Whilst brainstorming ideas for my chosen word as well as researching all areas of my word, I found a website called 'Smithsonian.com', this website featured an article called 'The Macabre Beauty of Medical Photographs'. I found this article so inspiring and nostalgic also as I had created some art work on a previous art and design course, where the work I produced was inspired by the form of microscopic photography that you would see doctors use to analyse diseases and bacteria. I find the photography style very creative and I feel that it can make any unfortunate or morbid disease, bacteria or virus appear beautiful, colour and interesting. The previous art work I had created (below) was meant to explore the Power of Sex and the measures of pleasure and desire no matter what form, what I did was take microscopic photographs of std's and viruses caught from sexual and activity and made it appear as if it was just a pattern or tattoo.
"The Macabre Beauty of Medical Photographs" By Megan Gambino.
(http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-macabre-beauty-of-medical-photographs-15393208/?no-ist)
Similarly to my art work, this article discusses the exploration of Microscopic photography and how different people have re-created and made diseases, viruses and brain and body abnormalities appear beautiful. I thought this article was so creative and interesting to read because of the starting ideas and reasoning for experimenting with this photography. The article in comparison to my chosen word 'Macabre',is a light hearted and artistic view on the word and definition of Macabre and it could be used to symbolise the fine line between something that is dark,evil,ugly but beautiful. The origin of the word Macabre is taken from a traditional myth and song claiming that when a certain song is played 'Danse Macabre', skeletons arise from their graves and all dance together until the sun rises. For me this adds light and almost celebrates death and all things Macabre similarly to the weirdly beautiful imagery of diseases from the article.
"An artist-science duo shares nearly 100 images of modern art with a ghastly twist- there all close-ups of human diseases and other ailments.
Norman Baker was fresh out of the Maryland Institute College of Art when he got an assignment to photograph a kidney. The human kidney, extracted during an autopsy, was riddled with cysts, a sign of polycystic kidney disease.
"The physician told me to make sure that it's 'beautiful' because it was being used for publication in a prestigious medical journal," writes Barker in his latest book, Hidden Beauty: Exploring the Aesthetics of Medical Science. "I can remember thinking to myself; this doctor is crazy, how am I going to make this sickly red specimen look beautiful?"
Thirty years later, the medical photographer and associate professor of pathology and art at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine will tell you that deliberating human diseases can actually be quite photogenic under the microscope, particularly when the professionals studying them use colour stains to enhance different shapes and patterns.
Barker and Iacobuzio-Donahue share an interest in how medical photography can take diseased tissue and render it otherworldly, abstract, vibrant and thought-provoking. Together they collected nearly 100 images of human diseases and other ailments from more than 60 medical science professionals for Hidden Beauty, a book and accompanying exhibition. In each image there is an underlying tension. The jarring moment, of course, is when viewers realise that the subject of the lovely image before them is something that can cause so much pain and distress."
 |
| Meneingioma. Image taken from Hidden Beauty, courtesy of Schiffer Publishing , Ltd. |
References.
http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com/legacy_blog/Meneingioma.jpg
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-macabre-beauty-of-medical-photographs-15393208/?no-ist
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-macabre-beauty-of-medical-photographs-15393208/?no-ist
No comments:
Post a Comment