Queering Nature After Death, Giving Back to the Non/living: Materiality, Mediality, and Agency of the Mycelium Material in the Loop Living Cocoon™ Coffin

Abstract

This thesis provides a New Materialist analysis of the Loop Living Cocoon™ coffin, which is made of living fungal mycelium material. More specifically, it leads to a trans-corporeal understanding of the relationship between the living mycelium material and the (dead) human body. Hereby the materialities, medialities, and agencies of the material and the human body are considered. The chapters follow four phases in the ‘life’ of the coffin: the production process, the phase when the dead body has been placed in the coffin, the event of the burial, and the phase after the burial. Using the concepts of ‘remediation’, ‘non/living’, and ‘performativity’, this thesis highlights the increasing reciprocity between fungi and humans, as the life phases progress. The understanding of the relationship as trans-corporeal assemblage thereby queers the anthropocentric dualisms of death/life, human/nonhuman, and nature/culture. This offers space for ethical reflection on the socio-political perspective on fungi, and leads to a reimagination of the ontologies of death and life, which might cause more environmental awareness.