Study 53: Biopolitics of the Artifact: How Functional Endurance Challenges Foucault, Groys, and the Archival Death Mandate

Every object committed to Functional Endurance is embroiled in a hidden conflict with the very institutions designed to preserve it. This study argues that the museum and the traditional archive are not sanctuaries of immortality, but political mechanisms designed to impose a "death mandate" on the artifact. By analyzing the critical frameworks of Boris Groys (The Archive Paradox) and Michel Foucault (Biopolitics and Thanatopolitics), we demonstrate that an artifact’s entry into a collection is, in essence, a declaration of its functional death, reducing it to a manageable file ready for insti