Annabelle Payne
Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” – Steve Jobs
I am in my final year of high school and studying photography. This year, I am exploring the growing use of technology, especially in the ever-evolving world of surgery. I want to explore technological developments in the medical world, where robots have begun to take over the tasks of humans. Advanced surgical robots have already begun helping doctors, and there is a high chance that, at least for simple, repetitive procedures, robots will soon be able to perform the whole procedure.
In my work, I have used a hooded character to represent technology. The hooded, faceless ‘hacker’ plans to take over the surgical field with their new technology, and slowly make human surgeons obsolete. This character is found lurking in the back of the surgical theatre while a human surgeon is performing. The distance between them slowly decreases, until the ‘hacker’ and their technology has taken over the tasks of the surgeon.
It’s a fine line – to exercise or not. Outside, the sun lowering, the bank of clouds dulling the light, the day almost over. Yet inside, where I’m working at the computer, such lethargy … I can hardly bear to think of moving. Just take the mountain bike and ride twenty minutes up the rail trail and back again, I tell myself. I coax myself the same way when I’m writing – just write for ten minutes – and then put down the pen to find forty minutes have passed. I remind myself it’s always thinking about it that’s the hardest.
Family History
Water everywhere but not a drop to drink – this is how it was last week in North Dunedin after an unfortunate incident when an old unclosed pipe led to possible contamination of the treated water supply with untreated water. Those cups of coffee we’ve all come to rely on were unavailable. The hospital, residential colleges, food suppliers and local households were thrown into disarray. Where to eat lunch safely became an important question around the university. After an exceedingly wet winter, just when we hoped the rain would stop and make the grass less muddy, all of a sudden we were gasping for clean water.
Historically, plays, then novels, treated medical doctors as stock characters, often quacks or figures of fun, as in the