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Here Be Monsters

HBM028: Jonathan's Cadaver Paintings

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters Podcast

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Personal Journals, Documentary

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2013

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jonathan Happ’s white lab coat and latex gloves make him look like a doctor when he stands in a room full of people. But he’s not a doctor…he’s an artist, and the people he shares this room with are all dead.

In this episode, Jonathan takes a recorder into the University of Washington’s cadaver lab and reports on what he sees, and why he draws and paints images of the bodies.

Sensitive listeners should note that this episode contains graphic (but mostly scientific) descriptions of the cadavers.

The track image is one of Jonathan's paintings. To see a larger version and a drawing of the tendons in a cadaver hand, go to HBM's facebook page

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Music from: Swamp Dog ||| Flower Petal Downpour ||| Nym ||| The Black Spot

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Sorry, there's a lot of noises outside.

0:05.0

The freshman, I think, are running around.

0:08.0

This place is kind of spooky enough.

0:11.0

Nothing but skeletons and bones surrounding me, but to be totally alone in this room,

0:20.0

pretending I'm a doctor wearing a lab coat.

0:27.4

I get nervous, I suppose, when I hear.

0:31.1

People rustle against the door, pass quickly by. My name is Jonathan Hap and I'm here at the University of

0:40.8

Washington. Right now I am in University of

0:45.0

one of the University of Washington.

0:48.0

What I'm doing in here is for my graduate thesis.

0:52.0

There are six... is for my graduate thesis.

0:53.0

There are six bodies in this room besides myself,

0:59.0

and only one of them. I just want to put a warning out there that this episode is largely about death and

1:11.6

what remains after death the the body, the remnant, the cadaver. If death is something

1:17.4

that bothers you, maybe that's a silly thing to say. these descriptions in this episode are very vivid, although scientific.

1:26.4

So if that's the sort of thing that bothers you, the descriptions of the

1:35.0

options of the body, then you might want to sit this episode out.

1:35.0

One of the things that I love about podcasting is the ability that we together have to experiment in sound.

1:42.0

And this episode is one of those experiments. A while

1:46.2

back Jonathan told me about this art project he was working on and so I gave him a

1:51.2

spare recorder that I had sitting around and just had him catalog some of his thoughts

1:56.2

while he was going about his day's work.

...

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