Essays

Dada and Surrealism in the Penrose Gallery

Piet Mondrian: Pier and Ocean

Juan Muñoz 1953-2001

Contextual Review 2010-11

Making 4th Year

Making 4th Year

I was a child during the cold war.

I have a distinct memory of standing in the hallway of my grandfather's house, waiting for the rest of my family to say their goodbyes after a typical Sunday dinner. My grandfather had a lampshade high up in the elevated ceiling of this dark tenement flat. The lampshade was unconventional. It's design was that of a star; fine glass points bursting from the lit interior. It made me recall a passing remark from my military-minded father that 'modern bombs' didn't explode when they hit the ground or when their nose cones were hit with a hammer such as my weekend cartoons regularly depicted. Instead, they detonated high above the air in order to spread their energy across a wider area of destruction - an 'airburst'. As I looked at this lampshade, the television news audibly reported the current belligerent statements from the then president Reagan denouncing the USSR. I was certain nuclear destruction would occur. I wept with fear.

In later years, I expanded my knowledge of nuclear technology. The fundamentals underlying the weaponisation of this technology also informed more exotic curiosities of particle physics, high-energy physics, cosmology and the persistent search for grand unifying theories that explain creation itself. Still, it is the manifestation of nuclear technologies that I find most compelling. In the midst of all the mathematics, speculation, documentaries and stupefyingly costly experiments into the nature of reality itself, these are but abstractions to the wonderful and terrifying sheer physicality of the atomic blast; That matter equates to energy is simply not intuitively accessible to the human mind, yet I know that if I were to convert the laptop in front of me instantaneously to its atomic energy, a good portion of the east of Scotland would be a very changed place.

My fascination with this subject matter probably stems form a basic boyish desire to see things go bang. Consolidate this with the cold-war rhetoric of the 80s as well as later concerns over the proliferation of atomic weapons. These include Chirac's posturing by detonation of France's atomic arsenal after his ungainly rise to power and notably Pakistan and India's tit for tat announcement and then testing of their own devices. My unhealthy addiction to the news and hawk-eye for scientific and political developments have kept the nuclear phenomenon on my radar. The Chernobyl disaster was as important to my childhood as the Challenger shuttle disaster or the Indiana Jones sequel. More recently, the unfounded allegations and flat-out lies concerning WMDs in the 'war on terror', the Fukushima reactor incidents, and the curious nostalgia surrounding the recent decommissioning of the B53 thermonuclear ordnance all add their own recent additions among the chapters of nuclear history. Foremost, my fascination is with the 'otherworldly' nature of this form of access to energy. Through theoretical work alone, the like of Einstein, Szilard, Rutherford and Bohr have posited, theorised, proven and confirmed not only the existence of the atom but also the workings, instability and potential of the heavy nucleus. Court magicians of old may have utilised the mysterious phenomena of chemical interaction and electricity to impress the ignorant kings but our twentieth century magicians invoked a theophany; a physical manifestation of godlike forces. Unlike any other endeavor of the industrial revolution - beyond steel, beyond the fractional distillation of crude oil, beyond the discovery of penicillin - the coaxing of Uranium 238 and the subsequent synthesis of a new element, Plutonium, is of unrivalled importance in the history of scientific development. For the first time in the history of living things, a mammal duplicated natural phenomenon independent of the planet on which it evolved. Here was the stuff of stars, the energy of galaxies. Here was the energy of creation itself and it could be used to destroy.

A curious misconception that most of us in the western world share is that an atomic blast such as those that were induced in anger at the end of the second world war are somehow equivalent to those produced by later weapons. This is not the case. The Plutonium core nuclear devices are mere firecrackers compared to the later, thermonuclear weapons devised by Edward Teller and mass produced throughout the worst excesses of the arms race.

A typical example of male posturing and state aggression, the US and USSR competed regularly to see who could produce the biggest bang in the 50s and 60s. The US Castle Bravo test produced the biggest yield in the free world at 15 megatons but ultimately it was the Soviet Tsar Bomba that still holds the record not just as the biggest man-made explosion but the largest single release of energy produced by organisms in the history of the planet.

Castle Bravo, 1954

Tsar Bomba (literally 'King Bomb') instantaneously produced a nuclear fireball 5 miles across and produced a shockwave producing atmospheric interference on its third passage around the earth. It is interesting to note that its total potential yield of 100 megatons was scaled back to 50 out of safety concerns for lasting geological and atmospheric damage to the planet. This test was the kind of thing the Soviets did well - a large, one-off spectacular for propaganda purposes that was strategically useless in weaponised form. Beyond this point of scientific and political expansion, the world knew that undeniable destruction of almost all life on earth would result from nuclear confrontation between the superpowers. Human awareness of it's own idiocy peaked with the grandest of these majestic sculptural forms.

