Cryonics Revival

Category : ,

Date : 2020

We see in many cultures and beliefs an obsessive search for the immortality, whether it be physical or spiritual. Most of us cannot accept how short our lives are and some religions sell us the concept of an Afterlife, which is very tempting.

The ancient Egyptian mummies were prepared with salt and oils within a very innovative chemical process. That indicates how important was for these people the body preservation. It was said that a damaged mummy could compromise the one’s journey in the afterlife.

Some say the intention was to be remembered for all eternity and looks like they nailed it. For the Egyptians those theories found a deeper and strange role, however it doesn’t diverge that much for what we chase nowadays.

No one wants to be forgotten, to have a name in the history, to be invoked centuries afterwards is an attractive idea.

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” – Terry Pratchett, Going Postal.

“Mummy of Pharaoh Seti I in the Cairo Museum”, anonymous, c. 1895
”Xin Zhui mummy”, c. 168 BC. (Xin Zhui's body was remarkably well preserved in an unknown fluid inside the coffin).
”Tutankhamun's mummy”, discovered in 1925 (KV62)

Today we discovered new methods of body preservation, such as Cryonics. 

Benjamin Franklin had a “very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred year hence”. If he lived today, he could satisfy his desires, visiting a cryonics facility. 

According to the Cryonics institute : “The Cryonics Institute provides suspension at cryogenic temperatures also known as cryonics. We provide long-term storage and security for members at our cryonics facility in Clinton Township, MI. We specialize in full-body cryo-preservation of humans and pets, DNA & tissue storage as well as cryonics outreach and public education about the cutting edge science we are engaged in. (…)”

In other words, they freeze and preserve you or your disembodied brain to be revived years or centuries later – Those old Sci-fi theories, gain now a very disturbing (yet hopeful) shape.

The world leader in Cryonics – “Alcor: Life Extension Foundation” also describes Cryonics as “(…) the low-temperature preservation of humans who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, in the expectation they can be healed and resuscitated in the future using more advanced medical technologies”

The results are very speculative, we don’t really know how efficient the process is but we can’t deny how fascinating it looks – As you see, it inspired us.

In our design we tried to create an huge container for long-term storage, where the human being is portrayed as an anatomic representation- like a scientific experience. The body is cut in half to show us the vascular system, where all the blood was replaced by protective fluids.

The small circular flaskes at the right side exhibit a frozen brain with the LN2 (liquid nitrogen), a cryogenic fluid used in (cryo)preservation. We can also see a reference to the king Tut (Tutankhamun) whose name is still celebrated nowadays – we can say he achieve his goal to be immortal. 

The two other flasks are more straightly linked, Death as a skull and Rebirth as the sun. These two aspects are making a continuous cycle, however, the frozen brain on the first flask creates some disturbance in that pattern. We can interpret it as the science interfering on God’s designs. 

“The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.” – Carl Sagan, Cosmos.

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