Anyone who knows me knows that I love my house music. So when I discovered this track by Russian DJ, Korablove, entitled Street Anatomy, I said to myself “no way!”

Take a listen above—it’s a great Saturday morning deep house track to play over mimosas at brunch.

Jason Freeny is making anatomy cool in ways no one else has done and his formula is simple: carefully dissect an iconic childhood toy, build in the underlying anatomy, and then display it to the wonder of children and adults everywhere.

I caught up with Jason, in between chasing his two-year-old around, and was able to get his thoughts on anatomy, the popularity of his work, self-promotion, and more.

Q Medical illustrators covet great anatomical references. What anatomical references, if any, do you use when you begin to dissect a toy?

First off please let me say that my anatomical toy sculpts and illustrations cover the most basic of anatomical elements. While medical illustrations are targeted toward the medical industry for the most part, my work is aimed at a broader, more mainstream, less anatomically savvy audience.

With that said, I use whatever references I can get a hold of. The local bookstore is my destination of choice when it comes to finding reference. My children’s anatomy books are great. There are some fantastic books out there aimed at teaching the laymen about anatomy with very detailed color plates. The Internet is another fine place to find reference, especially for animals other than humans. Some of my work approaches animals that either don’t exist or are mutated to the point where traditional anatomy won’t suffice. Some anatomies are a fusion of several different mammals.

Q You definitely make anatomy more attractive and digestible for the layperson. Would you ever consider taking it a step further and doing your own children’s anatomy book?

One thing I know about myself is my limitations. I’ve never felt stories or character development was a strong trait. This could change in the future. I can’t tell you how many artists I’ve seen try to move too far outside their element and just make themselves look bad. Actors trying to be singers etc… I have a pretty good feel for what I am good at and what I am not so good at…

Q During the Street Anatomy gallery show I observed a father and his 9- year-old daughter looking at your pieces titled, Micro Schematic and Kitty Half. The father was reminiscing about his childhood playing with Lego’s and the daughter was thrilled over the cuteness of the Hello Kitty, despite half its skeleton and guts showing. Why do you think you’ve managed to capture the imaginations of people across many generations simply by exposing anatomical features?

This is always the most difficult question I get asked. I’ll answer it as best as I can. It’s not a simple answer…One I don’t believe I’ve figured out…

For the father, it’s perhaps being hit with the possibility that all those toys, characters, and imaginary friends from their youth could have quite possibly been real. And for a few moments, all the imagination and fantasy abandoned yearsago come gushing back.

For the child, it’s being introduced to a new dimension to these characters. Perhaps solidifying their reality. One thing I have never seen in a child’s reaction is fear. It’s always amazement, wonder, and wanting to explore the image. Fear of anatomy and guts is a learned reaction. It’s always the parents who are uneasy. Uneasy about how a child will react, then, seem shocked when they aren’t frightened, but instead are excited.

Q While many artists, including most medical illustrators, are trying to protect their work online, you actually promote the reposting of your images through this key line at the bottom of your site, “All images ©Jason Freeny except where noted, feel free to link to this site as well as repost images on the web. No images may be reproduced or used in printed format without consent.” Has this open approach helped the viral spread of your work? Have you ever had an issue with people reposting your work and not giving you credit? Would you suggest other artists be less restrictive with the reposting of their work online?

I don’t see my work as true medical illustration, with respect to actual medical illustrators, it’s more of a novelty. There is no truth behind my work, my anatomies are hypothetical, this is strictly art.

All my promotions are based on viral word of mouth. Hence, my stance on sharing. I let the collective voice of the Internet decide its worth. Some pieces go up and the response is tremendous, sometimes I just get the sounds of crickets. This method works for me and I have no idea how it would work for others. Since I work with a lot of popular characters, people relate to it pretty easily. Not sure how it would go with someone’s still life’s of “fruit in a bowl.”

