bloodrayne
11-21-2004, 10:06 PM
The Stiletto Killer And The Anal Probe
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is celebrating its 175th anniversary with an exhibition which includes a stuffed orangutan, the skeleton of a duck-billed platypus and a woman's stiletto-heeled shoe used to commit a murder - with a piece of skull still attached to the heel.
The exhibition - which opens on Monday and runs until April - is called Curiosity CLXXV (that's 175 in Roman numerals). It is curated by artists Pippa Skotnes, Gwen van Embden and Fritha Langerman who had to find visual ways to tell the university's story.
The exhibits they collected from some of the university's quirkier staffers speak volumes about UCT's achievements in fields ranging from science to the humanities.
It also came up with the first pregnancy test
Skotnes, who heads the Michaelis School of Fine Art, took Weekend Argus on a guided tour this week pointing out everything from the log book of Chris Barnard's first heart transplant in December 1967 to a pair of used running shoes - sensibly stored behind glass - that belonged to sports scientist Tim Noakes.
The heart transplant was not the only world-first notched up by the university. It also came up with the first pregnancy test, the famous "frog test" which involved a platana frog which was served the woman's urine. "If the frog went on to lay eggs, the woman was pregnant," Skotnes said.
Visitors with a taste for the macabre will be drawn to items supplied by the Department of Forensic Pathology. These include the deadly shoe lent to the exhibition by Professor Deon Knobel.
Apparently, police investigating that case were unable to find a murder weapon until the link was made between the shoe and the narrow hole in the victim's skull.
Skotnes is keenly aware of the popular attraction of these gruesome artifacts, and eagerly highlighted other elements. But her favourite was marginally less disturbing, a collection of tiny dassie (rock rabbit) skulls.
50cm-long steel medical tool used in anal-inspections
Apparently all dassies are born in November and their teeth record their ageing, so archaeologists John Parkington and Cedric Poggenpoel discovered they could date the seasonal human occupation of sites by the dassie skeletons.
"The dassies are a kind of archaeological clock," Skotnes said.
The curators have also placed seemingly unconnected exhibits alongside one another, to enable them "to speak across disciplines". One of the more obvious involves Noakes and Helen Moffett, of the African Gender Institute, who share an interest in the phenomenon of reverse swing.
Reverse swing, in cricketing terms, was popularised and perfected by fearsome Pakistani fast bowlers, and involves the ball moving in a direction that seems to be physically impossible.
Skotnes said Noakes was interested in how batsmen perceived the moving ball, while Moffet applied the concept of reverse swing to her study of post-colonial theory.
"Moffet uses reverse swing metaphorically as an indication of how people in the colonies took up the game and started to play in a way that challenged the centre (their former colonial ruler England)."
Maths and science boffins who visit the exhibition will be able to entertain themselves by wrestling with a complex formula provided by Dean of Science Daya Reddy. Apparently anyone who solves the formula can claim a million dollars from the United States government.
Humanity at its worst is depicted through a display of Jewish books which were confiscated by the Nazis and somehow made their way into the university's library, and by reminders of South Africa's racist past and apartheid's impact on tertiary education.
Chronologically, the exhibition literally runs from more than a million years ago (early stone age tools provided by the archaeology department) to present-day cutting-edge research into genetically modified food.
The latter involves cell biologist Jennifer Thompson who aims to isolate a drought-resistant gene from the resurrection plant found in the Drakensberg to produce a maize plant that requires little rain to prosper.
Skotnes may have her favourites but most visitors to the exhibition will struggle to forget the 50cm-long steel medical tool used in anal-inspections, shamelessly named The Truelove-Salt Biopsy Instrument.
The exhibition opens at 5.30pm on Monday in the Hiddingh Hall at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Orange Street, Gardens. It will run until April and will be open Mondays to Saturdays from 10am to 5pm.
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is celebrating its 175th anniversary with an exhibition which includes a stuffed orangutan, the skeleton of a duck-billed platypus and a woman's stiletto-heeled shoe used to commit a murder - with a piece of skull still attached to the heel.
The exhibition - which opens on Monday and runs until April - is called Curiosity CLXXV (that's 175 in Roman numerals). It is curated by artists Pippa Skotnes, Gwen van Embden and Fritha Langerman who had to find visual ways to tell the university's story.
The exhibits they collected from some of the university's quirkier staffers speak volumes about UCT's achievements in fields ranging from science to the humanities.
It also came up with the first pregnancy test
Skotnes, who heads the Michaelis School of Fine Art, took Weekend Argus on a guided tour this week pointing out everything from the log book of Chris Barnard's first heart transplant in December 1967 to a pair of used running shoes - sensibly stored behind glass - that belonged to sports scientist Tim Noakes.
The heart transplant was not the only world-first notched up by the university. It also came up with the first pregnancy test, the famous "frog test" which involved a platana frog which was served the woman's urine. "If the frog went on to lay eggs, the woman was pregnant," Skotnes said.
Visitors with a taste for the macabre will be drawn to items supplied by the Department of Forensic Pathology. These include the deadly shoe lent to the exhibition by Professor Deon Knobel.
Apparently, police investigating that case were unable to find a murder weapon until the link was made between the shoe and the narrow hole in the victim's skull.
Skotnes is keenly aware of the popular attraction of these gruesome artifacts, and eagerly highlighted other elements. But her favourite was marginally less disturbing, a collection of tiny dassie (rock rabbit) skulls.
50cm-long steel medical tool used in anal-inspections
Apparently all dassies are born in November and their teeth record their ageing, so archaeologists John Parkington and Cedric Poggenpoel discovered they could date the seasonal human occupation of sites by the dassie skeletons.
"The dassies are a kind of archaeological clock," Skotnes said.
The curators have also placed seemingly unconnected exhibits alongside one another, to enable them "to speak across disciplines". One of the more obvious involves Noakes and Helen Moffett, of the African Gender Institute, who share an interest in the phenomenon of reverse swing.
Reverse swing, in cricketing terms, was popularised and perfected by fearsome Pakistani fast bowlers, and involves the ball moving in a direction that seems to be physically impossible.
Skotnes said Noakes was interested in how batsmen perceived the moving ball, while Moffet applied the concept of reverse swing to her study of post-colonial theory.
"Moffet uses reverse swing metaphorically as an indication of how people in the colonies took up the game and started to play in a way that challenged the centre (their former colonial ruler England)."
Maths and science boffins who visit the exhibition will be able to entertain themselves by wrestling with a complex formula provided by Dean of Science Daya Reddy. Apparently anyone who solves the formula can claim a million dollars from the United States government.
Humanity at its worst is depicted through a display of Jewish books which were confiscated by the Nazis and somehow made their way into the university's library, and by reminders of South Africa's racist past and apartheid's impact on tertiary education.
Chronologically, the exhibition literally runs from more than a million years ago (early stone age tools provided by the archaeology department) to present-day cutting-edge research into genetically modified food.
The latter involves cell biologist Jennifer Thompson who aims to isolate a drought-resistant gene from the resurrection plant found in the Drakensberg to produce a maize plant that requires little rain to prosper.
Skotnes may have her favourites but most visitors to the exhibition will struggle to forget the 50cm-long steel medical tool used in anal-inspections, shamelessly named The Truelove-Salt Biopsy Instrument.
The exhibition opens at 5.30pm on Monday in the Hiddingh Hall at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Orange Street, Gardens. It will run until April and will be open Mondays to Saturdays from 10am to 5pm.