Updated on 03/13/2022 21:59
- An unusually prepared corpse leads the Zurich investigators Grandjean and Ott to the artist Kyomi in their third case, “Schattenkinder”.
- She tattoos the cornea of the eyes and the face of her “objects”. does it really exist
- And what about the island where the dramatic showdown takes place?
Can you really tattoo the cornea?
What the artist Kyomi (Sarah Hostettler) does as an art form in “Tatort: Schattenkinder” is actually primarily a medical procedure from reconstructive surgery. It is used on corneal scars (leucoma cornea) caused by disease or injury to improve the patient’s visual appearance when other methods such as contact lenses are not an option.
The trade journal “Augenspiegel” describes a method used at the eye clinic of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, in which “colorfast pigments are introduced manually into the cornea with a special tattooing needle”. The authors point out that “the disfigurement and stigmatization of patients” by corneal scarring has led to the development of various treatment modalities since ancient times; the Roman scholar Galen of Pergamum, born around 130 AD, used reduced metal salts to color whitish areas of the cornea. Later, Chinese ink was also used.
Are there cosmetic corneal tattoos?
Discoloration for purely aesthetic reasons is prohibited in Germany. In 2019, the ProSieben science magazine “Galileo” accompanied a patient who wanted green instead of brown eyes and went to an eye surgeon in France who has been offering the same procedures since 2013. The cornea was scratched with a laser and a green vegetable dye was introduced. According to “Galileo”, the procedure lasted three minutes and cost 5,000 euros.
What does Kyomi mean?
The artist Kyomi, whose real name is Beate, is mentioned in the “crime scenesaid she spent a year in Japan. Kyomi is a girl’s name there, which roughly translates to “pure” or “beautiful.”
How did the imagery for “Schattenkinder” come about?
“I immediately had images in my head for Kyomi’s very special art world,” said director Christine Repond in an interview with Swiss radio. According to the script, Kyomi was supposed to paint oil paintings, but Repond changed that: “Oil paintings seemed inappropriate for such a radical artist as Kyomi. So I came up with the idea of making Kyomi an installation artist who would combine her work on human art objects with video installations, but also above Instagram and streaming presented to their viewers. With this premise, I then developed this art world and the additional video level together with the set designer Urs Beuter, the cameraman Guy Fässler and the make-up artist Marc Hollenstein.”
Does the island of Schönenwirt really exist?
The tiny island that plays a dramatic role at the end of “Schattenkinder” is actually an idyllic excursion island in Lake Zurich. It belongs to the municipality of Richterswil, around 30 kilometers south-east of Zurich on the lake, which bought it from the canton in 1848 for 100 francs. Schönenwirt is also known as Insel Schönenwerd (Old High German for “beautiful island”) and is popularly known as “Inseli” in Richterswil.
It can only be reached by swimming or by private boat. It is only around 72 by 42 meters and has only been used for bathing for centuries; the bathhouses (re)built for this purpose in 1919 are still standing. There are also two barbecue areas there.
What is hypergraphy?
The investigators Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler) and Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) find a closely written diary. Tessa Ott diagnoses that the author suffered from hypergraphy. This refers to a writing addiction bordering on the delusional. In her book “Midnight Sickness”, the American neurologist Alice W. Flaherty describes hypergraphia as a symptom of creative people suffering from epilepsy or schizophrenia.
According to Flaherty, texts that are hypergraphic, i.e. as if they were intoxicated, have certain characteristics: They often deal with topics that are of great personal importance to the authors, the typeface often consists of narrow and small letters and is very accurate. Authors often fixate on a specific writing instrument – a famous example in German literature is Robert Walser’s “pencil micrograms”, the letters of which were ultimately only one millimeter in size. Flaherty also discovered features of hypergraphy in the more than 98,000 letters from Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in Wonderland”.