Yes, art, this is art. I just got back from Bodyworlds. Mayhap you've heard of it. Mayhap you haven't. I'll start with a brief summary of what is is. Bodyworld is an exhibition of human anatomy. Surrounded by controversy, naturally, it's quite in depth. Basically, people sign a consent form for their body to be used. Then, after they pass, through a lengthy procedure, their internal liquids are replaced with a rubber/plastic like polymer. This acts as a preservative and a stiffener. The cadavers may also be cross sectioned, have only certain organs preserved, that kind of thing. Then, in an educational setting, they are displayed. It's everything from the skeleton, to the pulmonary, so on and so forth. Well, it came to my town, so I decided to go. It is absolutely incredible. I mean, it's a little creepy, cause there's literally enough body parts in the show to fill a small morgue, but once you get past that, it's awesome. I learned so much about our body, both in what it looks like and how it works. There's both healthy and unhealthy pieces. It's amazing the difference between healthy and sick organs, even in something so simple as how it looks. I was facinated most, however, by the circulatory system (For our less well reader readers, basically the heart and blood). One of the cadavers has had all his skin and organs removed, and all that remained were his bones and blood vessels. You would not believe how many their are. Really, words cannot describe it in any respect. In short, it is THE most interesting medical related thing I have ever seen, and probably the most interesting artistic display I've ever seen. If it comes to your area, unless you're a squeamish person, I highly recommend visiting. It's astounding.
Oooooooo... So it's like, they'll only have the circulatory system displayed or only the digestive system displayed, but they're real systems, yeah? I'd so love to see that, despite being fairly... Extremely squeamish... I think... I've heard a couple of interesting factoids about the human body over the past while. One being that for every extra kilo of fat that someone has on their body, their heart has to pump blood an extra kilometre longer, another being that the stomach isn't essential to life. Learn any tidbits of information like that? Yeah, I'd really like to see something like this. Chances are I could handle it, but afterwards wouldn't sleep for a week. Could probably handle the systems, which I'd think would be the most interesting, but I'd be a bit more hesitant of the cross sections...
Yup, everything in the exhibit is 100% authentic human parts, which makes it all the more interesting. Unfortunately, the audio tour (There's no guided one) is 5 bucks, so I didn't get one, so no TOO interesting factiods. I learned some stuff about certain diseases though, so that was kinds cool. On the whole, most the cross sections were the best parts (Except the brain xsections, those were boring)....The lung ones especially were amazing. They had healthy lungs, cancerous lungs, and lungs with emphysema. The emphysemic lungs were impressive....I never knew that it actually destroys the air sacs....The lung cross sections had literal HOLES in them. God. I'm never touching a cig.
Organ cross sections wouldn't be too bad, but I'd imagine the cadaver cross sections would be a bit more disturbing. I've already seen enough on those anti-smoking ads to put me off smoking for life. I both hate and love them. Hate them because they're just so disgusting, and love them because they've completely turned me off smoking and because of the sheer amount of people who would also be turned off. The one problem with them is that I can't see them being too effective on convincing smokers to stop. Basically anyone who smokes has to have seen these ads, seen the diseases on the sides of the packs and know how harmful they are, so if they haven't stopped smoking already, these ads aren't going to do anything.
Gah, damn... You make me regret not jumping at the chance to go. Actually had a few free tickets while they were in town.
