Week 4 | Medicine+Technology+Art

Body Worlds Heart

I used to be pre-med. The subject matter fascinated me and I wanted to help people. However, the coursework was so rigid; even our “experiments” were simply following instructions to re-create someone else’s work. Even though I left the field, I am still fascinated by the human body. The Hippocratic Oath says “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science.” Having visited Body Worlds twice, I can definitely agree with this statement. 

The Spiral Staircase at Chambord

Ingber’s discussion of the cell as architectural brought to mind one of my favorite places in the world, the Chateau de Chambord, and its connection with one of my favorite complex shapes, the double helix. Leonardo da Vinci designed the staircase at Chambord to be intertwined helix shapes, where two people can enter through opposite doors at the bottom and never meet up again until they reach the top. I was not aware, however, of the use of the double helix in modern art. During the debate over the Human Genome Project, the image of the double helix was presented in the media often and spoke to many artists. Mark Swartz says that, although DNA is completely organic, its image is not like that of a flower or spider web which “can inspire an artist without carrying much cultural baggage.” The double helix is a statement.

"Tickle" by Driessens & Verstappen, which feels
like a caterpillar crawling on your skin

I enjoyed looking at this art, but the use of art as a visual medium is restrictive because we have dozens of other senses. Smell can, as much as sight, trigger deep emotions and memories. The teamLab Floating Flower Garden discussed in lecture is one such use of smells in art. Eduardo Kac also uses scent with his Osmobox series, in which all of the pieces look identically indistinct and yet each release a different scent. Touch is another strong sense and I am equally intrigued by Driessens and Verstappen’s tickle robot series, in which tiny robots attempt to recreate the feel of organic movement, such as a blade of grass in the wind or a caterpillar. I would love to experience art that played with balance or time perception.

------------------------------

"Chateau De Chambord - Leonardo Da Vinci." Travel France Online. 6 June 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.travelfranceonline.com/chateau-de-chambord-leonardo-da-vinci/>.

Ingber, Donald E. "The Architecture of Life." Scientific American (1998): 48-57. Print.

Kac, Eduardo. "Osmoboxes." Kac Web. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ekac.org/osmobox.html>.

Swartz, Mark. "Beauty of the Double Helix." The Chicago Reader 21 Sept. 1995, Art Review sec. Print.

"Tickle Robots, Spear, Tickle, Tickle Salon, Driessens & Verstappen." Tickle Robots, Spear, Tickle, Tickle Salon, Driessens & Verstappen. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://notnot.home.xs4all.nl/ticklerobots/ticklerobots.html>.

Tyson, Peter. "The Hippocratic Oath Today." PBS. PBS, 27 Mar. 2001. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html>.