INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 9, ISSUE 02, FEBRUARY 2020 ISSN 2277-8616 5695 IJSTR©2020 www.ijstr.org Art And Technology: Revealing Human Caring In Nursing Reynold C. Padagas and Rozzano C. Locsin Abstract : Contemporary and futurist views of nursing and health care are immersed in technological developments, impacting the clear illuminations of human health and well-being. While art and technology appear to be distinct fields, they are also uniquely related. Art and technology reveal what seemingly is true through artistic expressions and through impressions reached through technological achievements. In nursing, both art and technology are means that nurses can know persons more fully as persons. The aim of this discussion paper is to illuminate the concepts of art, technology, human caring, and nursing practice. Furthermore, this treatise addresses the value of the arts and technologies as processes through which the practice of Nursing can function. Both provide greater certainty to nursing practice, grounded in empirical data, e.g. the recognition of human anatomical parts through artful representations, and to communicate human function, and composition. Healthcare technologies, e.g. imaging instruments, and laboratory procedures provide data which essentially communicate the composition and function of as reflected in the data representations. This is the relatedness of art and technology encompassing human caring in the practice of nursing. Index Terms : Art, aesthetics, technology, healthcare, nursing, human ——————————  —————————— 1. INTRODUCTION There is a strong link between art, technology and human caring. Entrenched in this link is the interrelationship between the expected objectification of technologies, and the subjectivities envisaged in human caring as revealed through art. It is critical to nursing and health care that the world of human caring is studied through a variety of lenses including disciplinary and ―extra-disciplinary‖ viewpoints. Today, contemporary and futurist views of nursing and health care are immersed in colossal technological developments often blurring illuminations of the value of knowing persons as caring within the human health care world. Art is an essential component of human life. Self-expression through language, music, and imagery is an essential part of being human (Thistle, 2012). In understanding and appreciating art, Aristotle posits the fourfold causes to objectify. These are causa materialis, causa formalis, causa finalis, and causa efficiens. When these causes are exploited to the fullest, these bring forth the essence of its construction to be known. Therefore, a thing (i.e. art), according to Aristotle is best understood by looking at its end, purpose, or goal (Burton, 2017). In his book, The Question Concerning Technology, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1977) accentuated technology as the means to an end, in which technology is realized as not instrumental and having no time. Any form of technology connotes its quintessential form from the moment it is designed. In nursing, technology becomes aggressive and provocative in its functions in order to illuminate thereby alleviating human conditions. 1.1. Art and Technology Within Nursing Art and technology appear to be distinct concepts especially within the discipline of nursing. Nurses understand that in a nursing care process situation, art and technology seem to co- exist in that through art and its expressions, nurses can know persons more fully as person. The theory of Technological Competency as Caring in Nursing (Locsin, 2005, 2016, 2017) grounds this expression. However, how does art and technology manifest the person as whole and complete in the moment? Through technologies in human health care, that which is hidden or concealed can be revealed. For example, the arterial blood pressure is an abstract term that remains concealed until it is revealed by measuring the diastolic and systolic blood pressures using the sphygmomanometer. Only then is the arterial blood pressure known as real. Similarly, hidden within the abdomen are the gastrointestinal tracts. These structures can only be supposed as existing, perhaps as reference to food digestion and eventually discarded as byproducts. What happens with food must be the function of some structures within the abdomen. However, how do we know what it is, and that it is until it is revealed? These organs remain hidden in the abdomen and remains so until a break in the skin and muscles follows in dissections. Such was how da Vinci and Michelangelo have so clearly delineated the hidden structures of the human anatomy. Artful representations of something hidden meet the definition of art, ably communicating what which it has revealed and recognized through a specific terminology. How can art and technology reveal and explain human caring concepts in nursing and its practice? 2 PURPOSE The aim of this paper is to illuminate the concepts of art, technology, human caring, and nursing practice. Furthermore, the paper addresses the value of the arts and technologies of human caring in the practice processes of Nursing. 3 BACKGROUND OF NURSING Happiness is the supreme good and the goal of life, as Aristotle claimed. In the movie, The Greatest Showman (2017), P.T. Barnum explains that the noblest art is that of making others happy. In healthcare, nurses, have ultimate ends focusing on four-dimensional aspects of human care – ————————————————  Reynold Padagas, RN, RM, MAN, MAEd, DEM is currently working as a nursing faculty and researcher of Jose Rizal University, Philippines. E-mail: reynold.padagas@jru.edu  Rozzano C. Locsin, RN, PhD, FAAN is a Professor of Nursing, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Tokushima University Graduate School, Tokushima, Japan. E-mail: locsin@medsci.tokushima- u.ac.jp