Beschreibung
The process film Augenarbeit follows a pig eye from the butcher to the trash bin in the Vienna General Hospital (AKH). In doing so, it captures the mundane doings of researchers in an optical laboratory - the ZEISS Lab. The researchers want to develop a special microscope, a so-called Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), for eye surgery - and the pig eye helps them to generate data, to test the microscope prototype, and to train surgeons in using this new technology.In their film, Elaine Goldberg and Nora Ederer capture a variety of mundane practices: tinkering with cables and optical lenses, selecting, using, and cleaning operating instruments, coding, looking at screens, discussing with colleagues, adjusting equipment, and changing locations.
At a meta-level, Augenarbeit suggests that all of the scientific practices in this optical laboratory are practices of visualization: its researchers work through, with, and for images. To enter a laboratory nowadays means to encounter images displayed on computer screens. The vision of scientists has been trained to read and produce specialized images. Therefore, Augenarbeit explores how the researchers at the Zeiss Lab interact with the OCT technology in order to visualize eyes.
The filmmakers Elaine Goldberg and Nora Ederer took an ethnographic approach to studying science as culture and practice. With this, they pick up the laboratory study tradition in Science and Technology Studies – and transfer it into a visual ethnography. The film was made in the seminar "Visual Ethnographies of Science: Investigating Knowledge Production Through Media Practice" and aimed at observing how scientists and physicians see in skilled ways - by producing images of their visual practices. However, seeing is not an innocent practice: Observing the world means constructing and modifying it - this is what this ethnographic project is about.
| Zeitraum | 26 Sept. 2022 → 29 Sept. 2022 |
|---|---|
| Ereignistitel | VANDA Antropology Days 2022 |
| Veranstaltungstyp | Konferenz |
| Ort | Wien, ÖsterreichAuf Karte anzeigen |
| Bekanntheitsgrad | Lokal |