My work has become pretty embedded throughout the web and even if credit is not given, it’s pretty obvious it’s mine. I’m not all that much a stickler for policing blogs and such with my work. There are a lot of good people out there that do it for me. I love my fans and wouldn’t be where I am without them. I guess the only thing that offends me is when a site takes my image and puts their own watermark on it, it’s just rude. As long as no one is directly profiting off one of my images I don’t have any problems with it. The more eyes that see it the better

Q Have you run into any copyright or licensing issues with the toy characters you’ve dissected? Have any of the toy companies approached you to create a line of dissected toys after seeing the response to any of the sculpts you created?

I have yet to be approached by any of the IP holders of any of the sculpts. I have been approached from some of the IP holders from my illustrations. I’ve only had copyright issues from the illustrations solely because I offer prints. There is nothing wrong with creating any of the sculpts or images I have done. The problems arise when I begin to mass produce and sell.

So far the IP holders that have contacted me have been very kind. They see the art in what I do and as long as I limit my production to a small amount they don’t have issue. They legally have the right to keep me from selling anything more than one. Like I said, they have been VERY kind.

Q What’s next for Jason Freeny? Even if you were to stop doing dissections of iconic toys, will anatomy still be a part of your work?

I’m always looking for new things to create. A time will come when something else will come up and I’ll move on, but I’m sure anatomy will always pop up and make another appearance. Perhaps in another form…

View all of Jason’s work on his site, Moist Production.

Follow Jason on Facebook and see his creations in progress!

Delicately crafted works by Italian-based beauty, Tania da Cruz, showcase what Cool Hunting peeps so aptly describe as “a poetic mix of function and decoration.”  Her ceramic head vases take flower arranging to a whole new level and her Cuore Sacro lamp casts a heart warming glow when lit.

[retrieved via cool hunting]

Come learn about skin grafts, from ancient history to modern controversy, with London-based Paul Craddock, Monday May 9th! Hope to see you there.

Knowing Your Ass from Your Elbow; or, Thinking About Skin Grafts
An Illustrated Lecture with Paul Craddock, Ph.D. candidate with the London Consortium
Date: Monday, May 9
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and The Hollow Earth Society

Late in 2010, The Economist ran a series of advertisements about transplant surgery on the London Underground, putting pressing questions to subterranean commuters like Paul Craddock. Ethics, black markets, identity, and the gap between organ supply and demand were all covered, and both sides of the arguments given, urging us to take a view on weighty questions while waiting for a train. The adverts presented The Economist as being at the cutting edge of debate in light of recent advances in transplant technologies, face transplants, and so forth but these questions are nothing new.

No. Transplants did not even appear in the 1960s with the first heart transplant, or at any point in the twentieth century – or even the nineteenth. They were first widely addressed in the media and Literature of the eighteenth century but medical transplantation is actually an ancient skill. Skin grafts go back around 5,000 years, and were simple but bloody affairs.

This illustrated lecture is about the ‘re-discovery’ of skin grafting from India in the early nineteenth century and the questions that seemed to raise. In what ways is it important that we can move skin? How did we find out that it was possible? What does it tell us about ourselves? If it is possible to have skin that’s not our own, what does this do to our sense of self? And what about identity? Why is this important to you, now? By thinking about how these questions were presented in the past, we may view and wear our own skins differently.

Paul Craddock is a second-year Ph.D. candidate with the London Consortium holding the Science Museum's Science and Humanities Scholarship. He is working on The Poetics of Bodily Transplantation, 1702 - 1902, a cultural history of the transplant procedure in medicine covering the two hundred years prior to the recognized 'beginning' of organ transplant history. In a past life, he was a performance and sonic arts scholar, researching and teaching a phenomenology of sound and the experience of it as part of an environment. Currently based in London, Paul is also the Director of London Consortium TV, the London Consortium's televisual arm, and the Publicity and Guests' Secretary for the University of London's Extra Mural Literary Association. He recently found joy in producing and presenting films, of which he has made two and a third to date.

For more, click here. You can sign up for the Observatory mailing list by clicking here, or join us our Facebook group by clicking here. For more about Observatory, click here. To contact organizers with questions or suggestions, click here.

