The Prospect of Immortality
Royaume Uni
2018Invited Artist
In 1962, Robert Ettinger published The Prospect of Immortality that set the frame for cryopreservation. In 2015 and 2016, Murray Ballard conducted a research work that aimed at documenting this practice through photography and at embarking the spectators in a journey among cryonicists worldwide. To this day, about 200 human beings are permanently preserved in liquid nitrogen, and 2000 others have already officially asked to be cryopreserved when they die. Is cryopreservation a hoax directly inspired from science fiction or is it a realistic scientific progress?
About the artist
Born in 1983, Murray Ballard lives and works in Brighton, England. After he studied photography at the University of Brighton, his work was noticed by The Photographer’s Gallery of London. Since then, his series entitled The Prospect of Immortality was displayed in many institutions worldwide, acknowledged by the British Journal of Photography and selected for the Aperture award of the Paris Photo festival. His work is published in several photography magazines and numerous other journals on a regular basis.