Levande material. En utforskande exposé över vårt förhållande till kroppen som organisk materia

Abstract

In this project the author made an attempt to, in a short film, visualize an experience of the organic materials that our bodies consist of and what becomes of it when we die. The intention was to dissect this matter, break it down to see it in a simpler form and to explore our relationship to it, being part of a constant exchange between organic materials and having so much power over the environment and other living animals. At the very start, the idea was to deal with the relationship different people have with their bodies. Later in the process, a decision was made that the product would be communicating the author’s own experiences of the body materials after studying it and trying to recreate fragments and feelings of them. The initial plan was for the main inspiration to be seeing a dead body in real life, but due to the strong restrictions surrounding death, it proved impossible to observe the dead firsthand. This gained knowledge formed a decision of adding a layer that visualized the created detachment from bodily death. The research would now have to be conducted from a distance, through watching hours of filmed autopsies and surgery as well as reading poems about somatic death, from several different time periods. The final product came out as a 3:50 minutes long black and ivory white short film divided into three chapters, describing the author’s experience of different states of the body material, from living to fully decomposed.