Leseprobe

Introduction to the “Transparent Figures” collection holdings and tapes. These accessories make the staging strategies of the museum over the decades comprehensible. Around 300 objects have been preserved as remnants of the produc- tion process. They for the most part originate from the “Transparent Figures” workshop, the remaining stocks of which were subject to an inventory in 2018 in the context of the research project. Materials and tools were subsequently included as examples in the collection of the DHMD. These included, for example, five full figures of plaster that were manufactured between 1950 and 1990 in the plaster sculpting department of the museum and served as templates for production. Other templates, such as plaster positives of internal organs or folders with instructions for the manufacture of the bloodstreams and neural pathways were also incorporated into the collection. In individual cases, original materials could also be included, such as copper wire for winding the bloodstreams and neural pathways. Semi-finished products like already moulded plastic parts, illumination tubes or unfinished nerve fibres already found their way into the museum col- lection in the 1990s, but were first inventoried and explored in the course of the research project. Parallel with the conservation science research project, the digitali- sation of a set of approximately 7,000 photographs and audio tapes revolving around the manufacturing and exhibition history of the Transparent Figures after 1945 took place between 2017 and 2019. The project, sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and REMNANTS OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS PHOTOGRAPHS AND AUDIO TAPES Fig. 51 Plaster positives of the Transparent Figures in the collection depot, 2021 133