Clogging your run with bodies because I'm insensitive.
I got to see the exhibition of Dr. Gunther Von Hagen's plastinated human corpses. Beautifully amazing stuff. The dissections were masterful...unbelievable skill. Like a paper-thin dissection of an ENTIRE body.
This was a more conservative version of the exhibits out there, but it was still a jarring experience. I was like an exited/nervous little girl the whole way through.
It made me think of some interesting questions, too...
I mean, you had to actively decide how to approach each display. To fully appreciate the beauty of the Dr.'s work, and to see the beauty of the mechanical human form, you had to come at it from an almost sociopathic point of view. By allowing yourself to become disturbed or "creeped out", you miss the point a bit. I approached it as art
We weren't allowed cameras or cell phones... but they didn't say anything about cellphone cameras
This guy was my favorite. Set up like he was running with a head of each involved muscle pulled away from his body so you could see it.
He had eyebrow hairs...and eyelashes...and nosehairs
The display cases were fun, too
"Cavernous body of penis"
"Yes, theyre real"
Two halves of the same woman
A woman in three pieces.
I thought these were really beautiful.
Resin was pumped into the veins and then everything else was boiled away, so all his features were like a contour gesture drawing.
The dissections were masterful. This guy was in two halves, the vertebrae down one side, and the discs down the other.
I think the controversy is just nonsense.
I mean, what is "desecration of the corpse" anyway? It's so different in every culture...I mean, we bury and burn ours and anything else is considered disrespectful or "dishonoring the deceased". But in another active religion, burning and burial are considered desecration...so they drag the body to a sacred ground and hack it into little pieces for the vultures to eat in a "sky burial" (that's what I want done to me, by the way). And is there really anything metaphysical in a dead human corpse? Or is it just an empty mechanical vessel? There's no way of knowing the rules and technicalities of the nonrational realm of the spirit... I guess we'll find out who's right and who's wrong in the end, huh?
This was a more conservative version of the exhibits out there, but it was still a jarring experience. I was like an exited/nervous little girl the whole way through.
It made me think of some interesting questions, too...
I mean, you had to actively decide how to approach each display. To fully appreciate the beauty of the Dr.'s work, and to see the beauty of the mechanical human form, you had to come at it from an almost sociopathic point of view. By allowing yourself to become disturbed or "creeped out", you miss the point a bit. I approached it as art
We weren't allowed cameras or cell phones... but they didn't say anything about cellphone cameras
This guy was my favorite. Set up like he was running with a head of each involved muscle pulled away from his body so you could see it.
He had eyebrow hairs...and eyelashes...and nosehairs
The display cases were fun, too
"Cavernous body of penis"
"Yes, theyre real"
Two halves of the same woman
A woman in three pieces.
I thought these were really beautiful.
Resin was pumped into the veins and then everything else was boiled away, so all his features were like a contour gesture drawing.
The dissections were masterful. This guy was in two halves, the vertebrae down one side, and the discs down the other.
I think the controversy is just nonsense.
I mean, what is "desecration of the corpse" anyway? It's so different in every culture...I mean, we bury and burn ours and anything else is considered disrespectful or "dishonoring the deceased". But in another active religion, burning and burial are considered desecration...so they drag the body to a sacred ground and hack it into little pieces for the vultures to eat in a "sky burial" (that's what I want done to me, by the way). And is there really anything metaphysical in a dead human corpse? Or is it just an empty mechanical vessel? There's no way of knowing the rules and technicalities of the nonrational realm of the spirit... I guess we'll find out who's right and who's wrong in the end, huh?