Avoiding controversy through labelling.

As you know from Mezzo's last post, he and I went to see the human jerky exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota on Sunday. Now I've heard some tell that this exhibit was considered controversial. Indeed, I've even defended it to some detractors. However, having seen it now I don't think I'll defend it any longer. For those of you who don't know already the exhibit consists of real human bodies (and parts of human bodys) that have been flayed open in all different manners and preserved with plastic or resin or some crap (I didn't read the pamphlet) in a process called plastinization. The end result is a series of "visible men" with all the interior bits and pieces showing. It's interesting from an anatomical standpoint but I didn't see anything in these preserved bodies that I couldn't have seen in a Gray's Anatomy, a classroom model, or on the discovery channel. I wouldn't encourage anyone to see this exhibit. I'm not going to boycot it or anything. No protests. I don't think it's offensive, really. Well, it is offensive but not for the reasons you'd think. The exhibit was supposedly somewhat controversial. Now the controversy hinges on the fact that some people think it's just plain vulgar to do these things to a human body (prudes) and those who think it just triples the vulgarity to then display these dismembered bodies to the public (not quite as prudish but still silly). I don't agree with these people. They are just dead bodies. Those aren't people anymore. If you're religious then you should understand that the soul has left the body and it's just a husk. If you're not religious you should understand that the person who was the dead body in front of you ceased to be completely the moment that person died. If you still find the idea that they are real bodies bothersome then don't go. Easy enough. Personally I just think that there's anything wrong with doing that with a dead body when the person who donated the body did so with the knowledge of what would happen to their body when they died. What's the big deal? Here's my problem with the exhibit. I didn't see any scientific value in it. The scientific/health agenda being pushed (anti-smoking, anti-obesity, anti-drug, and so forth) does have more impact when the black and shriveled lung you're looking at is an actual lung rather than a model or a picture but did I learn anything I didn't already know? No, I didn't. So the only real scientific value these statues have is the "shock value" that the creators insist wasn't the point in the first place. So the creators of this exhibit claim that shock value isn't the point and that's fine. So what is the point? With no real scientific value to anyone except maybe medical students what do these disfigured bodies stand for? Well the only answer I can come up with is "artistic value." Had it been presented to me as an art exhibit its value completely changes. As an art exhibit it was excellent. The work, thought, effort, creativity, and knowledge that went into creating these works is apparent and the results are beautiful and haunting. I would imagine that it's the medium artists like H.R. Geiger should have worked in but couldn't, due to social stigma. So how are these new artists able to work in this medium without getting run out of town with pitchforks and torches? Well they call it science, that's how. Instead of an art exhibit it becomes a scientific exhibit and suddenly they can avoid a great deal of the anticipated public disgust that would be associated with using real human bodies for artwork. So if you're an artist that wants to make sculptures out of used humans you have to make sure you include some science/health social agenda content for "shock value" but you can still maintain your artistic integrity by denying that "shock value" was your intent. Lame. The end result is a pointless contradiction.