c.a.r.ne.*

Fig. #01.  Institutional flag. The signature logo is characterized by a chimeric, twofold typography which aims to reflect both the scientific and the spiritual sides of the institution. Photo Credits: Lorenzo Basili, 2022.

          In the future, but not so far. The world doesn’t revolve anymore around humankind: human beings have become again part of a cycle, standing above nothing. Humans now identify themselves as – or better “with” – the living ecosystem that flows both inside and outside of them, before and after them. Their bodies cannot be conceived anymore as personal devices, but rather they are landscapes: earthly vessels that host millions of microorganisms in an endless exchange with the whole ecosphere. It’s a life in ontological continuity with non-human animals and nature. And just like any other living organism, humans don't simply keep exploiting the world without giving anything back anymore. They have become aware of their potential: they are resources too.

          If we are not Earth’s troublemakers anymore, can we imagine a non-appropriative interaction between humans and the “otherness”, where communication seeks a conscious interconnection? 

          C.A.R.Ne. deals with future ecology on an ethical and larger scale: it’s about the relationship between the living organisms, but also between the dead ones. C.A.R.Ne. – acronym for “Collective Archive for the Recycle of Necromatter” – is a post-mortem institution that collects, archives and extracts materials from dead corpses in order to return them to the collective ecosystem. The reuse of human matter as a resource and as a common good subverts the contemporary anthropocentric dynamic that defines everything, in the eyes of humans, as a resource – except for humans themselves. To reconsider the human body’s materials as a resource after their usage and to define – in a pragmatic, non-romantic and fantastic way – all its possible reuses represents the attempt to define a far-off and longed-for reconciliation with nature.

          All of C.A.R.Ne.’s necropolitical regulations are collected on a ceremonial manual for the recycle of human matter: conceived as an open archive, visually at the edge between an encyclopedia and a sacred book, it provides rigorous guidelines for the extraction of materials from human corpses and for all their possible reuses. After the collection process has been completed, the archived materials are indeed treated as resources (products), and thus re-inserted within the productive system, in synergy with other institutions.

Fig. #06.  Table excerpt from the Manual showcasing a list of possible reuses between a selection of body parts.

          To provide an example, on demand by construction companies, human bones are dried and re-processed into clay powder mixtures for bricks, while high-density liquids such as sperm and mucus are extracted and worked with synthetic compounds into industrial glue for building sites. Other bodily fluids follow similar recycling paths: melanin is applied as a house-coating layer due to its protection properties against solar radiations, and oil is extracted from decay fluids and converted into fuel for sustainable lighting systems. Umbilical cord tissue stored from expired embryos are employed for the repair of plant-based and animal cells. Human organs, instead, are extracted whole – such as the liver, which is preserved to become a filter for high-toxicity radioactive waste.

          The funerary process thus becomes a waste-sorting ceremony that both aims to celebrate the historical past of bodies and to re-assign them as novel supplies to the ecosphere.

Fig. #07-09.  “Human Matter (How To Recycle It: A Manual)”. The chapters from the archive are catalogued by body parts. Photo Credits: Lorenzo Basili, 2022.