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Prospect of Immortality: Photo series explores freezing a human body after death

In 1962, Robert Ettinger published The Prospect of Immortality, a 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. This new book by Brighton-based photographer Murray Ballard is the result of a nine-year investigation into the practice Ettinger inspired.

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Dense fog fills an industrial cryonics facility with metal storage tanks, stepladders and equipment visible through the mist

Also titled The Prospect of Immortality, it documents the small but dedicated international cryonics community from the English seaside retirement town of Peacehaven; through to 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 in cyronics, alongside portraits of the people engaged in the quest to overcome the "problem of death". Whilst members have often been ridiculed for their views, Ballard has tried to 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.

An extract from Robert Ettinger's The Prospect of Immortality reads: "Clearly, the freezer is more attractive than the grave, even if one has doubts about the future capabilities of science. With bad luck, the frozen people will simply remain dead, as they would have in the grave. But with good luck, the manifest destiny of science will be realised, and the resuscitees will drink the wine of centuries unborn. The likely prize is so enormous that even slender odds would be worth embracing."

Murray graduated from the University of Brighton in 2007 with a degree in Photography. The following year he was selected for Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed 08 – the annual showcase of work by the "most promising recent graduates" at The Photographers’ Gallery, London. In 2011 the British Journal of Photography recognised him as an "emerging photographer of note", following his debut solo show, The Prospect of Immortality, at Impressions Gallery, Bradford.

Discover more of his work at murrayballard.com. To purchase a copy of Murray's The Prospect of Immortality, go to gostbooks.com.

Via direct submission

Stainless steel cryogenic vessel with a rounded lid mounted on a concrete floor, containing a human body preserved in liquid nitrogen
Man wearing a blue face mask and beige jacket standing in front of a wooden garden shed surrounded by evergreen trees and ivy-covered walls
Five glass bottles with swing-top lids and handwritten labels containing clear liquid, arranged in a row against a white background
Stacked blue and black cryogenic storage vessels enclosed in a tall metal chamber used for preserving human bodies in liquid nitrogen at a cryonics facility
A medical professional in blue scrubs and cap prepares a body in a metal preservation tank within a clinical facility, with monitoring equipment visible on the wall
Large white cylindrical cryogenic storage tanks in a warehouse facility with stacked hay bales on a wheeled cart beside them
Large concrete block structure with a single chair inside, surrounded by cardboard boxes in an industrial warehouse setting with dark metal roof panels
Woman in grey jacket holds up a patchwork fabric banner featuring a portrait of two people against a weathered concrete wall and birch trees
White modernist building with "ALCOR" signage and palm trees in front, the cryonics facility featured in Murray Ballard's photographic investigation
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