Althouse: "In 1981, 27-year-old Joseph Paul Jernigan shot and stabbed the man who discovered him stealing a microwave oven."

April 8, 2011

"In 1981, 27-year-old Joseph Paul Jernigan shot and stabbed the man who discovered him stealing a microwave oven."

"Jernigan was sentenced to death, and a prison chaplain convinced him to donate his body to science. Thirty years on, 1871 slices of his body are animated on a laptop screen and photographed on a long exposure in various dark locations, reconstructing Jernigan as the subject of a haunting new project."

27 comments:

MadisonMan said...: I hope there's an image of him emerging from a microwave oven.; 4/8/11, 3:50 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: And here I thought serious art was dead. Guess I'll have to rethink that.; 4/8/11, 3:50 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/8/11, 3:59 PM
Dustin said...: This is some f'ed up stuff right here.

I want to see this ghost blob fella emerging from Obama's knee with a birth certificate, ASAP.; 4/8/11, 3:59 PM
Anonymous said...: The photos aren't particularly interesting or good.; 4/8/11, 4:03 PM
Michael K said...: Does anyone understand those photos ? I sure don't and I got an A+ in Anatomy. Of course, that was 50 years ago.; 4/8/11, 4:05 PM
Unknown said...: Somebody's been watching all the CSI shows way too much.; 4/8/11, 4:12 PM
Anonymous said...: Getting the Big Needle/Hot Squat for a freakin' microwave? How ridiculous. He could have bought one cheaply enough at Wally World.

Peter; 4/8/11, 4:18 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Yeah...not feeling "haunted" after viewing the pictures. Would have been more haunting to photograph the dark locations without the double-exposed body parts, IMO.; 4/8/11, 4:27 PM
dbp said...: Back in 1981 microwave ovens were pretty expensive. Not, I'm gonna kill a guy for one and get executed for it, expensive. But much more expensive than they are now.; 4/8/11, 4:53 PM
Crimso said...: IIRC, the project to do a scan of a human cadaver in small sections (which I guess this was) and make it available online involved a subject whose cause of death was listed as "drug overdose." It was later revealed that the drug overdose was execution by lethal injection. I'm thinking this was the guy.; 4/8/11, 5:02 PM
Triangle Man said...: Crimso you are correct. Jernigan's was the body used for the Visual Human project completed in 1994.; 4/8/11, 5:05 PM
Triangle Man said...: Oops, Visible Human Project.; 4/8/11, 5:06 PM
Lincolntf said...: Back in the 90's (somewhere between 94 and 99), a book was published based on the same thing. It was a "stained" look at human anatomy taken slice-by-slice and presented in an almost "coffee book" style. I was managing the non-fiction section of a bookstore at the time and a few customers were horrified by the concept. I flipped through it a bunch of times, and it wasn't much different than looking at a book of fractals or something.
Maybe the same cadaver?; 4/8/11, 5:08 PM
MamaM said...: What's real?

What we see?
What we know?
What we experience?
What we can measure?
What we can affect?

If I'm understanding the process involved with these photos, 1,871 slides/slices/electronic collections of data were electronically manipulated by humans to produce these pictures. Humans who've reached a point in their own evolutionary process where they have the intelligence, understanding, skills, and physical equipment necessary to do so.

The ability to reach this point speaks to me of the availability and presence of some kind of higher power and order above and beyond that which is currently being accessed and realized.; 4/8/11, 5:39 PM
Michael K said...: A guy I knew had a painting over his fireplace that was the cross section of a penis. Unless you knew, or were an anatomist, you'd never guess. I never asked him why.; 4/8/11, 5:43 PM
Synova said...: My cousin gave his body to the University of Minnesota.

He didn't get executed though. He just had interesting medical conditions.; 4/8/11, 5:45 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: That was a let-down. I thought it was going to be like one of those Hirsh pieces in England, where he chopped up a cow and encased it in plastic or something. That ghost shit does nothing for me. I was like, "This is it?" Why tell me he was cut into sections only to show me some streaks that kind of look like a body? The shit don't make no motherfuckin' sense.

I hate non-artists in art:

Everybody can't do it y'all.; 4/8/11, 6:13 PM
Amartel said...: The guy donated his body to science. Not "Art" (TM). Yah, I know, he was a murderer. Still, very mission creepy.; 4/8/11, 6:48 PM
Harry Phartz said...: Casper the Friendly Ghost. Only, not so friendly.

Yeah - microwaves in 1981 - big as a house! And about $500.; 4/8/11, 7:01 PM
chickelit said...: If you read triangle man's 5:05 link you learn that he wasn't actually sliced but instead frozen and then slowly ground down to a pulp. He was photographed between grindings.

Why the artist sensitivity for the criminal and not the vistim? Am I missing something here?; 4/8/11, 7:15 PM
Dustin said...: "He just had interesting medical conditions."

Let's hope his practical and generous decision didn't wind up being some asinine website 'art' show, but actual research.

This murderer tried to contribute something to society with his worthless existence, and it's odd to me that we'd make a pretty show with his corpse.; 4/8/11, 7:45 PM
Dustin said...: "The shit don't make no motherfuckin' sense.

I hate non-artists in art:"

I call this performance art exhibit: the unjustified pompous judge; 4/8/11, 7:50 PM
Unknown said...: There seems to be some confusion-

The photos are not the Scientific purpose to which the body was put. The body was divided into cross sections, and photographed. These images were put in a database used to study anatomy. You can find many of the actual images online (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html). I think most people would agree that this was a legitimate and useful scientific purpose.

This "art-project" is where some artist took pictures of the anatomical pictures while they were on his computer screen, and then smeared them out to make them look like a ghost.; 4/8/11, 9:42 PM
Wince said...: Considering the crime, the method of execution should have been the final scene from the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left.

(Video not for the squeemish.); 4/8/11, 10:10 PM
MamaM said...: He was photographed between grindings.

What a process.

Virtually unavailable until 1989 when all those grindings or "slices" could be photographed in both analog and digital, yielding 15 gigabytes of data.

Eleven years later, with more even technology available, ... photos were rescanned at a higher resolution, yielding more than 65 gigabytes.

What is yet to come?

I find the idea of Joseph Paul Jernigan's body being ground down to a nub in order for electronic images of the inside of it to be recorded, preserved and invisibly sent through space to show up all over the world as representative slices and distorted ghostlike forms, to be surreal indeed.; 4/9/11, 3:11 AM
Unknown said...: I need a radio!; 7/28/13, 3:56 PM