Medicine + Art

Medicine is a form of art. Technology & Art, gives people tools to examine and study the world and help understand it. Technological advances such as glasses, braces, prosthetic limbs, all those tools help humans progress positively in everyday life. During the Ted Talk Virgil states that his ailing mother made this claim while discussing art with him in the hospital,“Medicine helps us live longer lives, but art is about why we live” (Ted Talk). Artists and Doctors are synonymous and both help progress the quality of human life.

Art as medicine poster from JHU Magazine

The trailer for Steven Spielberg’s Al, depicts that a Robot child, is capable of love. His purpose of being built was to be given to a childless couple. Once again art, technology and medicine intertwine to give us life and help improve our quality of life as well. In this case, potentially filling the missing void of a child, to a couple. Although this movie is fictional, and there are no robot children, the movie captures how technology can aid in helping fill an emotional void. This is all helping me to respect the arts and realize that the arts are just as important to sustaining human life, then medicine is.

Medicine is a positive form of technological advance that has truly helped the human race evolve. However, Art also gives humans purpose. This weeks’ videos and pictures in class is teaching me that medicine can be art, and artists should be respected just as much as doctors are. It is also helping me to see that both combine in a way that help balance the other, which gives many people purposeful lives.

The movie trailers about modern technology are a combination of art, technology and theatre within itself. The medicine is used to heal humans in the movies, or like in robo-cop, the technology gives a glimpse into the future and possible human/robot interactions. While movies can be considered art, and provide entertainment to an audience. 

Robo cop from the movie

Sources:

Taylor, Don.  The Island of Doctor Moreau 1977. YouTube, 26 May 2010.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kONqJoTMlk.

Verhoeven, Paul. Robocop.  Youtube.  1 November, 2007  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mLmHUbC240.

Wong, Virgil. Ted Talk Medical Avatar. 24, March 2011. http://virgilwong.com/virgils-ted-talk-the-medical-avatar/

Spielberg, Steven. Artificial Intelligence Trailer. 29 August, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECGnWoQgz6Q

Driessens, Erwin & Verstappen, Maria. Not not collection. n.d. https://notnot.home.xs4all.nl