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Denise and I went to see "Bodies" on Friday night. In case anyone isn't familiar with the (semi-controversial) exhibition, "Bodies" uses dissected corpses to display the intricate anatomy of the human body.
The bodies used have undergone a lengthy process: they're first preserved in the normal mortuary fashion. Then the bodies are partially dissected to display various parts of the body -- the musculature, the nervous system, the skeletal system, the internal organs, etc. The dissected body is submerged in acetone, eliminating all the water in the specimen. Then it's placed in a silicon bath in a vacuum chamber. Under pressure, the silicone replaces the acetone. When a final catalyst is applied, you've essentially made a siliconized version of the body: odorless, and not subject to decay.
The controversy enters in with the procurement process for the bodies. The bodies were all 'purchased' from Chinese sources, and there is some argument as to whether these might not have been executed political prisoners, or if all the legal "i"s were dotted and "t"s crossed. The people who created the exhibition argue that they were, but...
Neither of us were certain exactly what to expect. Knowing that these are not facsimiles but the real thing lends a different feel to viewing the exhibition. The feeling was enhanced when you look closely at the first few bodies and see the musculature there: this was obviously 'meat' -- it had the same surface texture, the same look, even if the smell was absent. It gave me a momentary shiver.
Even absent their skin, the bodies retain personality and some expression -- especially when you look and see the remnants of eyelashes on them. Some of them are posed in the midst of 'casual' action: throwing a baseball, shooting a basketball. I found myself speculating on what these people were like in life: how did they act or feel, did they ever really toss a baseball, did they enjoy their life? That feeling of being haunted by unseen lives persisted even through the fascination of the displays.
And there was fascination. I can see the intense interest there was to our medical/anatomical forbearers in dissection, delving into how this human machine is constructed, in discerning how all these diverse systems function together to create a living, feeling being. The complexity, the interlinking of skeleton, ligaments, muscles, organs, systems...
Amazing.
The bodies used have undergone a lengthy process: they're first preserved in the normal mortuary fashion. Then the bodies are partially dissected to display various parts of the body -- the musculature, the nervous system, the skeletal system, the internal organs, etc. The dissected body is submerged in acetone, eliminating all the water in the specimen. Then it's placed in a silicon bath in a vacuum chamber. Under pressure, the silicone replaces the acetone. When a final catalyst is applied, you've essentially made a siliconized version of the body: odorless, and not subject to decay.
The controversy enters in with the procurement process for the bodies. The bodies were all 'purchased' from Chinese sources, and there is some argument as to whether these might not have been executed political prisoners, or if all the legal "i"s were dotted and "t"s crossed. The people who created the exhibition argue that they were, but...
Neither of us were certain exactly what to expect. Knowing that these are not facsimiles but the real thing lends a different feel to viewing the exhibition. The feeling was enhanced when you look closely at the first few bodies and see the musculature there: this was obviously 'meat' -- it had the same surface texture, the same look, even if the smell was absent. It gave me a momentary shiver.
Even absent their skin, the bodies retain personality and some expression -- especially when you look and see the remnants of eyelashes on them. Some of them are posed in the midst of 'casual' action: throwing a baseball, shooting a basketball. I found myself speculating on what these people were like in life: how did they act or feel, did they ever really toss a baseball, did they enjoy their life? That feeling of being haunted by unseen lives persisted even through the fascination of the displays.
And there was fascination. I can see the intense interest there was to our medical/anatomical forbearers in dissection, delving into how this human machine is constructed, in discerning how all these diverse systems function together to create a living, feeling being. The complexity, the interlinking of skeleton, ligaments, muscles, organs, systems...
Amazing.