This week’s lectures were very interesting this week and caught my attention for multiple reasons. I always knew that the body has been an art focal point for many years; nude art classes for example has been shown in many movies. I did not think of magnetic resonance imaging scans to be art of the body though. Because MRI scans create images of soft tissues and organs, it allows artists to work with the brain, which cannot be done with live art. The brain is considered to be the heart and soul of a person, so the brain has been an increasingly popular topic. The brain is responsible for personality and thoughts, which are traits that artist like to portray through art. 

Other medical techniques have been used as art mediums, as we see through Orlan’s surgery art series. She would undergo plastic surgery while be conscious on the table to explore the different realms of her body. In five years, she underwent nine surgeries to make certain parts of her body look like figures in Western history, like Francois Boucher’s Europa, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, and Botticelli’s Venus.  Many people consider her surgeries as a way of combining medicine and art, but others believe it is a cry for help and signs of psychological disorders. Click here for more. I personally believe that undergoing surgery is not art. There are extreme risks to any surgery and exposing yourself to those risks is not artistic, but dangerous.

On the topic of plastic surgery, I believe that the surgeon performing the surgery is an artist. It takes a lot of skill and creativity to give a person a look that they will be happy with. Plastic surgeons also can recreate burned ears from taking tissues from other parts of the body and give burn victims skin again. Surgeons come up with new procedures and techniques to leave less scaring, find less invasive ways, and to continue their art as technology advances. We have also seen medicine and art go very wrong in plastic surgery. Some people end up with horrifying results and look a little to plastic. In any type of art, there are good artists and not so good artists.

Images:

• Botched. 
  Digital image. Evolution Media. 24 May 2012. Web.
• The "Weird Science" of Plastic Surgery Art. Digital image. Ienhance. 24 May 2012. Web.
• Tompkinson, Geoff. Coloured Mri Scan Of Brain In Sagittal Se. Digital image. Fine Art America. 8 May 2013. Web.

References:

• "Burn Reconstruction and Plastic Surgery." Burn Reconstruction and Plastic Surgery. John Hopkins Medicine. Web. 24 Apr. 2015. <http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/burn/adult/clinicalservices/reconstruction.html
• Casini, Silvia. "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts." Configurations 19 (2011): 73-99. Print.
• Jeffries, Stuart. "Orlan's Art of Sex and Surgery." The Guardian. 1 July 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jul/01/orlan-performance-artist-carnal-art>.
• Rose, Barbara. "Orlan: Is It Art? Orlan and the Transgressive Act." Art in America 81.2 (1993): 83-125. Print.
• Vesna, Victoria. "Medicine + Technology + Art Lectures ." Desma 9 Lecture. Los Angeles. 23 Apr. 2015. Lecture. Online.