Fixing the Image

• In Event: Visual (In)Sensibilities I

Abstract

In the midst of fieldwork on medical imaging in Phnom Penh, Dr. Chey, an obstetrician at a maternity hospital, reminded me of the three M’s of a medical problem: médecin, machine, malade (the doctor, the machine, and the patient). We were talking about color ultrasound imaging, and he explained that color is important for depicting fluid flow, but when purely ornamental, such as background tint, color can actually obscure clinical information. This disrupts the delicate alignment of the three M’s required to practice good medicine.
In the x-ray waiting area of a large public hospital in Phnom Penh, a young man held a film of his grandmother’s chest up towards the light streaming in from the open windows. “Minsauv chbas,” he said, "It’s not really clear." Did this indicate a malignancy of the body? Or did it have to do with the skill of the technician? Or perhaps the quality of the machine or the film? The x-ray image called attention to itself; it points beyond itself, too. To the grandmother’s lungs--the object of the image--but also to the machine, the film, the doctor, the hospital. It does so, in part, because of the way it looks. Not clear.
In this paper, I follow doctors and patients concerns with the aesthetic qualities of medical images, such as color and clarity, to explore how imaging intervenes into medical practices and understandings of the body. I juxtapose studies of biomedical imaging in STS, in which the social construction of technology is a problem for depicting biological realities, and studies of photography in Asia, in which the imager, camera, and subject work in intra-action to reveal potential qualities rather than capture reality. STS in Asia has tended to focus on the high-tech; looking to fields beyond the narrowly scientific and locations beyond East Asia and Singapore has the potential to further our understandings of the ways aesthetic conventions and expectations shape imaging and health practices.

Author

• Jenna Grant, University of Washington