Prosthetic Infrastructures: 3D Printing and Face Transplantation

• In Event: Replaceable Parts: Prosthetic Technologies in Biomedicine

Abstract

Prostheses are commonly thought of as “artificial body parts,” an understanding that is based on and reproduces ideas of a bounded human self. In this paper, I examine the use of 3D printing in the preparatory stages of face transplant operations. This leads me to ask: Does STS writing on nature-culture assemblages limit or deepen analysis of multiplicity in clinical practice? The use of 3D printing in face transplantation brings into relief a previously overlooked relation between “artificial” and “natural” (biological) replacement body parts. Unlike in cases of bio manufacturing, the use of 3D printing in the field reveals a growing utilization of what I call “prosthetic infrastructures”: The use of non-biological materials to make possible biological replacement. I use the notion of “prosthetic infrastructures” to open up a space to think about how “that which is added to” allows and works with “the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities needed for the operation of a an enterprise” In doing so, I show how 3D printing allows for the production and enactment of multiple faces, each with their own ontological and epistemic distinctions, and each with their own nature-culture.

Author

• Samuel Taylor Alexander, University of Edinburgh