Over the
past hundreds of years, medicine has developed from a kind of art to pure
science. I was not able to relate medicine to any kind of art until listening
to one of the lectures. Indeed, medicine can be viewed from the artistic
prospect. Imaging yourself in a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, listening
to some peaceful music, appreciating the beautiful wooden furniture, given
prescriptions that you cannot understand at all- you would feel that somehow,
medicine and art are connected.
A picture
of traditional Chinese medicine therapy, somehow seems artistic to me
The first
interesting thing I found from the lecture was Orlan’s performance of plastic
surgery. Orlan made many transformations to her body. She explores different
techniques such as photography, video and sculpture. The performance of Orlan
is a significant application of medicine in the field of art. Before Orlan came
out, the pursuit for beauty has already inspired medicine to make progress. It was a group of artists who gave hope to
facially wounded soldiers- that plastic surgeries were possible and available
to them.
Early
plastic surgeries were far from perfect, but efforts were made to make those
wounded faces aesthetically acceptable
Medicine
also enables art to be expressed in more ways. The third hand, mentioned in the
lecture, is an art expression inspired by the study of body movement. The third
hand would not be created without an artist, and on the other hand, it was
medical theories and researches which made the project possible.
Art is
playing a more important role in the field of medicine nowadays. Diane Gromala
was one of the first artists to work with immersive virtual reality, and her
research in implications of art and technology has led to her unique approach
in fighting chronic pain. Art is being used more widely in body treatments.
Music Therapy, for example, is the use of music by health care professionals to
promote healing and enhance quality of life for their patients. Nowadays,
health knowledge from medicine professionals is being spread in various forms
of art, such as movies and comic books.
Dr. Diane
Gromala is one of the pioneers working with immersive virtual reality, and
applied her research work in the treatment of chronic pain (an artist
contributing to the field of medicine)
Citations:
Shenzhen to Promote Traditional Chinese Medical Clinics in Communities, www.shenzhen-standard.com
Orlan, Biography, Awards and Grants, http://www.orlan.eu/biography/
Pioneering plastic surgery records from First World War pubilished, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9396435/Pioneering-plastic-surgery-records-from-First-World-War-published.html
Diane Gromala, Wikepedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Gromala
Dr. Diane Gromala of SFU's School of Interactive Arts and Technology, grand-nce.ca
Music Therapy, American Cancer Society, http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/mindbodyandspirit/music-therapy
Really good points made in your post. I was also very interested by ORLAN, and I also never thought that medicine and art could be combined until watching this weeks lecture. It is true that art is playing more of a role in medicine these days and it will be very interesting to see where it takes us in the future!
ReplyDeleteHi Weihang:
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job in summarizing this week's topics. This week I don't have many suggestions for you because the blog itself is already pretty well-constructed and very readable.
The only thing I might disagree with you is the point you made about Chinese medicine clinic. Although I have never been to an "ancient" Chinese medicine clinic which you might be talking about, like the ones in the movies, I have actually visited several hospitals in China titled "Chinese Medicine Clinic 省中医院 etc". None of these facilities has actually played peaceful music or used wooden furniture.......... :(
This is really a trivial point...... but I just want to express that it's a bit hard for me to associate Chinese medicine with art in the way you described it, haha.
Great blog! I might just be nitpicking here :)
Tianxingyan Zou
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog! When I was going over the video about chronic pain and Diane Gromala, I was completely surprised. Chronic pain and art?? It doesn't seem to connect at all After watching the video I am thoroughly convinced we can find art anywhere if we choose to leave our misconceptions behind and begin to see the world with a different point of view.