Currently at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, Animals Inside Out is an production by Gunther von Hagen, creator of the popular Body Worlds exhibitions, showcasing the muscles, blood vessels, and insides of animal corpses.  The animal specimens are preserved through the process of plastination, which replaces the body’s fluids with plastics to achieve an incredibly detailed effect.  I’ve seen Body Worlds and I’d love to see Animals Inside Out (if only I could make it to Chicago before Labor Day), but what I think is so interesting to consider with exhibitions like these are anatomical wax figures like Clemente Susini’s that I saw in Florence earlier this summer.  The amount of detail is shockingly comparable in “plastinated” specimens versus models made entirely of wax.  So cool!

From a statement by Gunther von Hagen on the Animals Inside Out website: As a child, I was enthralled by  the small animals  I encountered in the woods.  The first specimens I dissected were beetles, frogs, and other small animal corpses that my friend, Dietrich and I found during our jaunts to the woods. These deaths which were so random and yet so normal must have colored my view of death and shaped my thoughts on mortality, preparing me psychologically for my career as an anatomist…

In an accelerated technological age, when our environments are fashioned from steel and concrete, being in close proximity to animals–both domestic and wild–return us to authenticity. Outside of the rainforests and flora, they and we are the last remaining pieces of nature. They are our co-habitants on this spinning blue globe. This exhibition is both a celebration and an homage to animals both familiar and rare.

Source: Geekologie

Posted August 12th, 2013