Artist Response #2: Diane Ludin and the human body

I first came across the work of Diane Ludin about two years ago when I took a class on Visual Thinking in the Digital Age because I was investigating (for a project that I was working on at that time) how some artists incorporate different varieties of scientific and medical concepts within their work to create a statement on how such topics are seen in the public audience. I was introduced to Ludin’s work because I was amazed at not only how complex her methods are but how she is able to put them into her own terms - her own way of communicating to a larger audience based on her investigative and methods of research.

A lot of her work is based on dealing with the building blocks and the foundation of the human body (DNA and the human genome project) as well as different varieties of diseases (Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Hodgkin’s, and HIV:AIDS); she has created many different interactive computer software programs to illustrate her ideas such as MemoryFlesh2.0, Viral Portraits, and I-Biology to name a few. Through this approach, she artistically creates a powerful relationship between the communication and information of these Biotechnological issues and how they are currently being presented to the media by the masses in our contemporary society (especially through the internet).

My background is far from the medical atmosphere, but over the years I have been fascinated in how it can be applied to digital art. Viewing her work, I have especially been inspired to view art in a different perspective. The thought that is brought to mind in regards to this is how the media has a tendency to guide our opinions on how we look at the benefits of a certain “miracle pill”, but three or four years later, new research discovers that the miracle pill also has the ability to cause cancer or some kind of terrible disease or illness. To apply this to art, I think it would be interesting to stage several types of graphically blown-up versions of microscopic slides of certain disease spreading bacteria, and disguise them as being the “miracle drugs” when we are only temporarily being disguised from the danger that lurks beneath the cancer-spreading surface.