Thursday, July 24, 2008

Body Worlds 2 (sketches)

A while back (probably February or January) Laura and I went to the Tech Museum in San Jose to see Body Worlds 2. If you are unfamiliar with Body Worlds you should look it up at (http://www.koerperwelten.com/en.html) , if you don't have time for that here is a brief low down. Body Worlds is an exhibit where dead human and animal bodies have been put through a process known as plastination where silicone is injected into a dead body, organ, or part and then is removed through a vacuum, in doing this the specimen is preserved. It also doesn't really have a smell, which is nice when you are viewing the respective dead things.
No one was allowed to take photos, so subsequently Laura didn't take any, but I was able to sketch some of the things that caught my eye.


















Horse Head















Horse legs sketch
















This is my favorite sketch; it's a child's skull with the brain exposed. I Think I might want to incorporate this into a tattoo design at some point.





















This is one of the first whole bodies that you see in the exhibit and I liked the exposed skull face with the ears and nose still attached, I thought it made it extra creepy and surreal. Though in general the whole show is very surreal.




















Even without skin I still like drawing faces the best.





































I don't really like this sketch, because I don't think it shows much, but that is what it looked like, it was the human nervous system attached to its brain in a glass case and it was pretty amazing.










































This piece was cool; it was a segmented man who was cut vertically and spread out across the gallery space.


After looking at the few sketches that I did and remembering all the things there were to see there I regret not spending more time there drawing. Though I know I didn't want to draw a lot because I feel very self conscious about it. I would love to go again and sketch more human bodies and body parts with out their skin on, so hopefully the show or one of its subsequent incarnations will come back to the Bay Area sometime soon.