Breaking Into the Cape Town Music Scene
Cape Town is a diverse and buzzing city, a quality that results in a constantly changing musical landscape. Due to its unpredictability, more and more bands are trying to find the balance between the love of the art and acceptance and success in the music scene.
Check out The Sleepers (@TheSleepersSA) and Forefront (@ForeFrontSA) discussing the Cape Town music circuit.
“Shall worms, inheritors of this excess. Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?” – Shakespeare: Sonnet 56
After visiting this exhibition, one might answer: NOPE!
Capetonians, this is your last weekend to see the fantastic biological and physiological exhibition, Body Worlds, on at the Waterfront before it moves up to Johannesburg for its opening on 20 March 2013. The Body Worlds exhibition presents over 200 specimens of preserved human bodies and organs in a display exposing all the anatomical structures that construct the human form.
The subjects on display had all donated their bodies by will to the organisation -now run by the physician, planner and designer of Body Worlds, Dr. Angeline Whalley – so that their bodies could be plastinated in the name of science. Dr Gunther von Hagen was the original source for such an exhibit as he invented the preservation technique of ‘Plastination‘ in 1977 and started the highly controversial business of cadaver presentation.
I attended the exhibition last Thursday with no reservations or preconceptions about seeing dead figures and parts but you can never really predict how they will react when faced with a real cadaver. It’s a strange, thought-provoking atmosphere to find oneself in. You are essentially being entertained by the sight of once lively, thinking, acting, feeling, emoting people who have been preserved purely for your education and recreation. Quite a harrowing concept in retrospect – particularly for those who are in the contemplative, existential mind-sets of youth. The sense of mortality and fragility upon entering the exhibition is not eerie so much as it is unexpected.
The exhibition starts at the beginning of the cycle of life with a succession of tiny alien-like figures representing foetal development. It continues on to highlight the major bones and muscles in the body with complete skeletons and entirely preserved human forms. All the muscles, tendons, veins, nerves and nails are arranged in such a way that they mirror the internal workings of the body creepily well. Seeing such demonstrations created a sense of detachment from my own body – I couldn’t quite seem to conceive of the idea that I am essentially looking at myself from the inside out. Nothing seems to feel familiar or even real when you’re looking at it up close. I thought maybe it was just me, but other visitors told of similar experiences. It was not until I stood in a corner and looked at the greater image of numerous unskinned bodies strategically put in common and relatable positions that I was hit with the fact that these were indeed real people that have put themselves up for display, like willing slaves for the greater cause of scientific exploration.
An often remarked upon sight is that of the tumorous abdomen and tar-blackened lungs. The effects of living an unhealthy lifestyle are visible now in a way never so intimately seen before. The option of an aural guide, offered in the beginning of the tour, proved very useful when confronted with the urge to know more about the failures and defects as well as the fascinating and complex behaviours of the human body.
The Body Worlds exhibition is a great way to put words to visualisations. All the processes and functions you learn about in biology classes at school are now on display for your edutainment. It is an incredibly informative and insightful exhibition that can be enjoyed by everyone in the family – as long as you don’t mind embalmed cadavers facing you head-on.
For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Body Worlds website
Opening hours: 09h00 to 21h00
Tickets: R90-R140
Mind Pollution 