MRI of my brain on January 2, 2008. Part of the series is posted here. For me they are unrecognizable. They seem like scifi portraits. Some are recognizable as human form. They seem to hover between the worlds of science, technology and art, but also between living and the dead. The are an unexpected collaborative project in which I was a reluctant participant.
The first series of images are not reworked, but presented in a new context.
Series two has been reworked.
As a child there was a machine in department stores in the shoe department. It was an x-ray machine. You could see how well the shoes fit. That was my first look inside my body. That look did not come with complicated language. I looked at my feet with wonder and amazement. Of course the machines were dangerous. I did not intentionally want a body scan of my brain. I did not want to know about anything in my brain. It seems to work. No problems. But, there are things spelled out in a language that I do not understand. Yes, C.P. Snow there is a ocean between us. I see art and the radiologist sees something else. Art and science reveals things. It is not beautiful. It is eerie. It's my body! It's my brain! Or they tell it is.
What is an MRI? I lied down on the aluminum plate and the pulsation noises started. It seems that a giant magnetic was aligning my hydrogen atoms. "The technique involves aligning all the hydrogen atoms in your body in the same direction...." How were they arranged in the first place?
What direction? Random? Or headed somewhere else? Where they independent or collaborating? The noisy part of the test, as an experimental sound art. "Radio waves are then transmitted into your body, causing the hydrogen nuclei to spin." Clockwise or counter clockwise? "When the radio waves are stopped, the hydrogen nuclei emit their own radio waves they are sensed and processed by a computer." A collaborative conversation took place between the nuclei in the hydrogen atoms in my body via water and the radio waves from the magnet. This conversation, this dialog, re-interpreted and displayed in a series of images.
MRI OF THE BRAIN WITH CONTRAST
Pre contrast sagittal and coronal T1, axial T2, FLAIR and diffusion and post contrast axial and coronal images of the brain were obtained.
On the sigittal images, the corpus callosum pineal and pituitary and the craniovertibral junction are unremarkable.
On the axial and coronal images, the ventricles are mildly dialated with prominence of the sulci changes related to generalized volume loss. There are no intra or extra-axial masses or collections. There are a few foci of small vessel infarction in the periventricular white matter. There are not acute infarction n the diffusion sequence and there is no hemorrhage. There is a small venous angioma of the left right lobe. There is a small focus of hemosiderin adjacent to the angioma. There is no abnormal intra parenchymal or meningeal exhancement.
Normal flow void is in the basilar and internal carotid arteries.
There is no acute sinusitis.
Medical television shows are very popular. Why? It's some else!
And so ends the lesson.
Life is art and art is life. This is the ordinary and at the same time extraordinary and strange. It's technology.
This is my brain. I did the test. But, is it? It seem like a foreign object. Is my brain my mind? Yes and no. Does this add anything to the quality of my life? NO. I had no symptoms. I fell on the ice. I hit my upper right leg not my head. Medical technology has given me images and words. Their words. I have taken them and present them in a different context. They are images of positive and negative space that hold both positive and negative views that I did not want to know. Views: positive and negative.