Tag: nuclear culture

by jad

I don’t like explosions very much at all.

It’s been really gratifying to see more people commenting on the uneven distribution of firework joy, whether as a form of reinvigorated protest, or in the shape of that poem being shared about explosions and the differentiated lives we’ve lived. That’s been a thorn in my side for most of my life. I wrote my own poem once about the rat-tat-tat of compatriots insisting on our communal bonds outside my teenage bedroom door. I wrote an email too, my first time experiencing a Royal Air Force fighter jet screaming over the Royal Mile in Edinburgh back when I barely researched … Continue reading “I don’t like explosions very much at all.” →

by jad

Total Being

I read an article today that introduced me to the notion of “total being.” It seemed like the sort of thing I should read on a day like today. The piece even opened with an image I know too well: that of a taxi weaving through the chaos of city traffic. I know this image because I’ve taken interest in the politics of urban mobility and spent many formative years of my life invested heavily in their pursuit, but I also know it more viscerally than that. It evokes a nightmare that would recur for the longest time. It doesn’t … Continue reading “Total Being” →

by jad

Easter Day

“After August 1945, the USA launching two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we became aware that we can self-annihilate. That risk has increased with the arms race, including nine nations, with chemical and biological weapons and some 16,000 nuclear warheads. The current war between Russia and Ukraine made Putin threaten the use of nuclear weapons, bringing the apocalyptic fear of the end of the human species. In this scenario, how to celebrate the greatest feast of Christendom which is Easter, the resurrection of the Crucified, Jesus of Nazareth? Resurrection must not be understood as the reanimation of a dead … Continue reading “Easter Day” →

by jad

It is Absolutely Refreshing to be Militantly Cringe

What if you spent less time worrying about which of the things you like is cringe and just liked those things more intensely instead? I’ve always liked cautionary tales like House of Leaves because they reminded me of me and the need to check my obsessions, but as all true believers will tell you, there’s something religious about excessive devotion. We started talking about that because I’d just come out from giving a talk where I’d mentioned my feeling of kinship with James Acord, the artist born in the year of “Hiroshima” (just like I was born in the year … Continue reading “It is Absolutely Refreshing to be Militantly Cringe” →

by jad

Seattle’s Nuclear History: TerraPower

“Nuclear power gambles with disaster; even proponents acknowledge that accidents are inevitable. Smaller reactors would mostly be clustered together to generate more power and offer no more safety than larger ones … Nuclear power is of course far less dangerous to human lives and the environment than fossil fuel power. But this comparison is irrelevant. The proper comparison of nuclear power is not to fossil fuel energy but to renewal alternatives like wind power, solar power, and geothermal power. These are far less risky, dangerous and costly than nuclear power. Hydropower is also a renewable energy technology; however, it has … Continue reading “Seattle’s Nuclear History: TerraPower” →

by jad

Nuclear Vancouver

We packed a lot into our very short time in Vancouver, but my favorite stop was the opportunity to visit and hang out with atomic photographer, filmmaker, and sole @uraniumfilm festival coordinator in Canada for the 2024 tour, Jesse Andrewartha, in his East Van home. Here we are in his darkroom. And here he is displaying the radioactive properties of his prized slice of polished uranium ore. Let me tell you: that crackling of the Geiger counter is an eerie basement sound! Jesse Andrewartha is a Canadian filmmaker, photographer, and visual effects artist specializing in historical & obscure darkroom techniques … Continue reading “Nuclear Vancouver” →

by jad

Infra-Politics & Photography

The thing about infrastructure is that it never just does what it’s supposedly designed to do. Infrastructure congeals and conceals social interest. It’s “inevitably imbued with biased struggles for social, economic, ecological, and political power to benefit from connecting (more or less) distant times and places” (Graham and Marvin, 2001). In other words, “one person’s infrastructure is another’s difficulty” (Starr, 1999). Highways, dams, and pipelines have always been flashpoints of protest when they displace and disrupt lifeways and communities; they leverage the same logic as that of nuclear “sacrifice zones” – those spectacular feats of dispossession for the national good, … Continue reading “Infra-Politics & Photography” →

by jad

Seattle’s Nuclear History: Satsop

Satsop isn’t actually abandoned, but I like how this Instagram location tag plays on the indeterminacy of this place as both modernist ruin and post-modern investment opportunity. 20 minutes to Aberdeen, 1 hour 30 minutes to Seattle, 1 hour to the Olympic National Forest, 30 minutes to Olympia, 3 hours to Portland – that’s how the Satsop Business Park website sells this enticing real estate. I wonder how those proxemics would read today had this plant actually gone live. x Why choose Satsop? “The Park offers facilities from 5,000 sq. ft to 300,000 sq. ft. In addition, more than 400 … Continue reading “Seattle’s Nuclear History: Satsop” →

by jad

Nuclear History is in the Present Tense

In “By the Bomb’s Early Light,” Paul Boyer writes about the ebbs and flows of nuclear criticism as atomic dreams and radioactive nightmares danced across this nation’s psyche throughout the Cold War. He wrote his book during such a peak and prefaced his second edition with a question about the next peak to come, as the Cold War had been called off by then. In the intervening years, there have been blips of renewed interest, especially around the time of the radioactive catastrophe at Fukushima, but with rising geopolitical tensions and increased climate emergency, it seems like we’re re-entering another … Continue reading “Nuclear History is in the Present Tense” →