Cutting in the Brain for Fun
A Newly Published Peer-Review Research Article in Graphic Anthropology on an Experimental Neurosurgical Simulation by Maxime Le Calvé
Vanessa at work on the operating table, with her instruments plunged into her brain, seated at the binocular microscope. The giant screen shows what she is seeing, allowing the head surgeon to supervise her. Copyright: Drawing by Maxime Le Calvé, digital, 2019
How to prepare those aspiring to make a profession of cutting into a living human brain? In this article, Maxime Le Calvé recounts, drawing on ›live‹ graphic field notes, the development of a neurosurgical simulation. This narrative is contextualized and theorized through a literature review on the anthropology of doing, the formation of habit, and the technologization of skill transmission in surgery. The peer-reviewed research article in graphic anthropology on an experimental neurosurgical simulation is published in French in »Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances (RAC)«.
Find the full article here:
https://doi.org/10.4000/12swn
Full Abstract
How to prepare those aspiring to make a profession of cutting into a living human brain? In this article, I recount, drawing on ›live‹ graphic field notes, the development of a neurosurgical simulation. This narrative is contextualized and theorized through a literature review on the anthropology of doing, the formation of habit, and the technologization of skill transmission in surgery. This review allows me, along the way, to draw a parallel between the gestures of the neurosurgeon and the ethnographer, highlighting a shared poiesis between artistic, medical, and scientific practices, a concept already discussed by the poet Paul Valéry (1944). Through this inquiry, I join the practitioners in their attention to the ways in which they form their relationship with the physical matter they work with and the possibility of building trust together through the ›fun‹ of technical gesture.