aesthetics of biomedicine

At our next event on Thursday evening, accompanying the opening of new exhibition Experiences of Ageing, we’ll be inviting guests to investigate some of the overlooked aspects of medicine with their pen, lens, and hands. We’ll be exploring the quiet spaces that surround the drama of medical objects, everyday medical devices that are often ignored, […]

Nina Katchadourian‘s ‘Artificial Insemination’ (C-print, 20 x 20 inches, 1998) A “very spontaneous” piece of work she writes: a handful of tadpoles in water all fished out of a rainwater pond, a dinner plate from the cupboard, and a black t-shirt I was wearing at the time. A deliberate scrambling of the iconic scientific image […]

Some of us from Medical Museion are going to try a new session format at this year’s Swedish STS-meeting, which takes place at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, 2-4 May. Titled “In Medias Res: The aesthetics of scientific, technological and medical things”, the idea of the session is to present some of […]

As you might remember, in 2010 Medical Museion received the Dibner Award for excellence in museum exhibits in the history of technology for the temporary exhibition Split + Splice – Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine. The exhibition is unfortunately no longer on show – all that is left is the container wall in our ticket sales area – but that […]

A luminous, fabric-draped box containing ten audience members clutching ten life-like baby dolls. An accompanying host of doll-figures in various states of sartorial and bodily undress, creepily moving (or moved) around the space. Two performers giddily flying through a fragmented set of scenes that invite the audience to sit with the tensions of being a […]

Careful readers of this blog may remember we opened an Investigation Room here at Medical Museion in connection with the Copenhagen Culture Night in October 2010. The room originated on the initiative of postdoc Lucy Lyons as a public venue for her project on drawing as a method to communicate experience with museum objects: Medical Museion’s Investigation Room […]

When listening with the eyes, the laboratory overwhelmed me with rhythm. The rhythm of the steady hands of the lab technicians performing their routines to perfection, leaving no superfluous motion. Focusing on a single movement – emptying the content of one test tube in to another – this video tries to incapsulate the amount of human experience, routine and familiarity […]

I’ve been invited by the philosophy of science group in Gothenburg to give a talk to their Theory of Science seminar group on Friday, 3 February — titled ”Mundane Design vs. Fine Sci-Art: Two Realms of Aesthetic Practice in Science Communication”. Here’s the abstract: Sci-art has become an increasingly important dimension of science communication through printed […]

Random associations are creatively powerful: It seems to me that sometimes sophisticated contemporary biomedicine share certain aesthetics of medieval witch chemistry. Just look at this ink black brew: This video is part of my investigation into the aesthetics of the biomedical laboratory. It was recorded at Jens Juul Holst‘s laboratory at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of […]

In December I visited Jens Juul Holst‘s laboratory at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biomedical Sciences, where Sofie Pilgaard Olesen and her colleagues work with gut hormones and their role in treating diabetes. I brought my camera to film them in their daily work, and have spend the last couple of weeks cutting my material into 3 short […]