The non-visible radiocative spaces of the nuclear atmospheric testing

‘It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.’

Harry S. Truman’s speech at the White House, August 9, after the drop of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 6 and 9, 1945. 

After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been continuously detonated globally for testing purposes. These experiments took place in high and low altitude, underground and underwater, being dropped from towers, airplanes, balloons, missiles, blasted on the ground or on boats. The estimated total yield of nuclear atmospheric testing (excluding the underground ones) during the years 1945-1980 was 428 Megatons, an equivalent to about 29,000 Hiroshima size bombs (out of 510 Mt in total tests). Between the years 1946-1958 the U.S. have carried out 67 Nuclear atmospheric and underwater tests in the Marshall Islands yielding about 78.5 Mt. One of them was Castle Bravo, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the U.S. (1,000 times larger than Hiroshima), which created a fallout of more than 11,00 square km, spreading traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, Japan, India the United States and even parts of Europe. This wasn’t a unique incident during this period, which resulted in unrestrained release of radioactive materials dispersed and deposited globally. ‘Revolving Clouds’ is a study that unveils the nature of the non-visible radioactive spaces that were generated during these tests locally, globally and universally. It uncovers their evolution by drawing the impact of each experiment in time, as well as reveals the potential accumulative effects of all of them on the environment. 

This project is also a study of human denial: Truman’s quote (above) assigns an external meaning to a manmade destruction by allocating the control and development of the bomb to God. In essence, it is detaching us from our own destructive tendencies. This schism of impotence and omnipotence of manmade actions to irreversibly change, evolve, and alter our environment in an accelerated pace is reflected in the amount of atmospheric nuclear testing that took place at the time. It also exposes our ultimate detachment from our true nature, and from the physical environment that surrounds us.

Making the invisible visible in the drawings is used to expose the effects of each detonation in time and space: from the radioactive debris in the ground, the water, to the spread of the radioactive clouds in the air and in space. Yet, it also reveals the lack of boundaries in our environment. There were no exterior and interior perimeters to these tests, and no form of impact was privileged over the other. Each, did not conclude at the contaminated fish, the burnt coconut tree, the contaminated ground, the deformed ship or the dead animals that were placed in it, but its impact rolled into a larger scale of space in time by its interaction with external forces. Ironically, even the choice of conducting U.S. nuclear experiments in a remote location in the southern hemisphere, did not prevent the radioactive debris to be carried up to the northern hemisphere by the global wind patterns.

And finally the abstract nature of the drawings and the aesthetics used to depict radiation exposure and contamination in them turned into a purposeful act. It allows us to look at such a charged issue, without the temptation of judgment, or the potential meaning of these experiments to the human environment. This is the ultimate statement of the project. Nature is not a separate entity; we are not detached from it but are an integral part of an environment in which our actions continuously impact a system in a constant flux. One, which evolves and reproduces without prioritizing the existence of our species within it. One, in which triggering a split of an atom releases enough energy to alter and make it uninhabitable for our own.