This is a past event
For this talk I draw upon archive research and laboratory ethnography undertaken in the context of a project on the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology in the biomedical physics laboratory at the University of Aberdeen.
I focus, in particular, on visual material produced by biomedical physicists during the early days of clinical MRI development (late 1960s- early 1980s).
The function of visual material within science practice is usually defined according to three major epistemic categories: exploration, transformation, and transmission of knowledge. I would suggest integrating these three functions with a fourth, the narrative function. A narrative requires the intentional or arbitrary arrangement of elements (imaginary or real) in a certain way (chronological or not, syntagmatic or paradigmatic, etc.). It can involve a wide range of materials including data-visualization maps, poems, diagrams, photographs.
Discussion: What can these narratives tell us about the alternate history(ies) of a technology development or a laboratory? What do they tell about body work and embodied imagination, usually considered peripheral to science? And, finally, what is the role of the scholar (in history, philosophy, or more broadly visual culture and the humanities) in critically engaging with the vitality of archival material that often eschews disciplinary boundaries, foregrounding desire and fiction within the scientific process? By exploring the role played by memory and affectivity in laboratory data-visualisation practices and archival holdings, I discuss how body work and embodied imagination, usually considered peripheral to science, feed into MRI innovation networks.
- Speaker
- Silvia Casini (University of Aberdeen)
- Venue
- via Teams