The Universe Within

[spookymooky]

Should I go to this? It looks good, but nobody seems to want to join me.

http://www.jmg-galleries.com/articles/the_universe_within_review.html

http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/2005/05/the_universe_wi.phtml
Read the comments.

 

[xombine]

I saw that on Ripley's Believe It Or Not, was over in Europe iirc. People were a little more appreciative of it there, but there were still some who flipped about corpses out in the open as art. Imo you should go to it, will definately be interesting.

 

[Laivasse]

Seems to be some controversy over where this particular exhibit got their bodies, if you read the comments on that blog. Apparently there are exhibits touring around making money off of imitating the Gunter von Hagens stuff, but being less scrupulous as to where they get their corpses...

Go if you don't care, don't go if you're worried/skeptical/want to make a statement about knockoff stiffs imported from China.

 

[Flyingdebris]

zombies!

I don't see what the big deal is all about assuming they were obtained legally. They are just preserved corpses posed in a thought provoking manner. Would people be happier if the bodies were worm food in the ground?

It seems like this exhibit would give the viewer greater insight into what the human body is all about.

 

[Laivasse]

I think the point is that most bodies exhibited in this way are from people who explicitly gave permission for their bodies to be used for the benefit of science after they died. According to those comments, the ones used in this 'Universe Within' exhibit may well be the bodies of Chinese who never gave such permission.

I'm not saying you have to make a big deal out of it, but you can see why many people would.

 

[TheSomeone]

Id go with my friends, but then again i have weird friends.

 

[Shippi]

.

 

[spookymooky]

I think I probably will, and I'm not too worried about where the bodies came from.

Shall I let you guys know how it was?

 

[Danimal]

Obviously.

 

[Rizzo]

I heard that one bodie was his wife:|

 

[hungryduck]

woah, thats awfully strange

 

[Qonfused]

That'd be... different to go to.

 

[spookymooky]

I went today with a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, they weren't quite as interested as me, so we left pretty quickly. Some thoughts/observations:

Overall, it was pretty neat, not quite up to my hopes, but cool all the same.
The first thing I noticed was that everyone looked more fake than I expected. The plastination left them really glossy.
I like the poses, but my friends didn't. Some were riding bikes, playing football, etc.
One thing that struck me was that you could really tell they were chinese, even without the skin and muscles. Facial characteristics really show through.
One of the most disturbing things was a fetal skull. The eyes and braincase were huge, compared to the nose and jaw.
Brains are smaller than I though. They're the size of two fists held together.
Livers are huge, lungs are tiny.
Another odd exhibit was a man holding his skin on a hanger.
Almost all of them were male Dunno why.
The spinal cord is really thick, and pretty creepy.
They asked us to write our thoughts in a book as we were leaving. First I put "The interesting thing was the conflict in my head about whether these were people or things". Then, I thought about it, and added "The Nazis would have been proud".