IMAGUS · Styles of Objectivity: Agency, Alignment, and Automation in Image-Guided Surgery

Styles of Objectivity: Agency, Alignment, and Automation in Image-Guided Surgery

Medical decisions are increasingly based on image data that are used in all stages of medical treatment. In these contexts, images are not mere conduits of information. They guide, navigate, govern, and control. The new imaging methods promise to increase precision and improve health outcomes. However, as medical diagnosis and therapy grow more dependent on images, the status and role of these images become increasingly controversial. Image-guided applications reshape clinical practices, impact medical decisions, and transform the relationship between physician and patient. This is also the case in surgery where advanced imaging technologies are currently transforming operating rooms into sophisticated augmented reality studios, exploring recent developments in computer visualization, navigation applications and robotic systems. The main scientific objective of the IMAGUS project is to develop a new framework that accounts for the active role of images in surgical contexts, providing a systematic basis for handling the impact of these images and assessing their controversial aspects. To attain this goal a new theory of images has been developed, which conceives images as operative. The theory also includes a new notion of objectivity, which accounts for the key features of image-guided applications such as agency, alignment and automation. In addition, a new method has been developed, which provides a strategy for analyzing images as part of an operation. A second objective of the IMAGUS project is to contribute to conceptual and methodological innovation through a two-way transfer of visual knowledge and visual literacies across the medicine and humanities/social science domains. To attain this goal, the researcher has co-organized and/or participated in several explorative workshops where researchers with backgrounds in medicine and humanities/social science have come together to develop strategies for sharing the visual knowledge of their respective domains and for exploring the potential for medical and technological optimization. A further aim connected to the second objective is to raise critical awareness of the mediating roles of images in both domains. This aim has been obtained through co-authored articles where humanities/social science visual literacies are brought to bear on medical questions, and vice versa. In terms of career advancement, the objective of the IMAGUS project is to attain and consolidate a leading independent position for the researcher. The undertaking of the project on the premises of the Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung: An Interdisciplinary Laboratory at the Humboldt University Berlin, has contributed to significantly widen the researcher’s knowledge and competences and to increase the international visibility of her research. The collaboration with members of the Image Guidance base project, especially, has fostered an innovative leap in research. In addition, in the process of conducting the IMAGUS project, the researcher has acquired a range of scientific, technical and complementary skills of relevance to the establishment of an independent research career.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union