Anatomy and Art

A couple years ago, a friend told me about Bespoke.  She pointed them out to me because their goals so sounded like my own with regard to patient care.  Last week, I was listening to TED talks online and came across one called “Scott Summit: Beautiful artificial limbs.”  Sure enough, I come to realize that Scott Summit is behind Bespoke, a company that wasn’t ready to hire an anaplastologist when I contacted them, but I still have to say a company that seems to get it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_summit_beautiful_artificial_limbs.html

If anything, I would have to say that the only thing these guys are missing is the option of a prosthesis which mimics the part that was lost accurately.  For some, that’s the best solution.  But that aside, I think that they are doing great work.  They’re doing great work that I would like to see come in to the realm of prostheses that are made to be more accurate, or just prosthetics in general.  So often in medical care of any kind, it seems to be the individual that is lost.  These guys aren’t making that mistake.  How refreshing!

This video starts with a spoken word poem, and continues on to say some really nice things about communication and really art in general. It’s one of those remarkably healthy takes on art, creation, and the connections we make as artists. And I thought it was worth posting here. Don’t expect a medical talk, this one is pure art and inspiration.

I was scoping around the internet a bit today for interesting anatomy and art related projects when I stumbled across photographer Miru Kim.  Miru Kim is not an anatomical or medical artist, but rather she is an artist who takes some of her inspiration from early anatomy lessons.  Her work deals more with what’s under the skin of a city, and urban decay, but I was so impressed with her that I simply had to write about her here.

Playing both the role of photographer and model, she has captured photos for her series, Naked City Spleen, across various cities spanning several countries, and getting into fascinating underground and decaying places.  I am usually the last to be impressed by themes or series in an artist’s work, but there is something about the repeated juxtaposition of her naked figure against these decaying environments that speaks to the vulnerable nature of humanity and yet at the same time emphasizes a strength and bravery as you begin to contemplate the positions that this artist has put herself into for her art.

Below I’ve embedded the TED talk she gave in 2008.  It is well worth the watch.

Today I found myself seated next to someone who works with the TED conferences on a plane.  TED has for a long time now held a special place in my heart.  There are so very many fascinating presentations happening there.  But I think I am most partial to the conferences for being a force of cross pollination of ideas amongst fields.  This is a concept that so often gets lost amongst varying specializations.  But the truly innovative and groundbreaking work being done in any field always seems to come back to inspiration from an outside source.  Even in our personal lives, it is so often when we lay our thoughts down for a bit and let our minds travel to other matters that we come up with our most inspired solutions and innovations.

If you haven’t visited the TED site before, I recommend you take a look now…
http://www.ted.com/

And if you find yourself stuck in a rut with whatever you may be doing, I recommend taking even just half an hour to change the scene, read about something completely different, change settings, talk to someone with insights different than your own.  In short, take in new information.  It might just do you some good.