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A Alexander Fleming, bio sketches, 1930, Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum (Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust). B Nathan Shaner, San Diego beach, 2006, palette of bacterial colonies expressing fluorescent proteins, the lab of Roger Tsien. C Michael Shen, Skyline of New York City, 2016, printing nanodroplets containing yeast onto a large agar plate, NY. D Adam W. Brown, Origins of Life, 2015, generative installation. E Ani Liu, 2017, Spermatozoa, interactive-generative installation
Source publication
Since its emergence, bio-art has developed numerous metaphors central to the transfer of concepts of modern biology, genetics, and genomics to the public domain that reveal several cultural, ethical, and social variations in their related themes. This article assumes that a general typology of metaphors developed by practices related to bio-art can...
Citations
... In this case, what's important is that Benjamin talks about the uniqueness of the moment when we perceive the auraand perhaps that's why the author borrows this word from the mystical lexicon. In the case of bioart, as well as other works using living matter, which not all artists/theorists would call bioart (Ahmedien, 2023), the uniqueness of the moment of interaction between a specific viewer and the art piece is related to its variability. Even when employing a reproduction method like printing, the end result remains a living organism. ...
Bioprinting is increasingly recognised for its substantial potential in facilitating customised artistic creations. This field, inherently interdisciplinary, enables the exploration and utilisation of novel materials, techniques, and conceptual frameworks, leading to the emergence of innovative and intellectually engaging art forms. The article refers to ‘MetabolA.I.’ and other interdisciplinary projects as examples of how theoretical and artistic reflections on possible biological or techno-biological forms of life sprout into reality through a mediation of technologies, such as bioprinting. The work on the project and subsequent research in this domain led to the development of two bioprinter prototypes, based on the philosophy of open source. The advent of do-it-yourself (DIY) bioprinting has significantly contributed to its incorporation into educational curricula and artistic endeavours. The democratisation of advanced tools foster a conducive environment for research and experimentation within the arts. It also allows students to experience the methods which will define the future of research. Art projects involving bioprinting also prompt a reassessment of reproducibility in art, since inherent biological variability makes each ‘print’ fundamentally irreproducible. This breathes new life into the discourse on the ‘aura’ of artworks in the technological age, when control over the creative process seems unlimited. The posthumanist perspective on this trend brings us back to the question of whether the creative process is exclusively a human prerogative.
... Our study bridges discourse analysis, digital humanities, public health relations, and media studies. By introducing "visual dataset fingerprints," we explore how certain qualities of non-verbal datasets may reflect certain aspects of broader public health realities (Ahmedien, 2023). The concept of metaphorical transfer (physical reality mapped onto visual representation) adds a novel dimension to visual health communication research. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted governments worldwide to utilise social media news platforms for disseminating critical public health information and safety protocols. Visual aids, including photographs, videos, charts, and infographics, played a key role in conveying health-related messages. However, there are variations in visual communication practices across countries, influenced by local health communication habits and cultural contexts. This study examines these variations in the visual health discourse that emerged in China and Germany during the pandemic, focusing on metaphorical mapping as a central analytical tool. We introduce the concept of “visual dataset fingerprints,” outlining the distinct composition of public health visuals on eight social news media platforms in Germany and China. Our descriptive analysis encompasses over 3700 digital visual media posts related to COVID-19, shared by leading national news media accounts in German, English, and Mandarin on microblogs in 2022. As a preliminary outcome of our study, we observe differences in image use based on the analysis of 1678 media posts by four Chinese outlets and 1329 media posts by four German outlets. These differences may reflect variations in how public opinion, perceptions, and attitudes toward COVID-19 policies are shaped across languages and cultures. Through its comparative visual analysis, our pilot study offers the potential for a new research approach to global healthcare communication in social news media and digital visual cultures.
... Lastly, metaphorical interpretation is also one of the important problems to be considered in practice. In the process of public health communication, short videos or live streams, as highly visual new media, inevitably involve metaphorical interpretations (71). Such metaphorical interpretations may affect the accuracy of information transmission from health content creators to the public. ...
Introduction
Short-video platforms have demonstrated vast potential for health education. To meet diverse user requirements, many short-video platforms have integrated livestreaming functionalities. This integration presents challenges for health content creators in formulating effective performance strategies, including decisions about which format to use (short video or livestream) and what type of content to produce. This study utilizes panel data from a prominent short-video platform in China to empirically investigate the impact of different forms and content characteristics on the performance of health content creators.
Methods
We conducted an empirical analysis using panel data obtained from a leading short-video platform in China. Our analysis focused on understanding how the behaviors associated with short videos and livestreaming impact the performance of health content creators. We examined form-level differences, analyzing the distinct roles of short video and livestreaming behaviors. Additionally, we explored content-level characteristics, investigating the effects of content coverage, health knowledge content, and advertising content on both short-term and long-term performance. The moderation effects of the creator’s occupation and certification type were also analyzed.
