The Spring 2015 Nuclear Culture Reading group at Goldsmiths College will investigate how the nuclear affects our experience and perception of deep time within the Anthropocene from radioactive markers in the environment to geological waste storage. The sessions led by Ele Carpenter, include reading texts, films and artworks exploring radiation as a hyperobject, a material trace, a geological marker and semiotic challenge. Guest artists such as Kodwo Eshun, Otolith Group and Andy Weir will also present and discuss their work.
Reading: Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (2013 p99-133); Donald MacKenzie and Graham Spinardi, Tacit Knowledge, Weapons Design and the Uninvention of Nuclear Weapons (1995); Peter C. Van Wyck, Highway of the Atom (2010); Joseph Masco, The Nuclear Borderlands (2006). Films: Into Eternity, Michael Madsen (2010); The Radiant, The Otolith Group (2012).
Spring Term 2015 Reading Group Dates:
Jan 21st: Introduction to radiological markers and repositories
Jan 28th: Before and After Fukushima
Feb 11th: Close reading radiation as hyperobject
March 4th: Imaging radiological deep time
CHANGE OF DATE: March 20th: Curating the Anthropocence
The group will meet at Goldsmiths College. If you would like to join you need to commit to four out of the five sessions as the discussion will develop throughout the term. There are a few places for artists and researchers from outside college, but please contact Ele Carpenter at the email at the bottom of the website for more details and to reserve a place.
The Nuclear Culture Reading Group meets regularly at Goldsmiths College, London, to discuss key texts, artworks and exhibitions investigating different aspects of nuclear culture including the textual, visual and uncanny. This lively discussion is for artists, curators, and philosophers rethinking Nuclear Culture in the 21st Century tackling questions such as nuclear semiotics, deep time, radioactive uncanny, the sublime, nuclear materiality and networks, and nuclear art history. Previous meetings have focused on questions such as the nuclear sublime (J. Masco, Peter B Hales), nuclear semiotics (T. Sebeok, 1984), and contemporary artistic practices: Ellsworth and Kruse 'The Geologic Now'; Ceclie Massart, ChimPom, Otolith Group and Mark Aerial Waller. Previous contributors have also included Liam Sprod (Nuclear Futurism' 2012, Zero Books). Participants are also invited to review books, artworks, films and exhibitions for the Nuclear Culture website.
Background Reading
http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/workinggroups/anthropocene/
Susan Garfield, "Atomic Priesthood" is not Nuclear Guardianship" (1994) Available at: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/NGP/AtomPriesthd.html