Art, Simulation and Surgical Humanities

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This proposal responds to the Science in Culture Highlight Notice, framing operative surgery as a domain where science and technology intersect both with individuals and with society. Although surgery is widely perceived as a scientific field, making sense of this intersection is not the province of science alone. This proposal argues that arts and humanities can provide crucial viewpoints that are usually absent within the discourses of surgery, offering a rich interplay of perspectives to illuminate societal challenges and tensions around the balance between patient-centred caring and the demands of technology and science. The proposal brings together experts from arts, humanities and surgery to explore the operating theatre as a complex site for cultural research. By developing the theme of 'surgical humanities', the project will explore the potential of art as a means of capturing multiple dimensions of clinical experience. Because access to actual surgery is severely limited, immersive simulation will provide a safe setting which offers the promise of a new expressive medium for such exploration, building on pioneering work by the PI. Low-cost yet highly realistic surgical environments (for instance using an inflatable operating theatre equipped with authentic instruments and recorded sounds) can recreate many complexities of actual surgery. This work is already giving rise to widespread interest as an educational and public engagement approach.By standing as proxy for actual clinical events, simulation can recreate something that closely reflects reality (while providing protection against harm), allowing non-clinicians to 'experience' and start to understand what happens during operations. In a wider sense, however, it may also offer a new expressive medium in its own right, allowing artists to manipulate and experiment in ways which would be unthinkable in the real environment. By interpreting the clinical setting through the eyes and ears of visual artists, musicians and design engineers (working closely with clinicians and patients), we believe that new understandings will be generated.Our aim is therefore to use expertise in simulation, education, performance art, jazz, multimodal semiotics and engineering design as a framework for illuminating the sociocultural practices of surgery, in the process allowing participants to deepen their understanding of their own domains by reconfiguring their professional practice through new insights. So far as we are aware, the potential of immersive surgical simulation for artistic expression has not been systematically explored.This project will allow a group of innovative artists, musicians, social scientists and surgeons to explore the creative potential around surgical simulation as an artistic medium. A multidisciplinary collaborative network will generate innovative and unorthodox approaches which, in addition to their own artistic value and interest, may offer important insights into the complex relationships between surgery and our wider society. 3,070 chars