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Posted by vesperae Thanks for mentioning this, and for sharing your interesting impressions of the exhibition. I think that, at least here in the U.S., this traveling exhibition is very timely in capitalizing on the things behind the popularity of "CSI", and the host of other surgery and forensics shows that can be found all over the networks and cable these days. It seems that we have developed this fascination with pushing the boundaries of the comfort level of our sensibilities, and things that only a decade or two ago would have seemed shocking and unthinkable for prime time are now commonplace. I think that the only lingering objection for some people are their beliefs and feelings about funerary customs, and what is, and isn't, appropriate to do with the deceased. (I'm not taking sides here, just trying to make sense of why someone would object to this work, and this exhibition.) I think that the premise of the "Body Worlds" exhibition is a good one though, and that while it may ruffle some feathers, it is ultimately very healthy and of great value to give people the opportunity to understand just how wonderfully complex, and what a miracle of biophysical design we are. One comment about the appearance of the lungs in the exhibition that might (or might not) be of interest - due to the air pollution found throughout the industrialized world, due to where these bodies lived before they ended up in this exhibition, and due to what professions their owners held, a good percentage of the observable lung discolorations may be the result of inhaled particles, and may or may not be due to smoking. The process that von Hagens uses to preserve and enhance the tissues of the organs also involves a certain amount of coloring, so there could be at least a little bit of variation between the appearance of what actually existed in life, and what is observable postmortem and post-preparation. Not that I want to spoil anyone's fun... Thanks for posting about this! * * * * *vesperae
on July 22, 2007, 6:46 pm, in reply to "Body Worlds"
Hi SuckaPunks, 
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