Scientific Looking, Looking at Science

Looking at Science

The book makes the obvious assertion that science is not distinct from culture and just because it is "dedicated to discovering laws of nature" doesn't even come close separating itself from societal trends, ideas, and politics. In fact, science has always been relevant to our culture because it is always changing and revealing more about the world, the human being, and about life as a whole. The fact that science is always fluctuating and coming out with disclaimers, contradictions, and other news that conveniently aligns itself with the mainstream themes is evidence that culture, and by default, visual communication, are integrally connected to the field of science. Science, while being affected by culture, also has an enormous effect on culture (art, advertising, and the law). Like the X-ray on page 348, the image of the hand is a technological breakthrough on one hand, while on the other hand, offering a completely original aesthetic to the world. This was the beginning of a wave of scientific breakthroughs that allowed us to see things like never before. Things like the MRI, CAT, CT, PET, ultrasound, and many more offer unprecedented images that essentially broadened the scope/vision of the average person.

Ironically, science has taken things previously unseen (the use of sound waves in an ultrasound, for instance) and reintroduced them to us, culture, as visual images. The image of a baby in the womb is now common to us, but I can imagine the first ultrasounds bewildered the globe. Visualization, as the book calls it, is whenever something previously unseen, whether sensory, acoustic, etc, has become available visually. Science has literally changed, and continues to change the way we perceive the world. Our perception has not only broadened in a tangible, physical sense, we now manage life from a molecular level. This may seem to most a metaphysical, psychology shift because the average person doesn't deal with life on a molecular level, his or her mind only abstractly understands the molecular existence of a virus, for instance. For some, daily their minds gravitate subconsciously or consciously to the molecular level. Drugs that we people take everyday to fight viruses, or thoughts about genetics, and what kind of traits we are receiving from our parents, all this leads us to images of things invisible without technology. The book makes the point that science has both literally and metaphorically changed the way we understand our bodies or nature. Basically, the interplay between culture and science is anything but mutually exclusive.

The Theater of Science

When I think of historical (pre-photography) images of the body, the first to jump into my mind is Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, or his grotesque anatomical sketches. The Vitruvian Man, is named after the Roman architect Vitruvious, who saw geometry of the human body as a microcosm of the universe. The sketch is now famous for depicting " a symbol of the interrelationship of the human body to the laws of mathematics and structure in nature." All this to say, anatomical, or scientific art such as the V-Man, inherently affected the history of art and medicine. It is through such images that culture and science are fused together. Culture, like science, has always been fascinated by the human anatomy. I guess that explains why nearly every college, liberal arts or otherwise, makes their students take biology. Part of what drives both culture and science to uncover the mystery of the human body is represented by Leiden's Anatomy Theater in which "the practice of science was presented as a wonder and a view into the mysterious border land between life and death." Rembrandt's, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, presents a commentary on the culture and science. The social aspect includes the fact that even important figures in Amrsterdam are interested in the anatomy of a human body, so long as its a "social outcast" like the man is being dissected in the painting. So, to brush over anatomical paintings, people want to know what going on inside them, and just like in the 17th century, we are still having our perceptions changed (paradigm shifts).
*If you have a chance, check this out. It shows our culture's extreme, if not disturbing, fixation with the human body.

Imaging the Body's Interior

Technology has allowed us to see into the human body, eliminating some mysteries and affirming others. The ultrasound, although it is thought by many to be a visual window to the body, is actually an image created by sonar technology. The sound waves bounce back to the sonar with data about the measurements of the object being sonographed. Our culture likes it when things are visual, and on a TV screen, so ultrasounds are converted into images, instead of graphs or numerical records. Prenatal images hold heavy emotional, cultural, and/or religious weight. An ultrasound is the mother's first glimpse of her child and it is only natural that she would cherish that image the rest of her life. Culturally, we see images of ultrasounds in car commercials (like the Volvo ad; fig 9:16) or in political ads like this one on the left. Abortion battles have long kept politics and religion in a heated discourse, and you can bet that both sides have used ultrasounds. It is interesting to look at the 1960s and what they had in mind for this new found technology. Immediately, as in the Fig. 9.18, the proposition of the "Control of Life" entered the scene. Scientific advancement has been used by culture by all sides, pro-life and pro-choice.
Phrenology

During the Victorian Age, especially in England, criminal behavior was an enormously popular study. In this picture, one can begin to understand the lengths criminologists took to unpack and catagorize the criminal mind.

1. What are some images produced in the field of science that have had a notable impact on society?

2. Has science and the increase of visual technologies become political fodder more than anything else?

3. Do you think molecularly throughout your day?