>>These are some notes from the process, I’m writing them here in the hope that some of you that read this may comment, this is a huge subject with many polarised opinions so I’d love to know what you think. You can comment below<<
Boom! I’m starting work on ATOMKRAFT, at BAC. I’m resident for the week, staying in one of the newly constructed bedrooms. To my delight, also here are Little Bulb, Hide and Seek, Gemma Brockis and Silvia Mercuriali, all of whom I’ve worked with in some way. Apart from Little Bulb, but I did jam with them in a cave. Very exciting to be here in such famed company.
I’m working mostly alone and have invited a few people along for a chat and some improvisation or scratching around. There is such a lot of information and constant news related to the subject, I feel I will be doing quite a lot of ‘crunching’. As a kind of sketch book, each day I will make a short performance, intervention or installation in response to what is returned by the Google alerts service term “Nuclear Power”.
On Friday and Saturday I will make a showing here at BAC, then hop up to STK on Saturday night to show a bit for Word/Play.
The main casting task this week is to find a nuclear worker and an actor who resemble one another. London contains no Nuclear power stations, but it does have a lot of scientists. No shortage of actors.
Fascinated this morning by unfinished nuclear projects from Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, to the abandoned Yucca Mountain waste storage facility. Each has already cost about $10b
Onkalon – Finnish solution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN25RTYjjIg + http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/energy/nuclear/a-nuclear-waste-repository-grows-in-finland
Yucca Hill – abandoned waste depository in Arizona http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0Mivu-ceE
I love the timeframe in the Onkalon video, “The seal should be good for 100,000 years” I can imagine some intrepid future archeologist excavating the tunnels and getting a nasty surprise.
For a story, the length of these timeframes is appealing, Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Agency admits it has “no medium to long term plans” for the safe disposal of it’s toxic waste, and most scientists admit it will be 100 years or so before anyone will know how to process the stuff. It’s the kind of thing JG Ballard would have loved, a 100 year narrative that climaxes in the discovery of ‘the end’.
Even a brief internet search for nuclear and power reveals the corporate driver behind operation of all utilities. It could be an argument for the state taking control of these things, if the state could be trusted that is. Today the Italians can vote in a referendum on continuation of development of nuclear power, the privatisation of waterworks and distribution, and total immunity from prosecution for Berlusconi. Presently the Italians suffer huge electricity bills because they buy it in from France and Germany. Even so, allowing Berlusconi to control production of power by nuclear means would probably cost more in the end.
I find the nuclear issue a suitable metaphor for the human condition, and the problems with how earth and people are governed. It’s in the perception. The risks have always been the same, but confidence has shifted away from it. the same with global finance “The markets received a boost of confidence” What we are living through is a period of complete fiction. Climate change is a sprawling story of proof and refutation, financial deals and the securities they are made up of far exceed the actual amount of money and monetisable stuff on the earth, while the dramatised-through-advertising ambition to keep societies growing and growing to provide larger and larger markets is undimmed. I think we ought to decide we want less stuff. Try to ignore advertising.
The Human Condition:
“”There’s a huge problem”
“oh, shit. What can we do about it?”
“Nothing, it’s a disaster”
“Ah well, no point in worrying then, let’s just cary on”
“Oh but wait! It seems like there might be a possible solution in 20 years based on this research.”
“Great, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel! Carry on then”
