I Saw Dead People

It is not everyday that an average student gets to spend time with dead people, unless, of course, you are a student on the fast track to medical school. However, for those normal majors like journalism and glass blowing, this is not a run-of-the-mill occurrence. Now, for a limited time, all of you average people out there can experience death first hand! No, no, no one is going on a killing spree. Body Worlds 2 is now showing at the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose. It is a world famous exhibit created by a bunch of scientists, doctors and artists who got together one day and said, "Hey, let's plastinate some dead bodies and put them in action poses around the world." Sounds awesome!

All jokes aside it really is amazing. It absolutely blew my mind that each and every person at the exhibit tonight knew the plastic people were, at one time, real people. They knew that these people died and donated their bodies to this exhibit. Even though each person knew they were in a room with dozens of dead guys, they still paid $20 to be there. Ordinary citizens do not pay money to go visit dead bodies in the coroner's office. Ordinary people do not watch surgeries at hospitals just to see a person's insides. Why then would people be attracted to something as gruesome as death so up close and personal? Why? Because it is art.

The question "What is art?" is so trivial because there are so many interpretations of the word. To some people it is foreign and consists only of things learned in grade school like Van Gogh's Starry Night or Egyptian hieroglyphics. To others art is something for only "those weird people" who sit around all day with berets on their heads reciting poetry and painting on canvas. Yes, each person is different but art lies in the eye of the beholder and in the mind of the artist.

An article by Christopher Bollen about an artist named Keith Edmier who wanted to recreate an exact replica of his 1970s childhood home. Using only his memory and old photographs he was able to create this clone of a home where he used to live. Is this art? If something is reproduced exactly as it was originally, is it art? If exact replicas of human bodies are made or if the bodies are plasticized and put on display does that make it art? After seeing tonight's presentation, I can say yes, it does.

At the beginning of the exhibit, everything was straightforward and scientific. As I moved on, the displays became more and more ambiguous and artistic. One piece in the exhibit called "the Drawer Man" was a man who had had chunks of his body cut and pulled out like drawers. Not only were there just chunks of flesh hanging out, but pieces of him had been dissected to show only the bone layer, or the muscles or the nerves. In some places his original skin still remained. When looked at closely we could still see the hair on his head, legs and armpits. With all his drawers hanging out it was like looking up at one of those children's puzzles that teaches shapes. The circle shape has to go into the circle hole and the square shape has to go into the square hole. He had been pieced together in such a way that it became art. It was beautiful.

Another work of art was a man who had been cut vertically into thin pieces of tissue. He too, had been dissected to reveal certain parts of his body structure. Each thin layer was then placed side by side. Though the pieces could not be touched it was like looking though the poster rack at a record store. Each flap revealed a different story about the old man's life. It makes you wonder what that man was like and how he ended up donating his body to science.

There are dozens of more things I could mention about this exhibit but I don't want to spoil any surprises. There is one room that you should not miss when you go. You will know which one it is once you are in it and you will leave wishing you hadn't gone to it. However, it impacts everyone and it impacts how you view the rest of the presentation. So enjoy! Hooray science! Hooray art! Who says the two cannot be interchangeable?