Results
Our form-level analysis revealed that health creators’ behaviors in short videos and livestreaming play distinct roles in their performance. Livestreaming behaviors resulted in short-term economic returns, while short video behaviors had a more significant effect on follow-ups, which are often viewed as long-term, more sustainable performance indicators. Content-level analysis showed that content coverage and health knowledge content enhance long-term performance but do not increase short-term performance. Conversely, advertising content was found to be essential for securing short-term financial income. The study also identified that the creator’s occupation and certification type moderate the impact of content on performance.
Conclusion
This study integrates two media forms (short video and livestream), providing direct insights into the performance of health content creators in the realm of health education. Health content creators need to strategically balance their use of short videos and livestreaming to optimize both short-term and long-term performance outcomes. Specifically, increasing content coverage and health knowledge can enhance long-term engagement, while incorporating advertising content is crucial for immediate financial gains.
... Dematerialisation and the absence of living matter in artwork make some authors question whether said artwork can be considered bioart (Zaretsky, 2017). Do such metaphors based on a non-living medium correspond well enough with the living systems to which they refer, without being misleading or underexpressive (Ahmedien, 2023)? Can a refusal to use living matter be justified, and the work still be considered bioart? ...
Humans constantly interact with their environment, with other humans, as well as natural and artificial non-human agents. Nevertheless, our somatosensory system limits the diversity of our ways of communicating. Such organisms as plants thus escape our notice, blending into the landscape. This phenomenon is called Plant blindness. This leads not only to indifference and lack of empathy towards plants among ordinary people but also to a deficit in funding plant conservation. We believe that it is important to develop connections and also rethink the relationship between humans and flora. This paper examines the Plant turn in the context of an art-science project titled Plantoverse. The scientific part of the project is based on a study of plant epidermis cells, which possess optical properties and function as a “lens”. The data acquired via confocal microscopy was used to construct a mathematical model of these lenses which in turn formed the basis of the artistic work. It is a representation of the plant epidermis in a digital environment. The work allows us to look at ourselves through “plant optics'' and find new tools for interacting with the vegetal world. This interdisciplinary approach can help transfer knowledge about flora from the professional environment to lay society and form a new, more empathetic view toward plants.
... The technique could visualise models of science communication at various timepoints of the COVID-19 pandemic. These networks of NOS connections are a metaphoric structure that satisfies concepts adopted by new media artworks (Ahmedien, 2022). ...
News media plays a vital role in communicating scientific evidence to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such communication is important for convincing the public to follow social distancing guidelines and to respond to health campaigns such as vaccination programmes. However, newspapers were criticised that they focus on the socio-political perspective of science, without explaining the nature of scientific works behind the government’s decisions. This paper examines the connections of the nature of science categories in the COVID-19 era by four local newspapers in the United Kingdom between November 2021 to February 2022. Nature of science refers to different aspects of how science works such as aims, values, methods and social institutions of science. Considering the news media may mediate public information and perception of scientific stories, it is relevant to ask how the various British newspapers covered aspects of science during the pandemic. In the period explored, Omicron variant was initially a variant of concern, and an increasing number of scientific evidence showed that the less severity of this variant might move the country from pandemic to endemic. We explored how news articles communicate public health information by addressing how science works during the period when Omicron variants surge. A novel discourse analysis approach, epistemic network analysis is used to characterise the frequency of connections of categories of the nature of science. The connection between political factors and the professional activities of scientists, as well as that with scientific practices are more apparent in left-populated and centralist outlets than in right-populated news outlets. Among four news outlets across the political spectrum, a left-populated newspaper, the Guardian, is not consistent in representing relations of different aspects of the nature of scientific works across different stages of the public health crisis. Inconsistency of addressing aspects of scientific works and a downplay of the cognitive-epistemic nature of scientific works likely lead to failure in trust and consumption of scientific knowledge by the public in the healthcare crisis.
Susan Sontag’s cancer experience made her realize the harm that the inappropriate use of illness metaphors might do to patients. After recovering from breast cancer, she wrote in Illness as Metaphor that illness has been romanticized and stigmatized. She also elaborated on some illness metaphors, such as the military metaphors for illness, which are still the subject of debate. Her novel In America could be regarded as an elaboration on the consequences of such metaphors. The phenomena she depicts in her novel are now visible twenty years later in the real world. Through analysing the personal experiences of the protagonists Maryna and Ryszard of In America, three levels of trauma caused by the illness metaphors used in negative ways are elucidated in this paper: the personal level, the social level, and the national level. Patients and their relations, health care workers, and even countries, such as China, have been hurt by these metaphors. Therefore, to avoid causing harm to more people, it is necessary to alleviate the negative effects of the inappropriate use of illness metaphors, especially in the postpandemic era of COVID-19. The illness narrative is a good way to mitigate the traumas caused by the inappropriate use of illness metaphors. This article attempts to explore the metaphorization of illness, the traumas caused by the inappropriate use of illness metaphors, and the occurrence of similar phenomena during and after COVID-19. The plot of In America is also explored as an illness narrative, and the illness narrative genre is examined as a way to mitigate the negative effects of the inappropriate use of illness metaphors.
