Eli Joteva, Bulgarian media artist and graduate of UCLA's Design Media Arts MFA program, exhibits IntraBeing, an artistic exploration of the limits of perception and resolution in medical images. The immersive Installation with AR extension is the outcome of her »STEAM Imaging III« residency at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS, Germany.

What lies within the bounds of being? IntraBeing explores the boundaries of imaging the human body to imagine a limitless and intra-active sense of being. Eli Joteva worked remotely with researchers at Fraunhofer MEVIS to develop the work, exploring the capacities of medical imaging and simulation techniques to locate the enigmatic spaces that emerge at the limits of resolution and computation.

Artist in residence Eli Joteva performed a series of full-body MRI scans and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scans, which are usually only used to visualize connectivity in the brain, to instead reveal nerve fibers in the chest, pelvic region and the feet of her own body. She was inspired by the fact that hydrogen atoms, on which MRI processing relies, are also in constant nanosecond flux and thus elude precise measurement. These components are key elements of the three-screen installation, complete with AR extension, which shows an oscillating internal landscape of hydrogen atoms, the nerves they flow along, and the magnetic potentials generated between them.

The starting point of the »STEAM Imaging III« residency was to bring artists together with scientists and school students to create broad access to a self-motivated exploration of topics in digital medicine through 10 STEAM evenings. The course was jointly created by artist Eli Joteva and scientists at Fraunhofer MEVIS. Boundaries of individual disciplines are crossed, flexible forms of learning and collaboration are developed, and skills are taught to deal effectively and critically with new technologies in digital medicine. The residency allows artists to exchange intensively with MEVIS experts and link their work with the latest scientific methods and approaches in digital medicine. 

»STEAM Imaging III« was hosted by Fraunhofer MEVIS and Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria, in collaboration with the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen, the Schulzentrum Walle, Bremen, and the UCLA Art|Sci Center in Los Angeles, USA.