Posthuman Blues

I was shocked when I saw this Burton-esque anatomical drawing at Boing Boing -- not because of the content (which is indeed shocking in an endearing sort of way), but because last night I attended a lecture where, by sheer chance (?), the same drawing was presented.





The presentation was dedicated to the pre-Victorian obsession to see human remains preserved in a manner that mimicked life. It wasn't enough to see wax models of women peeling the skin from their abdomens in a grisly strip-tease; anatomists and artists (their roles often interchangeable) gifted their deceased subjects with a subdued eroticism that granted their Frankenstein creations the aspect of sexualized meat. The result was a spectacle of flesh and flash-frozen death at once quaintly psychopathic and achingly sentimental . . . glimmers of immortalist ambition consigned to tallow, dye and dried muscle.