Wednesday, October 7, 2015

280. Remnant Gardens

Transhumanity has few funerals. The death of a body is no longer the death of a person, and usually dead morphs are broken down and recycled. A certain fascination with death and corpses remains in the psyche, however, which usually finds its way to the surface as art.

Remnant gardens are grown on and from a body. Each piece consists of its own specially engineered organisms, generally using fungi, lichen, mosses, and minute insects. The pose of the corpse, the color and structure of the flora, and the activity of the fauna are all crafted to achieve a deliberate effect, whether of false life, slow trophic collapse, or colorful patterns. Typically the bodies slowly decay inside clear containers shaped like coffins or sarcophogi.

Famous pieces include Oasis: a female Splicer standing, arms crossed, in a clear sarcophagus, with fungus growing outwards in red balconies and a colony of miniaturized ants inhabiting the skull, as well as Sons and Daughters: a collection of neotenics in fetal positions slowly decomposing into moss covered hillocks under a transparent floor.

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