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Driving through Los Angeles I am surprised and excited when to see a series of
banners advertising the BODY WORLDS exhibit at the California Science Center. I
took the BODY WORLDS tour once before a little over a year ago before during a
visit
in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since that time, a rumor had reached me that the exhibition had been banned from the states. I never confirmed the rumor, but had it been true, I would not have been surprised given that this travelling exhibition managed to become a bandwagon for controversy. Rumor or not, having a second chance to see the exhibit seemed like an opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up. Especially since such a ban isn’t entirely implausible. I bought my ticket. |
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Picture a dead man standing up erect, striking a godly pose while bathed in light. His arms are positioned in such a way that defy gravity. In fact, to look at him, you’d think that he’s alive, but that’s just not possible, because you already know that he’s dead. You know this because not only is he without skin, but organs are missing or exposed in plain view. I’m not describing the BODY WORLDS exhibition. This is an extract from the first full-scale illustrated book of the human anatomy, titled Commentaria Super Anatomia Mundini and published around 1535. But put the same description with one of thefull body displays from BODY WORLDS its a perfect fit.
The body arrangements in BODY WORLDS are a modern day echo of early Renaissance Medical Illustration’s which made an oft unnerving cross between art and science. Unlike todays textbook illustrations that present the human body as inanimate and two-dimensional, the Renaissance artists imagined their de-skinned cadaver subjects in lively
and sometimes provocative poses.
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There were a number of reasons for this. One, medical illustrators were held to high artistic standards at that time.But the second reason, more to the point of this article, is that their was still a lingering mystique about the human body that could only be evoked by art. Unlike modern day science which remains impersonal in its approach to all things human, Renaissance artists managed to make the deceased body a very personal affair by illustrating dead bodies in motion. Five centuries later, and BODY WORLDS takes it a step further: the bodies in motion are real-life bodies (sorry, couldn’t resist the oxymoronic).
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It’s almost as if the Renaissance Artists of old waited this long to pass the baton. Science has extended its hand several times, offering to continue the Aristotolean tradition of hard scrutiny. But the Renaissance passed, not wanting the next spokesman for the sentient body to be a secular and sanitized approximating mannequin. Modern day human models and medical illustrations are decidedly impersonal about life. What science avoids with plastic models, BODY WORLDS embraces with plastinated people. Impersonal is impossible for an exhibit comprised of people. Even if its exhibitors tried, the fact that all these cadavers once belonged to living persons makes Body World unavoidably renaissance, and inevitably existential. And yet, it is presented as science, which presents a paradox.
How can BODY WORLDS be “science”, when it is so overtly sacred in its perception
of the Human Body? Science, to remain credible, maintains its poker face while speaking
cooly and logically about the anatomy. Even the general public, which adopts this language
second-hand, will often talk about a Bromidic Body with an overt amateur certitude.
BODY WORLDS, however, chucks all lifeless language in favor of editorial commentary
that does little to hide a rather Noetic opinion about the Human body.
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Whether in Charlotte or Los Angeles, both of my visits to BODY WORLDS found me entering a series of rooms filled with a dark ambiance.
Unlike museum art, which is usually revered against a sterile white backdrop, BODY WORLDS uses a theatrical black to frame the displays.
The displays are lit with directional spot lights, as if on a stage. Most of the cadavers are performing some dramatic movement that is frozen
in time by plastination. Science has been packaged with theatrical elements before, to make it more engaging for an entertainment hungry
audience. But the theater in BODY WORLDS isn’t about entertainment at all. It’s about reverence. Upon entrance of the Los Angeles exhibit
is an obeisant muscular-skeletal figure, on its knees praying with its heart in both hands. The frozen moment is very reminiscent of Artist
Marc Quinn’s, 2006 Painted Bronze sculpture, Angel. At the end of the exhibit, are oil barrels soaked in crimson red with a sign that reads:
“This is your heart’s daily workload: It pumps roughly 1,800 gallons of blood through your body.”
The artistic undercurrents of the exhibition is, in part, why it has raised so many red flags among ethicists. While BODY WORLDS may try to
cover its lower half with the banner of science, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the act itself is evidence enough that the exhibitiors
have reached a Gnostic discovery about the body. That’s to their credit. Many artists have to tried to make sacred statements about the rights
of ownership with a PostHuman Body. BODY WORLDS raises the same points for the Posthumous Body. Every plastinated body still seems to
be the inalienable property of its deceased owner.
Of course, not everyone will agree, which is good. Until now religion has been
the only brave contrarian to deny science its claim to the last word on humanity.
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And for that it has taken a liberal beating. BODY WORLDS imposes no religious points about being human. Nor is it convincing in making its points solely scientific. Instead it is a counter-point to somatic ambivalence. Each displays seems to question the merit of any view that isn’t existential. We do, after all, exist. And for those philosophers poisedto pounce on my audacity, we can agree than, at the least, our existence is “real” enough that we can identify it -- and raise doubts about it. Is it a Creation? A Roll of the dice? Who knows. Either way, we are a curious embodiment of this strange thing called Being. A nagging fact that doesn’t seem to go away, even upon death.
All Body World Imagery © Gunther von Hagens, Institute for Plastination,
Heidelberg, Germany, www.bodyworlds.com. 2001 - 2008. All rights reserved. |
Gunther von Hagens,
Founder of Body Worlds
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