Image: Cowasjee from the Gentleman's Magazine of 1794

Exciting news! Good friend and brilliant puppeteer/manifester of alternate worlds Jonny Clockworks is opening a new incarnation of his infamous ClockWorks Theatre! Judging from Clockworks' fantastic former productions, this new venture is sure to become the center for innovative and beautiful puppet works in the New York area.

The theater celebrate its opening this Saturday, April 30th, with an exciting evening's programming; full details follow. Very much hope to see you there!

The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre reopens
The ClockWorks Theatre in it’s new incarnation
The Universal ClockWorks, Inc.
in Carroll Gardens ~ West
the Columbia Street Waterfront
Brooklyn , USA

April 30th Walpurgisnacht!
7:30 PM ~ The Blessing of the Wheel ~ Sidewalk Spectacle ~ Free
8:30 PM ~ Theatre Opens
9:00 PM ~ Der WunderKammer Puppet Kabaret ~ Admission $20

The new ClockWorks Theatre is located on Columbia Street in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. More on the theatre here; more on the opening event here.

Fancy a peek at drunk people cavorting within our recently launched Great Coney Island Spectacularium? The video above was shot at our Obscura Day "Oddities" party a few weeks ago. The sharp-eyed among you might spot yourself, the cast of TV's "Oddities" and their spouses, friends, and my mother.

You can find out more about the Spectacularium in these recent articles from Time Out New York, New York Press, Boing Boing and Brooklyn Based. Or, of course, on the Spectacularium website, which can be accessed here.

Thanks, G. F. Newland, for alerting me to the existence of this troubling video.

What, exactly, is it that motivates the collector? Is it primarily an obsession, an addiction or a compulsion? Is the urge to collect benign or malignantly invasive? No one has yet provided a compelling answer, and any collector would be hard-pressed to articulate what exactly is driving the need to hunt down and acquire that next essential piece. The symptoms of the collecting impulse are as varied as the collectors themselves: some collect categorically, some collect socially, and some are driven by aesthetic considerations above all, but most collectors agree that the thrill of that next find is one of life's greatest pleasures, and the love of certain objects can last a lifetime. --Evan Michelson, Collector, Morbid Anatomy Library Scholar in Residence, Star of TV's "Oddities"

I am very pleased to announce "Out of the Cabinet: Tales of Strange Objects and the People Who Love Them," a new collector "show and tell" and lecture series taking place at Observatory and organized as a collaboration between Morbid Anatomy and Evan Michelson, our Library Scholar in Residence and, more recently, star of TV's "Oddities."

"Out of the Cabinet" will take artifacts as a launching off point for exploring the non-rational power of objects and the alluring mysteries of collecting. For the duration of the series, a variety of collectors will be invited to bring in an object or objects from their own collections and use these artifacts as a departure point for a response of some sort, from an illustrated historical lecture to a loose meditation to a debate with another collector.

A few events have already been scheduled (see below), but we continue to seek private or institutional collectors living in--or with plans to visit--the New York City area. If interested, please email me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com; And please, feel free to send this post along to any other interesting collector types you may know.

Full details follow. Looking forward to hearing from all you collectors out there!

Out of the Cabinet: Tales of Strange Objects and the People Who Love Them: A Collector "Show and Tell" and Lecture Series
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Morbid Anatomy Library Scholar in Residence/Star of TV's "Oddities" Evan Michelson

What, exactly, is it that motivates the collector? Is it primarily an obsession, an addiction or a compulsion? Is the urge to collect benign or malignantly invasive? No one has yet provided a compelling answer, and any collector would be hard-pressed to articulate what exactly is driving the need to hunt down and acquire that next essential piece. The symptoms of the collecting impulse are as varied as the collectors themselves: some collect categorically, some collect socially, and some are driven by aesthetic considerations above all, but most collectors agree that the thrill of that next find is one of life's greatest pleasures, and the love of certain objects can last a lifetime.

