moved BODIES: Image Fabrication in the Socio-Cultural Context of Interventional Radiology

In this study I focus on the fieldwork I conducted among radiological personnel and patients at the interventional radiology department of the University Clinic / General Hospital in Vienna. I investigate the embodiment of knowledge in this particular medical field, and question how bodies are rendered visible, how they are socially bounded, and how abstract moving fluoroscopy pictures of inner organs and the blood flow are being perceived. I will argue that the visual knowledge of the bodys inside and how this is produced through the diagnostic and therapeutic machinery dominates or even displaces tacit bodily experiences and skills on the side of patients and radiological personnel. I understand the continual invention of new technologies in surgery as well as in radiology like computer programs which can simulate the body`s interior or robotic limbs which are able to operate inside a living individual as a socio-cultural and epistemic turn in medicine which is already far advanced. Thus I am particularly interested in the effects this causes for radiologists, medical-technical assistants and patients. Boundaries between objectifying and being objectified, making up and being made up, touching and being touched, unveiling and being unveiled, framing and being cinematically framed on monitors permanently are being transcended in diagnostic operating theatres. Drawing up contours of an ontological choreography within the clinical settings of radiology enables me to bring the visual power regime to shine forth, which unfolds in diagnostic and therapeutic practices.