| « kitzmiller versus dover, 2005 | Bradford Dies, Liberty Survives » |
Bodies - I am an animal
http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ -- Seattle, Miami, Las Vegas, New York
Last week Saturday was the exhibition opening. We dived downtown to 800 Pike, Seattle and saw ...
Bones, muscles, nerves, blood, breathing, internal organs, sex, reproduction - everything the eye can see in the human body, stripped back layer by layer.
Two figures stand erect, holding hands and leaning back. One is muscle, the other bone - from the same person - in opposition, supporting each other. The only remaining skin surrounds the navel.
A later dissection shows only the central nervous system - a fibrous ghost flowing from the brain, nerve threads descending, tracing out what once were arms, hands, fingers, and all the other branches of sense and control. At the head, the eyes and their nerves appear to be popping out.
Little displays show the arteries and veins filling the liver, the kidneys; large displays show the general blood flow distribution through the entire body. The skin is it's own display - an empty sack, deflated on a table. The digestive system from mouth to anus.
A dissection focuses on fat - three vertical slices through the torso and the rest of the body.
And the poses. People stretching out to reach a volley ball, or poised to make a free throw (none reclined to watch TV). One subject shows many surgical instruments and devices - forceps spreading muscle, metal pins and plates reconnecting a bone section cut from the skull, ...
One display is set up like a series of MRI slices from head to toe, with cross cuts around the joints so you can better see those details.
Diseases shown with the affected organs - lungs, liver, ...
The embryonic and fetal development room was preceded by a warning notice and a bypass door. Inside were displays crossing the weeks and months before birth, and a few serious birth defects.
One can get an audio accompaniment, and there are interesting info-bits posted here and there (there are about 1 in 9000 people whose internal organs are positioned on the opposite side as everyone else).
At a docent's table they have specimens that one can touch - I picked up the lung and gripped it - solid and rubbery from the preparation treatment
And if you had not already come to this conclusion, it is also a little creepy. They once were people, with unique hopes and dreads, thoughts and dreams, style and affectations, skills and habits, ... But of course they are not "them" in any sense of the word - merely a pattern copied in a synthetic polymer.
Fascinating, nonetheless. See it if you can.
This entry was posted on October 8th, 2006 at 00:00:00 by JRP and is filed under Culture, People.
