February 06, 2005

Body Worlds is unlike any exhibition that has ever come before. It explores bodily performance at a depth never before possible on such a comprehensive scale. Thanks to the breakthrough process of plastination, more than 200 real human specimens are displayed to reveal an extraordinary new look inside the human body.

Tour the website, read about the process. I think this is cool, am planning a trip to Chicago to see the exhibition, which is from Feb 4 2005 to Sept 5 2005.

posted by bratcat 19 years ago
  • The guy who made it happen, Dr. Gunther von Hagens. There is also an exhibition in LA, from January 29 to March 27, 05.
  • I'd like to go and see this. It was in London last year, but I missed it.
  • Fascinating and gruesome. Great post! ( ( (
  • For the very last weekend of Body Worlds 1 at the Science Center, the place was open around the clock (or at least they told me it was open 'til midnight on Sunday when I unsuccessfully tried to get tickets). I thought that was pretty cool, assuming they were responding to increased interest in the exhibit, and couldn't recall any other time they did something like that.
  • Channel 4 in the UK has been broadcasting Anatomy for Beginners, which has von Hagens dissecting bodies as Professor John Lee guides you through what the bits do. They also screened a live autopsy by von Hagens last year (somewhat controversially). Great stuff, a proper throwback to Victorian-style showman science (although, obviously, what comes across on TV can never compare to the explanatory power of actually having a corpse under your fingertips).
  • I wasn't that impressed on a whole. The exhibits (seen at the Los Angeles Natural Museum) were a bit shoddy and seemed to have seen better days. Most of the actual bodies on display looked more like plasticized beef jerky and weren't the supple, "life-like" biological displays that I had in mind before going. There was however, a beautiful, and humbling display involved injecting the veins and capillaries of various body parts with plastic and then dissolving away the surrounding flesh, leaving a complex branching circulatory web. I was in awe.
  • How strange my links, the last two are leading me to MSN search, Microsoft.com. That is so not the link I posted. I have no idea why that happened.
  • These have certainly been around for a while - I saw Bodyworlds in London some years ago. Gunther von Hagens seems to be a definite eat/have proposition... he claims to be demystifying the human body, but at the same time dresses like the Child Catcher. Any money his real accent is pure Croydon...
  • Well, I see an extra http// (after http://) on the last two links. But I got there anyway! Thanks.
  • Geesh I can't even cut and paste correctly. PY thanks for pointing out what went wrong with the links I posted. I am completely self taught when it comes to computers and the internet, need to pay closer attention to what I am doing. ;)
  • saw these in Berlin a few years back... it was definitley worth a look, but I wasn't game enough to get in for free by donating my own body.