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Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

El Cuerpo Humano Real...the Real Human Body has come to Mexico City at the Nuevo Foro Polanco. Sponsored by the Education Secretariat, this looks like an event worth seeing.

http://www.ticketmaster.com.mx/eventos.asp?searchname=EL_CUERPO_HUMANO_REAL_FASCINANTE&cat=especiales

Cdaniels · Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:33 pm Post subject: OMG!

I recognize that face! That's my great uncle Bob!
Oh my God, What did they do to him!
That last weekend in Tijuana really did him in!
Laughing

lozwich · Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 1536

Wow! I've been wanting to see that exhibition for years. I know this is going to sound weird, but I'm an anatomy and physiology hobbyist! Laughing

Guy, do you know if it will come further south???

Lozwich.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

It's been on a world tour, so perhaps it will end up down south somewhere too. I've been wanting to see it for some time too.

Here's an English-language link.

http://fi.edu/bodyworlds/

I'm going to see it today. The perfect Saturday afternoon date. Stroll in the park, have some ice cream, see some plasticized dead people, dinner and dancing...

jillford64 · Joined: 15 Feb 2006 Posts: 397 Location: Sin City

I saw this show when it was in Los Angeles. I experienced it as being fascinating, creepy, and gross at the same time. To some extent it was waaaaaaay more information about the human body than I really needed and kind of disturbing. My boyfriend did not enjoy it. Personally, I don't think it is suitable for children under 12. I don't know anyone besides my boyfriend that has seen it, so I'm looking forward to Guy's opinion.

The preservation process is amazing and the bodies are preserved in unbelievable detail. The human body is essentially replaced with plastic, one molecule at a time. The parts they don't want for a particular display are cut away or dissoved. Some of the displays focus on one thing like the vascular/lymph system or the muscles. The bodies are often flayed out in bizarre ways. Some of them show the body in action like the basketball player, a woman swimming, a guy playing chess and certain aspects of the body are pointed out. Some of the displays seem like they did them just because they could and often with a bad sense of humor. One guy is all splayed out, but he is wearing a charlie chaplin hat. Another guy is riding a horse. Swimmer girl is all muscle and bone, but for some reason they left the hair on. Same way with basketball guy, but he still has his eyelashes. Creepy.

One display they were able to remove everything but the blood vessels, which was completely amazing and fascinating except they used a family that had all been killed together so they show the man and woman walking side by side and the man is carrying a small child on his shoulders. Blood vessels only. Bizarre.

They also show complete development of the fetus from a small blob to fully developed fetus to full on, actual baby just before birth. This was interesting, especially against the back drop of abortion rights and the argument about when is it really a human. But by full on, actual baby I mean a fully developed baby STILL INSIDE THE MOTHER. About a quarter of her stomach is cut away so you can see the baby. Totally freaky. The donor aparently had a terminal illness and died just before the baby was born.

Oh, and at the end you can sign up to donate your body! I'm sticking with cremation.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Well, I've seen it.

The adjectives used to describe such an event and not ones that ordinarily go together. Creepy, fascinating, sickening, educational...jillford described it right. I'm going to be a vegetarian for the next week or so because much of what I saw looked a lot like what I had for tacos all last week.

The Mexico City exhibit is in a smallish venue, so much of what you saw in LA isn't present here. They stuck to the anatomical displays and only had one of a man sitting reading a book. Nothing hokey at all, and no in-action poses.

The foetus display, for me, was most impressive and I immediately wondered if it had drawn any protests in the US against the backdrop of stem cell research banning, like you say jillford.

The blood vessel display was very cool.

No cameras were allowed in and though I snuck mine in anyway, it just somehow did not seem appropriate to take photos. Don't ask me why...I want to say for dignity's sake, though that hardly fits considering the display. I wouldn't have been able to post them here anyway as they are too graphic.

A number of people looked close to losing their lunch and left before finishing the exhibit.

jillford64 · Joined: 15 Feb 2006 Posts: 397 Location: Sin City

Did your wife go, Guy? What did she think? I was totally creeped out by the mummies in Guanajuato, but the Mexican families were lining their kids up next to them for pictures like they (the mummies) were dinosaurs at the natural history museum. No one seemed disturbed but me, so I wondered if part of my aversion was cultural. I'm sure my eyes were bugged out of my head.

There were no protesters in Los Angeles on the day I went. We were surprised that the presenting institution set politics aside and displayed the fetuses at all. They did have them displayed in a separate area with a warning about the content and a disclaimer about how the fetuses and the mother/child were obtained.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

My wife did go. She was pretty creeped out - mostly by the vertical cutaways of a head in a display case. I'm making dinner right now, and trying very very hard to prepare it so that is looks nothing like what we saw today, though I'm having a little trouble preventing it. Fajitas for her, a big salad for me.

Cdaniels

Real Human Body theft-
Two women stole a foetus from the exhibit (fetus?)
http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/pages/Theft_Fetus_LA_BW2.asp
http://www.californiasciencecenter.org/GenInfo/NewsAndEvents/Headlines/2005/Theft/Theft.php

I'm sure security had been extra tight from that moment on- and on site protests were not allowed.
Stranger than fiction! Shocked

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Holy crow, speaking of something to see in DF...how about a convoy of 1000's of police deploying in Polanco?

Apparently, the once-every-three-year Mundial de Agua (Water World) meeting is in DF this year, drawing heads of state, princes, and important people I would never meet. I'd love to go down and get some pictures...