Tuesday, May 20, 2008

If you want my body


So I went to see the BODIES Exhibition today. This is the art/medical exhibit where actual human cadavers have been plasticized and flayed open to reveal to various organs, muscles, circulatory systems, nerves, etc. The process was developed by a German Anatomist/artist named Gunther von Hagens (who receives absolutely no credit at this exhibit I saw today, but more on that in a moment). They dry out the corpses in Acetone to remove all the water from the body then pump silicone into the various parts they want to "plasticize". then they use a type of solvent to eat away the parts they do not want to be seen; So say they only want the circulatory system to be visible; they plasticize that, then dissolve the muscles, organs, flesh and bones away leaving a perfectly human shaped form of veins and arteries in its place which are then put on display. Mostly they specimens in display were corpses with the muscles peeled and stretched so you could see how they worked in tandem with each other or other body parts. Each room focused on a different system of the body such as reproductive or digestive. It was all endlessly fascinating and educational. And while I'm sure some people found it disturbing or gross I found it all quite interesting and even beautiful in some cases. the only time I was grossed out was at a couple of the diseased pieces on display. The opened kidney literally filled with stones about did me in. I thought kidney stones only got to be the size of sand, or tiny pebbles, but this poor guy had dozens in there that were the size of small rocks. In fact they were small rocks as big as dimes or pennies. I felt faint looking at those because I've had kidney stones (very small ones) and those hurt like a bitch, I can't imagine what the pain this poor son of a bitch went through. There were some nasty cancer tumors too. I freaked out a poor teenage girl that was standing within ear shot when we were looking at the halved cross section of the male anatomy too. I was explaining to my friend Rick how male porn stars have their penises enlarged by cutting the actual meat of the penis away from the bone inside and showing him where it happens. This girl was disgusted and very freaked out! she'll probably never be able to watch porn again! Another interesting thing for me was how so much of the it looked accurate to the special effects I've been involved with. I've been working off and on this week assisting on effects for the film TRUE NATURE and the effects there have been using silicone. So these bodies and the effects looks eerily similar. I also have my own secret recipe that I use to make intestines (which I did not have time for to make this week for the movie unfortunately) and they looked exactly like the ones in the human bodies on display. That was a nice thing to see.

There has been some controversy around this display. Naturally a few religious groups have been pissed off about it saying that it denigrates the human form to have it on display like this, and that it isn't educational but an art display. Some have gone as far as to call it pornographic. All I know is that I learned a lot looking at all the bodies and didn't feel like it was violating anything. there is also a rumor that the actual bodies were Chinese prisoners of war given without question for the exhibit and there for without consent. this rumor actually dates back to when this process was invented by Gunther von Hagens and the right wing and fundamentalists were attacking him for doing this. But he ONLY used people that had willed their bodies to be used for this purpose and left written consent. the rumor has persisted it seems. But after reading the Wikipedia page on this topic it seems the controversy runs a bit deeper in that here in the United States a number of off shoot art displays using the Plasticization process, including the BODIES EXHIBIT, do not have the same sort of cataloging system that say a medical school has to adhere to. A medical school has to account for where they got their specimens, how they got them and weather or not those specimens were willed to be used as donor corpses. Seems that these new Exhibition situations are not being regulated in the same way and are not being forced to follow the same protocol and that is causing a tremendous amount of strife and concern about were the bodies are coming from. As well as causing medical schools concern about a possible shortage of bodies for their schools as well. So knowing that gives one pause about the whole prisoner of war thing. And with that in mind I did notice that most of the bodies were clearly Asian.

The other thing that strikes me is that this Exhibit though truly amazing and awe inspiring, lacked the artistic merit of Gunther von Hagens work. His BODY WORLDS show, that I've only seen pictures of, and the brief moments of in the film CASINO ROYALE is the same sort of thing, but taken to the next level because he approaches it from not only a scholarly way, but with an artist eye as well. And his pieces are indeend incredible works of art. So where in the exhibit today tried to be artistic (the man who had his skeleton outside his empty body for example was impressive) von Hagen's look out of this world. One day I hope to see his work in person.

But even with all the controversy, and potential knock off of a brilliant artist, I am very glad I spent the money to go. It is not every day you get to see the inner workings of the human body, literally inches from your face.

2 comments:

MasoKnight said...

That is very true about the controversy and criticism directed at this forum of sculpture. I’m a student in grade 11 and I was doing an art assignment on the human body when I stumbled upon Dr.Gunther Von Hagens. His way off not only stepping out of the box but jumping really amazed me(a desensitized teenager). I’m glad to find people out there with an open mind for different types of art.

MasoKnight said...

That is very true about the controversy and criticism directed at this forum of sculpture. I’m a student in grade 11 and I was doing an art assignment on the human body when I stumbled upon Dr.Gunther Von Hagens. His way off not only stepping out of the box but jumping really amazed me(a desensitized teenager). I’m glad to find people out there with an open mind for different types of art.