Would you go to this exhibit.....check this out!
I saw a billboard the other day....and I thought...."nu-uh...was that for real? These sorts of things just aren't normal. Not as a display you go see for a fun afternoon with the kids.
http://exploreum.com/exhibits.html?detail=1&from=0
http://exploreum.com/exhibits.html?detail=1&from=0
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quote:Originally posted by zipperzap
Seen it - outstanding - for the religious extremists here, it's the work of the devil!
Zip, I know I can never be as enlightened as you are, but could you tell us how the devil got a cut of the gate?0 -
Just a few words of warning, they get really upset if you try to put Bactine and bandages on the displays. 0 -
quote:JamesRK:
Zip, I know I can never be as enlightened as you are, but could you tell us how the devil got a cut of the gate?
Thank you James, I was wondering when you'd admit that[;)]
I simply refer you to this well quoted statement;
"Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face."
... so I suppose it depends on your (personal) devils, eh?
[:D]0 -
quote:Originally posted by zipperzap
Thank you James, I was wondering when you'd admit that[;)]
I didn't know I was admitting it. I thought it was already common knowledge. [;)]0 -
It is.
[:D]0 -
It was in Dallas/Ft Worth, and I took Sandy to see it. It was neat and we both enjoyed it. I would have taken the grandkids without thinking twice. It's science and interesting. I think everyone should see it. 0 -
Yes, I would go. I think anatomy is facinating.
We know all about science and the universe but it's amazing how little we know about the grey fatty tissue between our ears.0 -
Crystal, my sister, and I went to the "Bodies" exhibition here in Columbus just before Christmas. It was very fascinating to see the parts of a body presented as it was. I think my favorite part was walking into the room wheere the circulatory system was the subject. seeing all of the smallest capillaries and how they connected to the large arteries and veins, each in separate colors, was incredible. I know it sounds gross thinking about real human bodies on display like that, but it was neat. I recommend going if you have the opportunity.
My only complaint is that I thought it should have been a bit more interactive to help keep people interested.0 -
Caught it in Canada this past summer. 
Old hat for me (I've seen FAR more interesting human medical curiosities and found this overdramatized and overpriced exhibit both tasteless and boring) but great stuff for kids or medically curious laypeople.
A **FREE** exhibit of more interesting medical curiosities can be at the National Museum of Health and Medicine (aka the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology gallery) in Washington DC on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The Mutter Museum in downtown Philadelphia PA is also quite good, but will run you $12 admission (less if you are a student, child, or senior citizen).
The process of making the exhibits is technically complicated, but ultimately, the bodies are embedded with plastic and are sterile and utterly odorless.
The controversy with it (apart from breaking the long-standing medical community taboo of exhibiting anatomic models to lay persons), is that some of the bodies, apparently had come from questionable Chinese sources, raising the possiblity that they were either condemned prisoners or not properly consented.
Von Hagens responded by pulling those and more carefully vetting them.
Not incidentally, Gunther Van Hagens has literally made tens of millions of dollars globally with this travelling freakshow. Its very big business.0 -
quote:Originally posted by nunn
That exhibit was on display here, and I wouldn't go see it. IMNSHO, that is a pretty undignified way to treat a human body.
Gee, Nunn. You wouldn't go see a scientific exibit, due to the "undignified" treatment of stiffs (never mind that the stiffs donated their bodies for the advancement of science)....YET you have no qualms when a living and breathing woman is strip searched by male officers in an undignified way?????
Go figure! You show more compassion to stiffs then living people.[V]0 -
quote:Originally posted by JamesRK
It has been on TV. I don't remember the channel. I don't see the advantage of using human bodies vice plastic though.
The exhibit has also been used as backdrop in one of the scenes from the most recent James Bond movie, Casino Royale.
The advantage of using real cadavers is that the human body is far too complicated to mimic in perfect detail with a synthetic model.
Try building an exact 3-d replica modelling skin, fat, muscle, bone, nerve, blood vessels, lymphatics, and organs, all to 100% scale and located in perfect anatomic relationship to one another and you'd find it would be astronomically expensive, or more likely not even possible at all.
It really is easier and better to use the real thing.
My biggest criticism of the exhibit is that despite Von Hagen's claim that its about bringing medical education to the masses, its really not true. Its obvious by his choice of odd (one could say "Gothic") poses of the cadavers, as well as the weak attention paid to the pathologic specimens and medical explanations, that education takes a back seat to titillation.
You'll come away from it slightly disturbed and awed, and certainly with a lighter wallet, but probably not really having learned anything pragmatic. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, necessarily, just understand what you are getting into).0 -
I would not care to go. I had to work on cadavers in a college class I took and didnt care for it. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Maalox
. . .it is done very well and does not treat the bodies with disrespect. . .
That's debatable (and personally I disagree).
First of all, you have to realize that Von Hagens *loves* to push people's buttons. He's done public autopsies in defiance of every bit of medical tradition, and thumbed his nose at long-standing medical etiquette that says that dead persons are afforded the same sort of respect and confidentiality as live ones. (I'm not certain the relevance, but its curious that Von Hagen's father was an actual Nazi SS officer, who fled Germany at the end of the War).
There are also a number of travelling exhibits, each with a variety of pieces, so the different exhibits might have different levels of "taste".
In my opinion most of the pieces I saw were respectful (like the ones of various athletes posing), but there is pretty bizarre one in particular showing a body with rectangular slabs cut out and partially diplaced looking all the world like drawers coming out of a desk, that I though WAY crossed the line between tasteful exhibition and outright exploitation/titillation.
There was another one of a slender woman slightly bent over with her back muscles flayed out into a sort of "angel's wings", that I also thought crossed the line. Very elegant, in an artistic way, almost sexual, but IMO that kind of thing belongs in a "Hellraiser" movie, not in an exhibit purporting to deliver anatomy to the masses.
As to "well done", again, that's subjective.
There is no question whatever that the individual exhibits are meticulously created and hand-crafted. Some are more or less conventional sculptures, only using actual cadavers instead of carved marble. Some are more whacko (like the drawer-man one above).
Again, in my opinion, if the point is to teach anatomy or medical science to the public, I'd say it was poorly done, and clearly by the professional and artistic choices made, that wasn't the "goal". If the point was to deliver a big heaping of shock and awe, then it was quite well done.0
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