Practice body, Sheffield, UK
Alan and Sylvia, prospective patients, Peacehaven, UK
Perfusion kit
Frank, prospective pateint, Peacehaven, UK
Training, Sheffield, UK
Maria, prospective patient, London, UK
Maria's desk
Liquid nitrogen delivery, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Operating room
Meeting for new members
Aaron Drake, Medical Response Director
Patient Care Bay (dewar being filled with liquid nitrogen)
Hugh Hixon, Research Fellow
LN2 vapor extractor and thermo-coupling device
Patient cool-down
Matthew Sullivan, Cryopreservation Manager
Patient storage
Neuro-patient storage
Dr. Mike Perry, Patient Caretaker
Logbooks
John, prospective patient, Boynton Beach, Florida
Patient files
Cryostats #1, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Andy Zawacki, CI Director
Flower box
Patient portraits
Ben Best (demonstrating his bed alarm system)
Robert Ettinger 'the father of cryonics', Detroit, Michigan, USA
Cryostats #2
Peewee with his dog Saber
Saber being cryo-preserved
Transhumanist meeting, Moscow, Russia
Lyudmila (daugter of Lidia Fedorenko - the first cryonics patient in Russia)
Lidia Fedorenko's grave
Photographs of Lidia Fedorenko
Neuro-patient dewar
Standby equipment, St.Petersburg, Russia
Alexander Pulver, Research Scientist
Experiment #1
Experiment #2
Roman Lyubimov
Pet dog
Kesha, prospective patient
Patient #2
Margaret (holding a photograph of her mother Ludmila Kiseleva)
Patient #4
Prayer cards
Eugenij Kiselev and technicians
Cryostat interior
Cryostat
DNA archive
In 1962, Robert Ettinger published The Prospect of Immortality, the book that gave birth to the idea of ‘cryonics’ – the process of freezing a human body after death in the hope that scientific advances might one day restore life.
Ettinger’s book begins: “Would you like to live forever and ever, here on earth? In the near future this may become a real possibility. The Prospect of Immortality is a sober, scientific, and logical argument founded on the undeniable fact: that a body deep-frozen stands a better chance of being revived than of one rotting in the ground; and that many people who died fifty or a hundred years ago of ‘incurable’ diseases would today be cured.”
Fifty years later, and over a period of six years (2006-2012) I have undertaken an extensive photographic investigation of the practice Ettinger inspired. The photographs take the viewer on a journey through the tiny but dedicated international cryonics community, from the English seaside retirement town of Peacehaven; through the high-tech laboratories of Arizona; to the rudimentary facilities of KrioRus, on the outskirts of Moscow. Worldwide there are approximately 200 patients stored permanently in liquid nitrogen, with a further two thousand people signed up for cryonics after death.
The project combines photographs of the technical processes involved, alongside portraits of the people engaged in the quest to overcome the ‘problem of death’. Whilst members have often been ridiculed for their views, I take an objective stance, allowing the viewer to consider the ethics of the practice, and to decide whether members are caught up in a fantasy world of science fiction, or genuine scientific innovation.

