/courses/160989/pages/unit-4-view
module_item_id=5946331. Accessed 24 April 2023.
Vesna, Victoria. "Human Body & Medical Technologies part 4". DESMA9 Bruinlearn Course
Website. https://bruinlearn.ucla.edu/courses/160989/pages/unit-4-view
module_item_id=5946331 Accessed 24 April 2023.
Hi Johnny, thank you for taking the time to write this insightful reflection. Like you said, the future of microchips - and the implications they signify - is a little scary, especially in a society which has already imagined worst case scenarios. The two examples you mentioned elucidate the range of potential implications and effects of this type of technology; from a nostalgic relic of the past, to a bionic control of technology, it is really interesting to see just how much can be done with this type of technology.
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