Presentation of the cross-disciplinary project

Dissection is a challenging medical discipline that forms an essential part of medical history, spanning its development in early modern anatomical theaters to the present day. While it made a fundamental contribution to modern scientific knowledge of the bodily interior, dissection is emotionally charged, ethically complex, and strongly influenced by artistic, literary, and theatrical framings.

This project analyzes the investigative functions of literature, visual arts, and theatricality in early modern and present-day dissective practices. It brings the aesthetic disciplines together with medical history, contemporary medical education, and digital humanities. It enhances our understanding of the role of the arts and humanities in probing the ethical and affective dimensions of dissection. The project has three components: (1) comparative analyses of narrative, artistic, and theatrical framings of dissection, past and present; (2) research-led workshops exploring digital and theatrical re-enactments of historical and contemporary dissection practices; and (3) creation of an interactive Virtual Reality-model of the anatomical theater, based on the anatomy house in Copenhagen, constructed in 1644. The VR model will allow the user to explore spatial, aesthetic, and affective dimensions of the early modern anatomical theater and its present-day equivalent. Both the workshops and the VR-model will be developed and tested in collaboration with medical training at Aarhus University and with external partners (medical museums), granting stakeholders and the wider public unprecedented access.

The project aims to advance the field of medical humanities through a model of multidisciplinary, practice-based research, and to generate future research and educational development in both the arts and medicine. An important aspect of the project is its transhistorical dimension, which animates the historical Danish and European anatomical theater to stimulate reflection in contemporary audiences.