In my most dire of days, my friends and I could always make a little extra scratch at the local plasma center. Payment would vary, but it was usually $40 for the first “donation” of the week, and $60 for the second, meaning an underemployed dirtbag like myself could make an extra $400 a month for sitting back and just letting the blood flow. It was fairly painless and only took about 2 hours. The machine would draw the blood, separate the plasma, then send the blood right back to your veins—zero actual blood loss. It was nearly entirely automated too, and as we lay in orderly little rows, one got the distinct feeling we were being “harvested.”

If the plasma center was a farm, it was a tiny, sustainable, mom and pop set-up. Compared to Europe’s largest blood center, it was downright pastoral. Photographer Greg White put together this hypnotic little short film, Blood, which focuses almost entirely on the non-human aspect of blood collection, storage and processing. The setting so robotic and industrial, it’s easy to see why White calls the blood center a “blood factory.” That’s inaccurate of course, since the human body is the actual blood factory, but one can’t help but admire the mechanical ballet orchestrating such precious and human materials.
 

 
Via Fast Company