This blog follows French & Mottershead’s work with Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Carolyn Rando, who will be advising us during the development of new work Afterlife … a series of audio monologues reflecting on death and human decomposition.
Information about our wider practice and recent projects can be found on our website: http://www.frenchmottershead.com/
Meeting 2
The moment Dr Carolyn Rando saw the rabbit still had a face, she gave a gasp of delight. It’s a Sunday and we are spending a few hours in the suburban back garden of Charlotte’s parents’ house. Charlotte is one of Carolyn’s research students and her impressively-executed experiment is proving a success. She is testing the difference made to the decomposition process, when wrapping a corpse in gaffer tape. The idea was prompted by a human case in which the victim’s head and hands were bound (and preserved) by the tape. In place of human bodies, we’re exhuming and analysing the six rabbits that Charlotte buried in the garden two months ago. All the rabbits had been shaved, two had been completely wrapped in black gaffer, two had just their head and legs wrapped, and two (controls) were not wrapped. Each was buried in its own pit, cradled by chicken wire, about 18 inches below the surface.
Charlotte’s parents speak enthusiastically about the (morbid) fascination they and their friends have had about their daughter’s experiment and what’s become know as the “death patch”. Charlotte’s father has kept it under keen observation, poking a thermometer into the ground to record the daily temperature.
The three things we were keen to experience today were: the smell; the look of the different stages of decomposition; and the flies.
1. Smell
There’s not much in the following list of gases generated in the decomposition process to evoke a visceral reaction – hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, methane, cadavarine, putrescine, etc. Also, the various scientific descriptions we’ve read about their combined ‘stench’ haven’t really helped us understand what decomposing corpses smell like at various stages.
When exhuming the pits, we began to get of whiff of something fleshy and decomposing down there, intensifying as we dug deeper and got closer.
Once all six rabbits were laid out and exposed on the tarpaulin, we started to try and describe what it was we could smell, taking our face masks off to better appreciate. The fresher, fully wrapped (but now unwrapped), corpses smelled the strongest. Charlotte’s mother said it was like being on a farm, with a hint of a walk through the woods. Carolyn agreed, saying it’s a familiar yet unknowable smell with a hint of shit in it, “because shit is part of what we are digging up”. The sweet, knowable, yet alien smell permeated the air, with Charlotte’s father reporting that he could smell it from the front garden. Its intensity gave Andrew a headache, yet made Carolyn hungry! On the train back to London, the smell lingered on the soles of our shoes, and we’ve just got a sense of it again today from a stinky drain.
2. Differences in decomposition
There were marked differences in the conditions between the six rabbits, with 3 main factors affecting the corpses: Wrapping, Partial Wrapping & Body Mass.
⎯ The different body mass of the two unwrapped rabbits altered their states. The smaller of the two was further into the advanced stages of putrefaction, closer to being completely skeletonised, with the breakdown of the tougher connective tissues.
⎯ The two partially-wrapped rabbits showed retarded decomposition in the heads and legs, still had connective tissues, but putrefaction in the bodies.
⎯ Fully-wrapped – cutting the gaffer off the rabbit that still had a face revealed it was almost perfectly preserved, with the decomposition process retarded. Amazingly, dissection showed all organs intact and there was even liquid blood in the heart. The wrapping on the other fully-wrapped rabbit was compromised, meaning the head had putrefied, whilst the body was more-or-less intact.
Charlotte’s experiment was a success – who needs embalming when you’ve got gaffer tape.
One thing that struck us was the texture and varied colours of the decomposing flesh, giving rise to some gorgeous abstract photos. We’ve heard it described as cream cheese, though brie at room temp might be closer to the truth, and the colour changes relative to the part of body. For example, given a human diet, putrified intestines and stomach would take on a brownish colour with a hint of green.
3. Flies
Before this day we thought we’d focus on one species of fly, and the role it plays in decomposition. However, the variety of fly species and behaviour we saw in this suburban garden in Hampshire challenges that.
There was a whole spectrum of types and colours; blowflies, horse flies, yellow flies, green and blue bottles, black flies; with dozens arriving within minutes, and going crazy for the fresher, stronger smelling corpses that Carolyn and Charlotte unwrapped. Up close as she was, Carolyn acknowledged to finding the intensity of their buzz challenging.
In terms of behavior, the ebb and flow of their presence with the slightest change in the air temperature was really surprising to witness. As the sun came out from behind the clouds, they descended on the corpses, as the sun disappeared, they also vanished. When present, they seemed to take a little time to check the corpse out, figuring out the choice spot to lay their eggs. A number focused on a small tear in a rabbit’s groin.
Meeting 1:
There was something on the jawbone that appeared to be soft tissue, though on closer inspection it turned out to be a pulped remnant of the brown paper bag Carolyn uses to store the pig skull. The pig head had been in the ground for a year and was excavated during a recent student field trip to UCL’s (non-human) body farm in Surrey. Faint traces of the stench of butyric fermentation were still there, if you dared sniff close enough. Unworn and still emerging molars indicated this was a juvenile pig, and the fine tree roots growing through the teeth are consistent with the burial site under an oak.
This was the morning of our first work session with Carolyn. Squeezed in amongst the bags and boxes of human and animal skeletons populating her office, it became clear if we were to open any of these bags, the bones would tell a story combining body, place and time. It is the interplay of these three elements and their affect on the decomposition narrative, that we are interested in for our Afterlife works.
The actual process of decomposition of the body can be broken down into 5 steps:
1.Initial decay
2.Putrefaction
3.Black putrefaction
4.Butyric fermentation
5.Dry decay
Accompanied by numerous gory photographs, Carolyn led us through these stages and how we could potentially better engage our ‘listener’ in a visceral experience of their own decomposition. For example, minutes after death our eyes and mouths dehydrate, and every living person knows how this can feel.
Further down the decomposition timeline, we hadn’t previously appreciated the force of the ‘bloat’, where putrifying tissues produce gases, causing the body to inflate. We asked Carolyn what happens to clothing during the bloat, and apparently the force is so strong that buttons pop, seams burst, material is pulled to pieces. Carolyn’s in-depth knowledge brings speed, clarity and detail to our discussion, arrived at within minutes, contrary to painstaking online research, piecing together bits of knowledge from various sources, and second guessing.
Hearing Carolyn talk about the decomposition process made us reflect on how incredibly dynamic the actions of the body and the environment are after death. Fully accustomed to how some people react to this topic, she apologised before showing us the next gruesome image … we’re minded to repeat what Akira Kurosawa once said, ‘The artist is the one who does not look away.
Wondering what Carolyn thought of us, our choice of the different decompositon situations and the draft narrative for UK deciduous woodland we put together – what we have already is way too scientific and we need Carolyn to help us bring it to life. Feedback Fridays … roll on …
