Dead bodies & art.

I'm not a big person for posting links, but right now I am just fascinated.

I mean there is so much art done with corpses these days that it's not really all that shocking anymore.

see: Ferrarri Forever - "Marco Evaristti is searching for a person on the verge of death, who wants to donate his body..." to be placed in an awesome Ferrari as 'art'!

It's funny, though, because I have always said that I would like to donate my body to art after I die. Art, then cannibalism, then science, in that order. But only art in a public sense - in a gallery at least for a while and if it does end up in someone's private collection, i would like there to be high resolution prints of it available online, no matter what.

At first my thought is "I'm not sure if I would want my name associated with it, though, what if it made me look bad?" Then I realize "Wait, I'd be dead, why would I care if I looked bad?" I don't know. I guess most bodies that are donated are donated anonymously.

Speaking of donating bodies... I was very shocked to hear about this almost 6 months after moving here. Just because I am weird and interested in this kind of thing but didn't know about it at all...

The original "Body Farm" (started by William Bass) is the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility located a few miles from downtown off of Alcoa Highway in Knoxville, Tennessee.

I drive Alcoa highway pretty much any time I go out. I know exactly where that is. Unfortunately, Google's satellite image isn't very revealing, but still, crazy, right?

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Anyway, I would love to go visit there but it's closed to the public. Maybe it's time to start studying anthropology?

Body Farm, originally uploaded by ZenOptic.

I guess this is a photo of the body farm in winter, when you can at least kind of make out some of the structure of the place.

Also, here is a set of much closer-up photos, but all you can see is the fence.

Hmm, where was I?

Well, I was talking about dead bodies & art. Unfortunately I don't think many of the bodies at the "body farm" are taking part in any artwork of any kind.

So. Anyway, one thing I stumbled across (when reading about the Ferrari thing above) was Honoré Fragonard, who was an anatomist in the late 1700s. (See? I didn't even wikipedia link it, because the wikipedia article isn't actually very good)
I guess some of his écorchés or "flayed figures" (though I think the literal translation of écorché is "scorched" - ok, i looked it up and the answer is "skinned" but I can see how "scorched" is similar. A neat trick with French words is if they start with "é" that "é" can sometimes be changed for an "s" to create a cognate. "étudier" for example, is the verb for "to study", "épine" is the word for "needle" -like spine, get it?-, "école" means "school" ... so if you are ever confused in French and can't look it up, try that trick. It doesn't always yield the answer, but it does sometimes and it can help. Another useful trick is that the circumflex (^) often goes over a vowel where the S afterward has been removed. "pâtes" is "pasta", "hôpital" is "hospital", "île" is "isle", "fête" is "festival" etc.)

Ahem.

Anyway. It makes sense that the word for "skinned" would be similar to "scorched", I don't know though, I often try to make connections when there really are none.

What's cool about this Fragonard guy is his stuff really did leave the realm of educational or scientific and has crossed far over into art. Amazingly, the museum that has his stuff doesn't have very many good photos of it on their website, but I found a photographer's website which has some very nice photos.

Warning: You may find the image below offensive.


Click here to see the full series.

My favorite piece by far is "Man with a Mandible," which I will link to after the description.
Just because the description is so... I don't know, exciting.

This tall écorché was inspired by Samson knocking the Philistines down, using a donkey jaw. The work carries extreme violence : his arm brandishes the threatening mandible, his lips are tense, his look is deviated, his injected penis is obscenely taut. Fragonard went as far as twisting his ears and lips, and deep-setting his nose to give him an aggressive grin.

Click here to see "Man with a Mandible".

I guess it's just part of that whole incredulity I have with death, because these bodies are so ... energetic, it's just almost impossible to believe that there's no life within.

And to think about the guy that put that together, an anatomist being inspired by the bible, it's just awesome. And I don't mean awesome as in "bill-and-ted" awesome, but as in awe-inspiring. I don't know.
I just think of this guy and maybe the life he was living and how it came to be that he chose to do that pose. He had to put bodies together somehow and maybe he was complaining to his mom or something, "I just don't know how to pose them," and then she says "Well, why don't you look in the bible for inspiration?" And he did, it's perfect. Just perfect! This nerdy guy and his mom gives him the idea for it!
OK, well I don't know if that really happened, but this is the kind of thing my imagination takes and runs wild with.

Also, see the movie "Anatomy" with Franka Potente (trailer here). I am linking to the German trailer because the English language trailer sucks a lot. Walmart used to sell this movie for $5.50 and it's definitely been one of their better deals. Most of the DVDs in those huge bins suck, but this one is great - however, I don't think they still sell it there, I think I bought it about 5 years ago. Anyway, it's all the "plastination" stuff where all the water is sucked out of the body and replaced with plastic so it doesn't decay... like that "Bodies" exhibit that everyone in the world has seen but me. And I lived in New York while it was there, what is wrong with me?

I guess it's in Atlanta until January, that would be a reason to go see it.

Hmm.

Anyway, I don't really have much to say right now. Just saw some stuff that I thought was interesting. Am moving soon, which is going to be exciting. I just can't wait to get out of Maryville. It's a cute town and all, but all I ever do is drive to and from Knoxville all the time. Oy.

So that's it for now.

See you all later.