Leseprobe

THE TRANSPARENT MAN 1930 The Transparent Man was presented to the public for the first time in 1930 in the context of the 2nd International Hygiene Exhibition. The figure was staged as a dramaturgical highlight of the central “Man” exhibition unit, which was meant to convey the anatomy and physiology of the human being on the basis of interactive apparatuses, prepared speci- mens and wall charts. The Transparent Man was supposed to represent nothing less than the ideal image of public hygiene education in this arrangement: the healthy, scientifical- ly explored and controllable body. 9 The pos- ture of the figure was reminiscent of ancient statues and the images of the life reform movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries probably even more present in the minds of the audience. 10 At the same time, the body model was already linked with eu- genic or racial hygiene ideas as of its first presentation by way of the connecting exhi- bition rooms on “Anthropology”, “The Wom- an as Wife and Mother”, as well as “Heredity and Eugenics”. To this extent, the question is posed as to whether the figure, in its for- mulation as a (hereditarily) healthy, white man, 11 was not also created for the popular- isation of these themes, which occupied an ever-increasing amount of space in the health exhibitions of the DHMD. 12 The Transparent Man stood on an expan- sive pedestal in a presentation relying on emotionalism and transcendence, framed by an apse that could be illuminated. The trans- parency of the skin made from the at that time new, and also perceived as novel, plas- tic cellulose acetate (CA) was underlined by several technical tricks. For one, the figure was electrified, and the individual organs could be illuminated successively. A sophis- ticated light system was also conceived of. A review of the new permanent exhibition of the DHMD appeared in the magazine “Das Licht”, in which the presentation of the figure was also described: “First, the previously bright, indirectly illu- minated vault, against which the transparent man contrasted as an effective silhouette, slowly darkens. When the eye of the viewer has become accustomed to the darkness, the individual organs […], the respective light panels now light up with the corresponding designation in a consistent sequence, in dis- tinct colours […] in twenty different pictures and simultaneously in the pedestal of the fig- ure. After the location, the structure and the circumference of the most important organs have been made clear, the indirect vault illu- mination once again slowly lights up, and the full figure of the transparent man is again vis- ible against the bright background.” 13 To the extent known, an audio lecture ran parallel with the illumination of the organs as of 1940. 14 This had been used for the first time at the Berlin Reich’s Exhibition “The Mir- acle of Life” in 1935. › Sound and technology – a media history, p. 232 As far as is known, the Transparent Man was thus one of the first museum objects in Germany that functioned with audio-visual support. 15 Although the figure was intended to func- tion as a new attraction of the museum as of 1930, only a few historical photographs of its first presentation are found in the collection of the DHMD. These were used multiple times for advertising purposes. 16 JBR Fig. 105 › The “Transparent Man” in the newly opened museum building, photograph, 1930, inv. no. 2010/646 200