This study focuses on exploring the formation of optical unconsciousness and subjectivity in humans when images of the previously invisible interior of the body, considered non-visible, gain visibility through the cinematic apparatus. Based on medical...
This study focuses on exploring the formation of optical unconsciousness and subjectivity in humans when images of the previously invisible interior of the body, considered non-visible, gain visibility through the cinematic apparatus. Based on medical devices and medical imaging technologies, such as X-rays, endoscopes, ultrasounds, and CT/MRI/PET scans, anatomical images transcend the boundaries between film cameras, medical cameras, and the internal and external boundaries of the body. These images shape the dual-subjectivity of humans as subjects and objects, bringing about changes in the experience and conception of the body. They also enable a new exploration of the relationship with the Other through the visual reversibility and tactile perception of "seeing" and "being seen". This study examines specific film cases that foreground such images and explores the perception formed by the anatomical landscape within the body based on medical imaging.
Anatomical images reveal the symbiotic and complementary relationship between science and art, which had been categorized as separate disciplines within traditional film studies. The visual apparatus of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, centered around cinematography in 1895, went beyond the desire to reproduce the world and humans more accurately, evolving into medical films and moving images. While science and art have gradually become separate and positioned at extremes under the names of modern medicine and contemporary art, they have always maintained a complementary relationship.
In recent, films that foreground medical images have emerged, making the internal landscapes of the body, which were not easily seen in everyday life unless one was a medical professional, a more universal image dictated by the aesthetic choices of medical instruments. Especially in the early 2020s, films that incorporate medical images in both narrative and form have become increasingly prevalent. These works sometimes appear to colonize the human body through modern medicine to the extent that it can be seen beyond the perspective of anthropologists, while simultaneously creating multiple subjectivities like the porous screen of a film, objectifying and subjectifying the subject, and creating images that objectify the object. The proliferation of cameras that surpass medical micro equipment and utilize 4K medical screen technologies makes it difficult to distinguish between film and medical images, and the VFX and CGI that manipulate processed images beyond medical imaging demand decoding, contributing to the formation of new subjectivities through the screen. However, within cinema studies, the images of the interior of the body have been limited to narratives featuring medical subjects or doctors. In this context, Lisa Cartwright rewrites film histories from a perspective different from theorizing popular cinema through the physiological movement of early motion images by investigating medical/scientific films.
This study refers primarily to Lisa Cartwright's methodology of tracing the history of bodily representation as a moving system through film and reexamines film studies in Chapter 2, which articulate in a complementary aspect between science and art. It investigates the previous research and theoretical backgrounds of each medical image. In Chapter 3, specific film cases are examined. In Section 1 of Chapter 3, the study examines the genealogy of adopting medical images in feminism videos and focuses on Korean labor documentaries by expanding the alienated body, including women managed under medical gazes. The specific film cases include Barbara Hammer's trilogy of films from the early 1990s, "Sanctus"(1990), "Dr. Watson's X-Rays"(1990), and "Vital Signs"(1991), "Vital Statistics of A Citizen - Simply Obtained"(1977) by Martha Rosler, "Mixed Signals"(2018) by Courtney Stephens, "Nameless Syndrome Patch Version"(2022) by Cha Jeamin, "The Color Of Pain"(2010) by Lee Kanghyun, and "Sasang: The Town on Sand"(2020) by Park Baeil. Feminism videos and Korean labor documentaries examine the diagnostic process that demands the embodiment of diseases, knowledge, and power systems of the body that cannot be verbalized from medical discourse. This discussion refers to Luce Irigaray's research. In Section 2 of Chapter 3, the study examines contemporary narrative films through Jacques Lacan's "flat mirror," which discusses the symbolic subject that embraces lack through a misrecognition of the imaginary self from the relationship between "seeing" and "being seen". The specific film cases include "The Killing of a Sacred Deer"(2017) by Yorgos Lanthimos and "L'amant double"(2017) by Francois Ozon, as well as "Uncut Gems"(2019) by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie, "Maggie"(2019) by Yi Okseop, "Hellbound"(2021) by Yeon Sangho, and "Decision to Leave" (2022) by Park Chanwook, "Nope"(2022) by Jordan Peele, and "Trans" (2022) by Do Naeri. In Section 3 of Chapter 3, the study attempts a critical reading of Luce Irigaray's theory, which discusses Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological discussion of the body and senses as a "tactile mirror" through the theory of the "mirror stage" by examining films that foreground medical images in both narrative and form. The specific films include "The Fabric of the Human Body"(2022) by Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, "A Very Long GIF"(2022) by Eduardo Williams, and "NAL"(2020) by Park Jungyeon. Irigaray points out the absence of women's images in Lacan's "flat mirror" and proposes the "Speculum" made possible through "contact," which allows various perspectives to peek into the interior, thus enabling the reproduction of subjectivity that cannot be reduced to phallocentrism. Based on Irigaray's discussions, this study envisions a dual-subjectivity that perceives the overlooked images of the body's interior by engaging with medical images that enable 'tactile perception.' It imagines an interdependent world where humans are both subjects and objects within an inter-subjective.