"Drones" painting session 7: TEDMED Day 3

Hiep Nguyen, Director of Robotic Surgery, Research and Training Center and the Pediatric TeleUrology Service at Children's Hospital Boston presented his speech from his office in Germany via a robot.  His speech was entitled "What if R2D2 were your doctor?" As I watched the rolling bot "pace" upon the TEDMED stage I began to paint a small droid upon the canvas.

 


Next up was Mary "Missy" Cummings who was a one of the first female fighter pilots in the Navy and is now Director, MIT Humans and Automation Library.  As I listened her speak about the power of unmanned aerial vehicles, I decided to paint the word the she was not using.  I painted three drone bees flying into darkness.  I was also amazed by a slide within her presentation.  In a room field with the most up to date technology was a cowbell.  She explained, in an emergency it was the only way to capture everyone’s attention.  So I gave R2D2 a cowbell and hope he uses it when needed.

Ed Gavagan, Co-founder of Design Starts Here and speaker at The Moth was next upon the stage.  He was the patient on the panel. He began speaking about elaborate knots and then proceeded to tie up our feeling and emotions within in his tale.  He was stabbed as a result of a gang initiation ritual and came very close to dying.  One of his wounds was to the inferior vena cava and this is usually fatal.  He spoke of his gratitude at being saved, but also spoke of his discomfort. After surgery Ed’s doctor proudly showed off his work to a group of other medical professionals.  His work was Ed’s skin.  During his speech he told us the doctor said the hospital had not cut his long hair so he would have the strength of Samson.  But as he wrapped up his speech, he answered Jay Walker’s questions and revealed the true reason.  His doctor had not cut his hair as he wanted Ed to look nice for his funeral.  I painted Ed in the alley he almost died in.

Robert Gupta then soothed our souls once again with his violin.

Sandeep Kishore, MD, PhD Student, Co-chair, Young Professional Chronic Disease Network took us on impassioned journey that leveraged lateral thinking and trans-disciplinary approaches.  He wanted us to remove the silos between us.  So the painting now had a silo that balanced out R2D2.  And I depicted a young doctor standing upon a tractor and looking within.
  

Todd Park spoke once again and focused on the Health Data Palooza to be held in June with his usual relish. I added a blue button to our silo for Todd’s support of open data.

Then I stepped back and stared at this powerful painting called “Drones.”


 


In honor of their sponsorship of TEDMED, Booz Allen Hamilton was given this painting.

"Spit" TEDMED DAY 2: session 5

(“SPIT” painting is described in spoken word in honor of Sekou Andrews and Steve Connell)

"Spit"

Please shut your mouth in the social hub. 
That is Regina B. upon the stage,
she is our Surgeon General.
I can't hear her!

Now, she's gone, not in the painting.

See those dudes upon the stage, the actors, the poets,
Steve and Sekou waking you up,
Keeping it real,
Hell no, making it real.

Do you see outrage?

I paint it with my brush, by the simulcast screen in the spinning Hub
while oh; so many texts and tweets expand

upon the OUTRAGE.
Those that sit in the sweet seats, center stage,
do you feel the rain?
As @TiffanyandLupus gasps in pain 
upon her bed and tweets till she can tweet no more.

That is spit.

Did you think
Steve and Sekou would let you go so gently in that dark night?
Just two fellows on the stage
Here for your entertainment
to wrap this final session?

No, they YELL at you.

 


They throw their words upon the stage
like fists through walls,
they show us all
the split,
THE SPIT,
between us.
The great chasm of pain
between those here who talk of tech and the patient ones
following the tweet stream while dying.

And you know,
as sure as paint falls upon the canvas,
as their words pound at you,
as our tweets # you,
Twitter can set us free.

I scream, the stream #TEDMED

Mop up the stage of sweat and spit,
Gregory and Reisa has come to avail us,
as Alzheimer's begins to assail us,
300 million time bombs passing by TSA,
every day,
terrorist cells exist inside our minds,
and what can be done to save us?
tweet out
@TEDMED,
iceberg ahead!

 


Then the mother walks upon the stage,
her blue dress cannot contain,
the pain,
her slumping shoulders say more than her lips,
as Virginia Breen,
talks of a girl who is seen,
and not heard.
WHY CAN'T THEY HEAR HER?

See the little girl.
See her little curls.
See her giggles stop.

See the iPad FREE her.

Then Miss Bonker takes stage.
Think the age that passed,
under lights too bright and noise too vast,
to finally see the port within the storm:
The iPad lay in Jay Walker's hand,
her voice on glass, taken away
As the show must go on,
and no way for her to say
I AM IN HERE.

 


#Autism
#Ageism
Tag you're it!
Can you tweet while crying?
My tears fall upon he canvas.

My eyes spit.

Then Robert Gupta plays his violin
upon this Titanic struggle,
bringing the sweet street,
to the c suite,
as we talk about
WHO is really mental?
My friends who sit within the grit
outside this very venue?
Or anyone in here who is not crying?

Miguel leads us to the end,
as he asks us to look within.
The universe
between our ears
and see and hear the storm of reason,
for we must understand this astronomy of thought,
the white noise
of our great gray processor,
before we talk about the treason of our cells.

Then Traces play upon the stage,
they contort their bodies,
as we contort our thoughts
the lights go down,
the feed goes up
and now we tweet a new tomorrow. 

We scream, the stream #TEDMED

(This painting was given to The Cleveland Clinic for their support of TEDMED.)