Kritiek Aster – Body Worlds (2013) Dr Gunther von Hagens

Olivetti 45 — Special, special, read all about it – a journalist that near-fainted on her first-ever accident scene voluntarily went to look at dead people, cleaved open and displayed as ‘art’ and ‘science’ in a world-travelling exhibition.

Are you mad? That excerpt doesn’t even make sense if you meet me – small Astertjie with the large task of reporting your news, barely able to look at submitted SPCA photos of animals that got shot in the face. Yet, you can believe it (my sister is the master of manipulation and studying medicine, she invited me along to her exploration of corpses) and no, this is not your typical movie review. Rather, this is a first-person narration of everything you hope never to see and won’t tag your children along if you do go.

Dr Gunther von Hagens used his plastination process to preserve specimens for medical education, or as it may be, ‘art’ that becomes Joe Public’s exposure to ‘science’. Von Hagens invented the plastination process in 1977, whereby bodily fluids and soluble fats in specimens are replaced with fluid plastics that harden after vacuum-forced impregnation (to hell if I understand what that means, ask my sister). After he fixed the bodies that he displayed into lifelike poses, they are hardened with either gas, heat or light. The ‘plastinates’, as he refers to these corpses reborn, display how bodies respond internally to movements in everyday life or during athletic activities.

The result was that I met several members of the Plastinate family and got to know them (very) personally.

After walking through a room of the exhibition that deals with impregnation and the body of a pregnant woman (and her spawn’s), I got to meet Eve Plastinate, as I would refer to her.

Eve Plastinate looks like mother nature incarnated as she is posed on a rock, with a cliff as a background, ever-so-gently taking off her skin and hair like it is a coat and stepping forward into life (or past life into new life, wouldn’t you agree?). What Eve Plastinate displays is her love of the world – sinews, muscle and boobs exposed – and her eagerness for you to explore the science that is a human body. Very femme fatale, if you ask me.

Next up was a circus act of muscly proportions, as I met Michelangelo and Margarite Plastinate, who showed off their physical peaks by posing one on top of the other. One could literally explore every inch of Margarite’s body as Michelangelo holds her like a trophy and the narration on the walls speaks of healthy living with lots of exercise and wine. By this time I was intrigued beyond needing that glass of wine, and moved on to dear old Johnny Plastinate, jumping over a fence to escape who-knows-what. What a show-off … the man was posing literally while balancing his entire body weight (sans skin) on one hand. Onlookers were invited to understand arm muscle, as his arms were cleaved open to see what’s inside.

I cannot stress enough the expression of Adam Plastinate, the jock with a football in his arm – his face seemed contracted in anguish because, should you peer around to his backside, his spine and brain has been split from his body, displayed as an open door to intrinsic exploration.

Popeye Plastinate and Smooth Jones Plastinate, the sailor and the sax player, were the most relaxed of the bunch. Finally, Madonna Plastinate, fertile, free and sensual, welcomed the viewer to her insides where her reproductive system could be inspected.

Is it strange? Is it ungodly, or is it for the greater knowledge of a lazy population? You decide – I got to know these folks and they seemed content to be there, but to you, they might seem tortured. Everybody views a circus, a performance, in a different way.