CSI Barcelona - Who Killed The Museum Dirtector?

The Natural Science Museum of Barcelona opened it's doors yesterday, inviting visitors to take part, investigating an assassination. It's a new exhibition, with the central theme 'Who killed the museum director?'. It definitely has the pull, apart from it's originality, being informative and very entertaining, all of which making it an irresistible visit.

Visitors sort of play the rolls of police, scientist and forensic specialists as well as detectives. Even see a corpse ( fake and rubbery, thank God ) opened up on a table, covered by a white sheet. Specimens of gigantic blue and green flies - friends of corpses. There are ballistic and forensic laboratories, interrogation rooms, and even a morgue with rows of 'drawers' for bodies. When one is pulled out, inside it stored information relevant to each case. Everything was planned and designed to look realistic, not as exhibits neatly arranged in glass fronted showcases.

The atmosphere is very similar to that of the popular television series CSI, and gives one a splendid excuse, to personally experience all the intrigues of the scientific methods used by experts, very complicated and meticulous procedures, being carried out in the various laboratories.

The public enter the scene of the crime (sorry, the exhibition) after contemplating the fictional newsreel that the director of this museum had been murdered. Anna Omedes, alive & well and the actually director, said she was 'relieved' that the body found was not that of a woman! There were even areas being cordoned off by police, equipped with little note books on which they jot down notes of their investigation.

As the public wander about, little clues were provided, subtly or ostentatiously, to raise your enthusiasm, and facilitate your own investigation, helpful to solve the crime. Like the very realistic diagram of the director's office, with the indispensable silhouette of the body chalked on the floor, to familiar yourself with the scenario.

Then you would come to a series of smallish cubicles, installed specially for this exhibition, each represents a laboratory, dedicated to a certain field of the many facets of criminology and it's investigation, each appropriately equipped with specialised machines, paraphernalia of the trade. All offer information of their use and roll in a murder investigation. Finger printing, foot and shoe prints, ballistic, fibers, robotic portraits, forensic medicines, etc.

The last, but certainly not the least, is the brrrr..., the body on the table, cold and gummy, in the midst of an autopsy. It had gone 36 hours and has begun to decompose, the public was informed. Nobody could complain that the realism had a limit. (Thank goodness the smell was not provided!)Then there's a chamber of refrigerated depositories of corpses. The no less spine chilling forensic dental chair, and the room for entomology which deals with the structure, habits, and classification of insects. I can just imagine Gil Grissom (CSI Las Vegas) looking at one and saying: This green fly had fed on the body for 13 hours, died only 1 hour 17 and a half minutes ago ...'

I had always been quite fascinated by the 2 way mirrors. Well there's one here, for interrogating suspects. In this case, there are the secretary, an antique dealer, the cleaning woman, and a visiting foreign director of another museum. Did he covert the job of the dead
director I wondered?

I concluded that it's more like a day in a film set than in a natural science museum. Real fun, informative & absorbing.

Tags:csi,museum,forensic,naturalscience

Current Mood: Accomplished