BBC News – Surgical instruments: Dreadful and Divine

BBC News – Surgical instruments: Dreadful and Divine.

The Dreadful and The Divine

September 22nd – December 23rd 2010

Exhibition at The Qvist Gallery, Hunterian Museum. Open Tues-Sat 10am-5pm

The months have flown by and the blogging has taken second place to the making of the images.  The exhibition is in the final throes of completion and looking very exciting indeed!  The Qvist Gallery is a small space, but along with the Eagle Wing, there will be 24 pieces of work on show at the opening (Wednesday 22nd September).  The exhibition continues till December 23rd.

At the beginning of the residency I could hardly imagine how things would shape up and it’s always hard to make decisions and commit to an exhibition which tries to draw diverse strands together.  On Monday afternoon everything gets hung and I will stand back for the first time and take stock. Please come along to the opening on Wednesday 22nd (6.30pm – 8pm) or thereafter.

‘Every tool has two ends, one working on the material, the other on the man’.

J Halsham, 1907

Ready for the Z Generation

So Phase 3 of The Eagle Project was complete on Wednesday night and I found myself in the good company of major donors and Council Members for the official opening.  It was a truly fascinating evening which included a lecture by the Director of Education, Michael Larvin, who touched upon how The College prioritised the advanced training of surgeons (since the NHS doesn’t) and was also at pains to keep up with advances not only in technology but understanding how the X, Y and Z generations access and use it, suggesting that the attention span for the Z generation is now a max of 20 minutes!

The highlight of the evening was a tour of the facilities which includes a fully operational theatre, minimally invasive surgery simulation suite and an amazing anatomical dissection room which can accommodate up to 35 students at one time (this was laid out ready for action the next day). The operating theatre is so technically advanced that students can watch video footage of their performances later and all kinds of traumas can be simulated so that their sense of pressure is heightened.  There was a mannequin on the table which can develop all manner of problems whilst the students are working on it (he can even speak?!).  He certainly looked like he had been through the wars and there were further plans to ill treat him before some army surgeons had to work on him the next day!  Live streaming of all these activities can be relayed anywhere in the world.  My guests and I derived particular relish in seeing how adept we were at simulated keyhole surgery!  And before I forget, the artwork that is now adorning the walls was received to surprising acclaim.  It has made me feel even more excited at the prospect of developing things further for the final show in September!

Eagle has landed..

Well the blog has been quiet (or should we say the blogger!) due to an interesting upturn during the residency.  The College is about to open the third and final phase of what is called The Eagle Project, a multi million pound, surgical training skills centre of excellence!  The beautiful white walls might have lain empty till someone realised that there was an Artist in Residence who had the very subject matter to grace the space!

Suddenly I had the opportunity to think about a preliminary show of some of the work I’ve been doing!  So to cut a long story short, images were selected and worked on.  The space was analysed and treatments found (did not go for traditional framing).  I got to work with two amazing companies who helped me acheive the kind of effects I was after (this included printing directly onto mirror!).  Last night the installation went extremely well (what a luxury to get to direct a hanging instead of wielding tape measure and drill oneself!)  The new wing opens on Wednesday night so here’s looking forward to hearing some reactions!

Some of the pieces that I am especially pleased with are of historic amputation knives.  As mentioned they are printed onto mirror and I took a risk in seeing how my idea might translate to the medium.  The printers wondered why one would want to print mostly black ink onto a mirror, but in fact the effect is stunning as the mirror just shows through on hilights which really accentuates the physicality of the blades and invites a unique engagement with the viewer.  In this context, surgeons will see themselves reflected within the tools they might wield…

Particular thanks go to: Simon Chaplin, Briony Hudson, John Carr, Johnny Fountain, Lawrence Payne, Jane Dickey and of course Wellcome Arts!

The work of David Maisel..

not much relation to surgical instruments but so fascinating I had to post it!

Articulated Mannequin

Articulated mannequin, Italian, 1570-1700.

This mannequin was used for demonstrating bone setting. It may have been invented by Hieronymus Fabricius (c 1533- 1619), Italy’s foremost surgeon in the late 16th century, who devised operations for tying arteries and correcting spinal deformities.

Picture Reference: 10289171
Subject: MEDICINE & HEALTH > Orthopaedics > Orthopaedic Treatment 
Inventory No.: A073318 
Credit: Science Museum

Simple tool points to a very cool blog

this is a link to an exceptionally cool site which I found during an image search (I defy anyone not to find something of interest!).  I’ve inserted the image as it shows so well the human ability to improvise and that our basic tool shapes will never really change.

Google Image Result for http://www.kk.org/streetuse/African%20tools-1.jpg.

Maxwell’s silver hammer

Google Image Result for http://web2.airmail.net/uthman/autop_tools_pix/autopsy_tools.jpg.

this is a link to an old piece from 1999 (so I guess his questions have been answered by now!) but I like the reference to Maxwell’s silver hammer (in Beatles song) – must find out more.  He also suggests that when it comes to ribcutters “ These look like small pruning shears and are used to cut through the ribs prior to lifting off the chest plate. Some prosectors actually use pruning shears from a hardware store, which are much less expensive.”  is that so?!…

“I don’t know how anyone can make a living by manufacturing and selling autopsy tools. They last forever, and no one ever steals them (instrument pilferage, which ran rampant before mandatory employee drug testing radically reduced the demand for roach clips, was never much of a problem in the morgue). Accordingly, most practicing prosectors today are using tools that were purchased decades ago by earlier generations of pathologists. For most of us, who learned how to actually do autopsies from uneducated and/or illiterate dieners, these tools are nameless implements that we employ empirically to do what we think they will do, whether they were originally designed to do so or not. Learning to use these instruments is a completely nonverbal process, which lends credence to the anthropological notion that tool-using by early hominids could have preceded the evolution of spoken language.” Ed Uthman

Ok, so here’s what wikipedia has to offer on Maxwell’s Hammer

“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” may be a warning about the dangers of dabbling with the powers of ‘Pataphysics.^[3]

McCartney said in 1994 that it merely epitomises the downfalls of life:

“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. I wanted something symbolic of that, so to me it was some fictitious character called Maxwell with a silver hammer. I don’t know why it was silver, it just sounded better than Maxwell’s hammer. It was needed for scanning. We still use that expression now when something unexpected happens.”

McCartney referred to the song when talking about his 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard:

“In the past I may have written tongue-in-cheek, like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, and dealt with matters of fate in a kind of comical, parody manner. It just so happens in this batch of songs I would look at these subjects and thought it was good for writing. If it’s good enough to take to your psychiatrist, it’s good enough to make a song of.”

Comedian Patton Oswalt refers to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” as a euphemism for a hypodermic needle used for injecting the perfect amount of heroin.^[4]

 

Louise Bourgeois inspired by tools

Google Image Result for http://thirddrawerdown.com/static/files/assets/0acabbea/MoCA_Tool_medium.jpg.

Defrosting in the snow

Oh my goodness, the anatomical dissection should begin today and the cameraman (who will be filming it over three days) is stuck in snow.  Meanwhile the frozen limb is just about defrosted!