Man as Industrial Palace, Animated

In 1926 German illustrator Fritz Kahn drew Der Mensch als Industriepalast, part of a series of artworks reinterpreting the body as a mechanical factory. Now fellow countryman and artist Henning Lederer has updated the the famous image, turning it into an interactive animation.

He says:

The visual crossover between industrialization and science in Fritz Kahn's artwork demonstrates surprisingly accurately how human nature became culturally encoded by placing the knowledge in an industrial modernity of machine analogues. He produced lots of illustrations that drew a direct functional analogy between human physiology and the operation of contemporary technologies. Therefore, by illustrating the body as a factory, Kahn was able to relate the body's complex organic interior to the industrialized space so common in society during that period of time.

Via fellow scienceblogger Mo Costandi's unparalleled Twitter feed.