Making the Invisible Visible - The art of the medical scan

Have you ever had a medical scan (CT, MRI, ultrasound etc.)? UCL is working with artists Arieh Frosh and Ed Compson on an interactive workshop to explore your experience of medical imaging. If you're selected to take part, you will receive a £50 "Thank You" for your time and input.

On signing up, you will be asked some questions so we can get to know you. We are seeking people from a range of backgrounds to take part and only have room for a limited number of participants for this workshop.

We will contact people to confirm attendance, and shortly after send through a workshop plan of activities and topics we will explore during the session, in addition to any related workshop materials.

If you have questions, please email [email protected]

Meet the event team

Arieh Frosh and Ed Compson (Artists and facilitators)

Arieh Frosh and Ed Compson are artists and programmers who work collaboratively on socially-engaged, technologically-driven projects.

They have been producing an ongoing series of artworks, workshops, research experiments that question how machine and ecological thinking operate, and affect imagination. Recent projects include a site-specific commission on wind energy for Cypher BILLBOARD, London, and a workshop on automata (simple robots) and acheiropoieta (religious icons) for Cyprus College of Art, funded by Erasmus+.

Zhi Li (academic researcher)

Zhi Li is an academic researcher who works at University College London who focuses on the development of next generation magnetic field sensors for surgical device tracking in MRI-guided operations. These sensors use light (passed down a fibre optic cable), making them small, safe, inexpensive, simple to fabricate, MR-compatible, and easy to add onto medical devices such as a catheter or needle.

Because these sensors respond to magnetic fields, they can tell the clinician who is using them their location compared to a large magnet (such as an MRI Scanner). They act rather like a compass to help the clinician to pinpoint where the attached surgical tools are inside the patient’s body.

This helps the clinician operate more precisely. This reduces: recovery times, pain, blood loss and scarring.

Phil Wiles (Event coordinator)

It’s Phil’s job to support activities that bring people together to discuss research and experiences in ways that make healthcare technologies and practices better together. This can cover a wide range of activities but he has been specialising in using the arts to facilitate open spaces for exchange and collaboration.

Host or Publisher Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences