Matthias Planitzer

MRI pieces

When computational methods made new diagnostics such as CT and MRI scans accessible, not only new interpretative means but also a new understanding of representation became necessary. In order to registrate, measure, compute and make the body available to diagnostics in a reproducible and reliable way, a set of informatical and practical algorithms had to be developed and meticulously controlled. At its core, it represents and implements a chain of representation made up of successive traces that are stringed together by interpretative links. Its inductive and teleological nature assumes a meaningful connection between the body and its formulated assessment, whereas meaning is only produced and disposed of during the transformation of one trace to the following. Thus, it is important to understand the resulting images as the consolidation of different types of information –: always, once, never and prospectively meaningful – and an arbitrary set of its conversions.

MRI scans of my brain were obtained and submitted to a series of alternative data and image operations to produce alternative diagnostic images. By nature, they are equivalent to conventional MRI imagery, yet emphasize their obscuring meaningful assessment of bodily realities.