Week 4: MedTechArt

Robot-Assisted Surgery 

Before this week my knowledge on Medicine-Art-Technology was very limited. Like many things discussed in this class thus far I was surprised by the connection. I remember having a conversation with someone in my friend circle one time and learning that her brother worked for a company that sold a tool that essentially did the surgery for one. It was known as robot-assisted surgery and nowadays it is seen as the future of medicine. Professor Vesna in her lecture part 2 described how technology in hospitals was only brought about more recently in the 20th century starting with a microscope and has evolved to state of the art x-rays and what not and will continue to take off.



While watching the lecture videos something else that came to my mind was the prosthetic leg. These are a perfect example of something that has been designed as having a function and also being a form of art and expression for one's self. Prosthetic legs can have various different functions and are made for various events such as running and casual. Again as technology has gotten better so have these and they will only continue to be more and more functional.

Running prosthetic leg

In addition, something I found interesting was the work of Kevin Warwick. His ideas and work essentially made sci-fi movies come to life and make me look at life from a different perspective and how advanced we are capable of becoming. He talked about in the Project Cyborg having an implant that would be able to access personal information about yourself which is fascinating. It is scary to think about what us as humans are capable of doing.

Chip Implant in body 

"Women with Prosthetic leg". Envato Market.  https://photodune.net/item/close-up-of-athlete-woman-with-prosthetic-leg-running/22333851

Chip Implant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmFeXC_b-Uk

"Robot-Assisted Surgery". Franciscan Health. https://www.franciscanhealth.org/health-care-services/robotic-assisted-surgery-334

Warwick, Kevin. "Project Cyborg 1.0" Kevin Warwick, 1998. 

Vesna, Victoria. “Human Body & Medical Technologies.” Cole UC online. YouTube, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2019.