The term visual culture has come to have many different forms such as fine art, films, television, advertising, and the sciences, law, and medicine.
It is important that we also see "scientific images as integral to the production and meanings of images in popular culture, art, advertising, and the law." They, too, can be aesthetic, as well as truthful. However, although photographs have been very important in experimental practice, such as in scientific, medical, and legal evidence, cameras are still now allowed to be used as documentation in the U.S. courts of law. This is due to the rise of the digital imaging in the late twentieth century. Because of this, it has become easy for any photography to be altered from it's original version. Therefore, if someone showed up with a photograph to court that had been altered, it could completely change the way of the ruling.
However, digital imaging in science has become important when conducting experiments, rendering information, and communicating ideas in science and medicine. It has allowed us to "see through" the skin using technologies such as the X ray, CT scan, CAT and PET scanning, and MRI. These show us what is wrong with our bones, muscles, and nerves without having to anatomically dissect the body, like they had to do centuries before digital imaging was possible.
Renaissance was a period where art and science were used parallel with each other. Leonardo da Vinci's work is most evident when using this concept (for he performed more than thirty dissections in his lifetimes and could draw the body based on firsthand knowledge). One of his most
famous works depicting this is his Vitruvian Man.
With the image of the man within a circle and a square is largely thought to convey da Vinci's concept that "the body exists within both the material realm (symbolized by the square) and the spiritual realm (represented by the circle)."
Throughout history, science and medicine have had a fascination with anatomy. Starting in the 16th century, anatomy theaters were used as a spectacle for viewers to watch. The anatomists tried to educate as well as entertain. Then, in modernity, this spectacle of viewing continued in a different way in Paris. Here, a morgue became the spectacle when certain types of bodies were put on display (such as children who drowned in the Seine river). It was a kind of "free theater"
and commentators compared it to the pleasures of "viewing goods in department store windows." As sick as this may sound, a concept not unlike this is still used today. The Body Worlds exhibition is a display that is both spectacle and medical. Rather than just gazing over dead bodies, Body Worlds has created an exhibition that uses real dead bodies on display that have gone through a preservative process called plastination.
Through this process, the bodies show the actual muscles, bones, organs, etc., that would be inside human bodies. However, they also make the display more lighthearted by posing them in stereotypical ways, such as having the men playing soccer and the women in pregnancy.
http://www.bodyworlds.com
Images are also used more than just aesthetically or for spectacle, they also play a large role as evidence in science and medicine, especially the photograph.
Photographs can be used as visual records of experiments. They can document diseases, perform diagnoses, and to record scientific data. By the end of the 19th century, photographs were used to classify and categorize people, such as by identity-linked characteristics: used in hospitals, mental institutions, and government agencies. For example, Alphonse Bertillon created a system of measurement to identify the body types of criminals. He took pictures of the criminals from the front and the side in order to identify "criminal characteristics" in the person. In doing so, he created the first modern-day mug shots. This strategy also became a common practice in hospitals to photograph patients and people with particular medical conditions.
X rays introduced a new way to see inside the human body, a way that was better than just using the human eye. This was eventually followed by CT scans, CAT and PET scans, MRIs, and ultrasounds. An ultrasound image was used to view the fetus of a baby inside the pregnant mother, tracking its development, looking for abnormalities, and without placing the fetus or the mother at any risk. However, ultrasounds then served another purpose, to help convince women who are uncertain about their pregnancy to choose not to have an abortion. It is one thing when you have medical facts and doctors telling you why you should not terminate your pregnancy. However, when a mother actually sees an image of the child they are carrying inside them, a completely different connection is made. An emotional connection occurs. This feeling is more powerful than any word could ever be, and is a way to encourage mothers planning on abortion to change their mind.
Once again, science is not a completely separate world from social and cultural meaning. It is incorporated into popular media and can create a spectacle rather than just a display. The "visual culture of science makes clear that the realms of science, culture, and politics are all intertwined."
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