It is a well-known fact that some people have sought immortality. Some religions actually promise immortality. Some people dream of it and would pay high prices for it. Others, when asked whether they believe if there is life after death, simply answer: "Gosh, I hope not, I need a good rest!" or something like that (Bertrand Russell, among others.)

So far I have mixed up the twin themes of "immortality" and "life after death" because they are more strongly linked than what we normally think. It is in fact difficult to tell them apart. Scholars still discuss whether those who joined mystery cults in Greco-Roman days really believed that they were becoming immortal (physically) or were just promised a better life after death. Probably some believed one thing while others believe the other one. For my argument, it does not really matter.

The most recent example of what immortality can be about (or so some people say) is to be found in the show Körperwelten, where bodies are plastinied and thus preserved and displayed. Reactions to the show are varied. Some people love it and learn a lot about their bodies, while others find it disgusting and humiliating. I happen to belong to the second group, I must admit. OK, I learnt a few objective things, but I also got dead sick.

However I do not want to criticize the show. It is OK for me if people really learn things. The problem I want to address is specifically the association between plastination and immortality. This association is stressed by Professor Gunther von Hagen, the scientific who discovered plastination. He is the first one to describe it as a form of immortality. This, I think, is a rather whimsical interpretation that contradicts the claim (also stressed by him) that his show is educational and scientist. It is one thing to teach about (dead) human bodies, it is another one to "teach" about immortality. As a scientist he can do the first. As a lunatic prophet the second. But he (or nobody) can have it both ways. There have already been enough mad scientists in history and in literature and no more heroes anymore thank you very much. Stick to your science, Professor, show us the bloody bodies and please shut up.

I have nothing against those who would like immortality, although like Bertrand Russell I suspect that by the end of my life I will rather prefer a good rest. But let me tell you one thing (and this is MY interpretation, as whimsical as Professor Gunther von Hagen's one): to think that immortality is getting rid of your fluids and fat and have it replaced by polymers and resins is like preferring a picture of your lover's lips rather than their kisses. We are not alive because we have a mass of bones and muscles. We are alive because we are a life, and life is fluid, as fluid as the time we live, as fluid as the fat we gain and loose, as fluid as the blood that passes through our veins, as fluid as the milk we drank from our mothers breast, as fluid as our dad's semen getting into our mothers body, as fluid as the wine we drink with our closest friends. We are alive and we are fluid, we are dead and we become fluid. And as fluid we are as immortal as the rain that fall from the sky onto the driest earth.

Plastination, the total removal of fluids, is not immortality. What it does is freeze the image, like the picture of a lip unable to kiss (and you cannot photograph a kiss). It has nothing to do with preserving life. It is, rather, the best way to preserve death. What we see in the show is a bunch of people who are dead and who remind us that they have been dead for a long while. They have been denied the possibility of total decay, excluded from the dance of degeneration and renewal that all organic matter naturally follows. They have been rejected from the cycle of fluidity and life. It is OK for me if you want to do this in the name of science. But do not give me that shit about immortality, because immortality is precisely what you have just killed.

More information on plastination:

http://www.koerperwelten.com