Human fallibility, groupthink and the absurd results of allowing humans to run amok with the energies of the Creation are intriguing. The ingenuity of individuals seem as noble as ever but it is in the power-structure and the chain of command where mistakes are born. the human presence muddies the waters and negates the purity of the mushroom cloud.

I digress. Ultimately, this information, this intrigue is tumbling through my brain and breeding with my own curiosities in chemical processes, corrosion, mold-making, rusting, form-making and all the physicality that finally result in aesthetic choices. This is, after all, about art.

sketchbook detail

In my mind's eye I play with an editable gallery space that will eventually contain my objects. It will also contain people. Some will be viewers, others will be analogues - nodes of interaction that will direct viewer to work and back again. Humans and manifestation - perhaps humans versus the manifestation. I draw a parallel with humans and the physical manifestations within the gallery space. Having spent the last years investigating physicality and materiality of my own artwork, I have chosen to address the issue of human presence and the associated seduction and recoiling between viewer and artwork by introducing human analogues into the experience of the gallery encounter. Like Munoz, Hatoum or Hesse, I aim to produce a range of sculptural work that includes the potential - the implied invitation for human interaction, including the figurative element.

I have selected the historical aspect of the Crossroads atomic tests of 1946 to provide a framework for the figurative pieces. Each of the three tests; Able, Baker and Charlie have distinct personalities - their own fables and curiosities.

Crossroads Able

The first of three planned tests. Able was an airburst, detonated high above the target fleet, it veered off course and did not precisely impact on the targets in the expected manner. Significant damage to shipping including some sinking resulted from the shockwave.

Crossroads Baker

Baker test, 1946

Baker is the famous sibling of the three - or rather, infamous. The spectacular manifestation of this submerged detonation displaced millions of cubic meters of water in a strangely pixilated, spiked column - almost freakish in its regularity. The footage became famous and is still frequently used in stock nuclear montage today. Baker was big. Baker was grand and highly visible. Horizontal to the origin of the column and water cloud, spectators could view the destruction to the fleet clearly. The easily recognizable foreground of test shipping provided a satisfying sense of scale. Baker was a miscalculation and more powerful than anticipated,producing an excessive fallout of highly radioactive water that doused the remaining vessels not sunk by the shockwave or tonnage of water that enveloped them. The personification of the Baker test calmly stands facing and observing the mathematical repetition of the dominating and overwhelming physical form before it. Reminiscent of the water column's structure, this form consists of many antagonistic points visually producing a lattice structure not dissimilar to Munoz's optical floors.

It directly references some of the structures inherent in the development of atomic and subatomic theory. these include the wooden lattice structure of Chicago Pile 1 (the first nuclear reactor) and the CERN OPERA detector's array of cubic lead bricks. sketchbook detail

Chicago pile 1, 1942

sketchbook detail

Crossroads Charlie

Charlie was the test that never was. The excessive and unpredictable Baker fallout adversely effected a nearby Japanese fishing crew as well as severely contaminating the surrounding environment. Often referred to as the world's first nuclear disaster, the Baker test introduced world opinion to the issue of hazardous nuclear testing. The contamination of the surviving fleet rendered the third test, Charlie, redundant. Public opinion was sufficiently complex and volatile to deem the Charlie test as politically undesirable. The personification of Charlie is a figure on the periphery of the gallery space. Slumped against the wall, it is resting it's arm on, or possibly tethered to a plush banister structure fixed to the wall. Charlie is waiting, 'on the bench' and denied the interaction or import of the other two siblings. Further, the viewer stands above this figure, literally looking down on it. The banister invites rest and repose to both the figure and the viewer. It is an encounter peripheral to the central drama played out by Able and Baker.

Further wall-based pieces are also underway. They address incidents such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima reactor explosions. Being wall-based and of a square format, they serve as my 'answer' to painting within the gallery context. Drawing from previous year's work, they are an amplification and refinement of some physical forms already investigated - particularly in their use of textures and a 'hands off' approach to the overall finish.

test piece detail

"Elephant's Foot", Chernobyl, Ukraine

These, and other works are fully formed in my mind's eye. They insist themselves upon me and demand a physical manifestation. I will make them and then they can inhabit physical space, preferably in as formal a gallery environment as possible such as the one I picture. I suspect subdued lighting with individual spotlights will likely suit them best. Regardless, being this fixed on a path of manufacture is at once exhilarating and tiring. It also negates the likelihood of happy accidents working their way into the final ensemble but I am keeping an open mind and allowing myself to be surprised whenever possible.

Last edit: 31/10/11