Above all, it is our own personal history that imbues an object with meaning, and gives it resonance beyond its intended life. Collectors tell their inner stories through their acquisitions, and we can suss a collector's personality through his or her items without a word being spoken; a collection is a physical manifestation of the perpetually unseen, inner life.

Whether it's the pursuit of beauty, a sense of stewardship, the creation of a personal narrative, a love of science and history or acquisitiveness run amok, the objects a collector lives with speak to an undeniable drive to possess something rare, beautiful or personally significant. In this series, collectors will present some choice objects from their collections and discuss what it means to be possessed by a possession, what layers of meaning an object can hold beyond price or rarity, and what shadowed corners of the psyche are illuminated by the things that hold us in their spell.

Out of the Cabinet Events scheduled thus far:

• April 11, 2011: A Gathering of Bones: An Illustrated lecture by Collector Evan Michelson
• May 20, 2011: The Witch’s Dungeon: An illustrated lecture and show and tell with proprietor of “The Witch’s Dungeon” Cortlandt Hull
• June 2, 2011: The Bell Jar: An Artifact-Based Lecture with Collector John Whiteknight
• June 23, 2011: Home-Made Visual Albums: An Artifact-Based Lecture with Collector David Freund

For more on this series, click here. To keep abreast of newly announced events as part of this series, sign up for the Observatory mailing list by clicking here, or join us our Facebook group by clicking here. For more about Observatory, click here. To contact organizers with questions or suggestions, click here.

Images: Top to bottom:

1. The Artist in His Museum, Charles Willson Peale, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; found here.
2. Early 20th
   Century Department Store Mannequin, From the Home Collection of Evan Michelson, Antiques Dealer, New Jersey, as seen in the Private Cabinets Series, Joanna Ebenstein, 2009
   
3. From the Home Collection of Evan Michelson, Antiques Dealer, New Jersey, as seen in the Private Cabinets Series, Joanna Ebenstein, 2009
   
4. Kitten Princess of Winter by Fine Art Taxidermist Tia Resleure of A Case of Curiosities, From the Collection of Ronni Ascagni, Art Director, New York City as seen in the Private Cabinets Series, Joanna Ebenstein, 2009
5. Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection, Private Collection, London, England, as seen in the Private Cabinets Series, Joanna Ebenstein, 2009
6. Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection, Private Collection, London, England, as seen in the Private Cabinets Series, Joanna Ebenstein, 2009

If anyone has plans to be in the Philadelphia area this week, you might consider popping over to the 2011 Annual American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) Meeting, taking place this week at the Philadelphia Society Hill Sheraton Hotel from April 28-May 1, 2011.

There are about a dozen interesting looking panels, but the two panels that look the most unmissable to me are the following, both taking place on Friday April 29th: "Museum Practice and the Making of Medical Science: Specimen Collections, Networks, and Institutions in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries," which will include two of my favorite scholars, Eva Ahren and Lisa O'Sullivan; and "Digital Media and New Audiences for the History of Medicine," where I will be delivering a short paper, along with such esteemed luminaries as Michael Sappol and Lisa Rosner.

Details for these two panels follow; to view the full schedule, click here.

Very much hope to see you there!

Click here to download a PDF program containing the complete and very extensive schedule. More information about the conference can be found here.

Image source: Rhizome.org; no citation found. Click on image to see larger, more detailed version.

"Hunting Trophies," Unknown Artist, British, Albumen silver print, ca. 1870. Full description from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website:

Shikar, or big game hunting, was an immensely popular pastime for the ruling class in India prior to British rule. When the British came into power, elaborate hunting ceremonies were used by Indians and British alike to display their prowess and status to each other. The British influence also brought improvements in hunting technology, which spurred an increase in the capture of game. Dozens of animals were killed in a single day's hunt and the trophies decorated the halls of the princes' extravagant hunting lodges. By the late 1870s, the population of many of these rare species had been severely depleted and a government-implemented system for conservation had begun to take hold.

From The Metropolitan Museum of Art website. Found via Wunderkammer blog.

Click in image to see much larger, more detailed version.