yucca flat – Rachele Riley

My proposal—The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial

Here is my concept proposal (The Evolution of Silence) for The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial in the decommissioned nuclear testing site, Yucca Flat (Nevada Test Site).

Drawing, digital collage, archival ink jet print, 16.54 x 23.39 inches (A2), 2021

From the competition brief:

“We support the call for a ban on nuclear weapons.

“In response to the global silence surrounding the issue of nuclear weapons, designs must be submitted with no description text. Ideas must be communicated strictly with visuals. Propose any building functionality and scale.”

My proposal—is not a careful site, not singular, not clean—it is emotional, entangled, absurd, unfathomable, a path of perspective.

I combined several drawings to render a complicated expressive path—one that could provide access around the Yucca Flat terrain, not only to visit detonation sites but also to give presence to the in-between spaces around them—so to acknowledge the damage that is visible and invisible.

www.evolution-of-silence.net

Selected for 2014 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery.

I am so pleased to announce that The Evolution of Silence will be included in the 2014 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery this August! The exhibition will take place from August 11–14, 2014 in Vancouver, BC, and is held in conjunction with 2014 SIGGRAPH: an International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.

The theme of the SIGGRAPH 2014 Art Gallery is “Acting in Translation.” (from their open call) ‘Translation indicates a detached and forward movement from the source. It is also a freeing act, which paradoxically contains a burden of responsibility for the source. Therefore, this movement has limits and fine borderlines, yet it could designate “more” than the source. Translation is a call for other realities and also another way to see other realities. Translation can also blend “fact” with fiction by blurring the difference between them. In this vein, “translation” as a term could be interpreted in multiple ways on different layers of perception. While this term indicates a mechanical act, it may also refer to global and local societal developments such as resistance movements, alternative economies, information leaks, migration flows, mobility, etc.’

All types of work are submitted to SIGGRAPH: 2D and 3D artworks, interactive, electronically mediated Augmented Reality (AR), mixed-media installations and performances, web-based art, responsive media, time-based works, works leveraging mobile technologies, works using digital communities and social media, robotics, touch-screens, wearable art, mediated music, sound and audio.

I am very excited to be showing in this context. Instead of showing it from a monitor screen, this time I will be projecting onto a floating screen constructed at an angle. The goal is that the landscape and map will appear as an extension of the space and the user.

This year’s jury includes:
Basak Senova (curator and designer; the Art Gallery Chair 2014; lecturer at Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koç University),
Mona Kasra (artist and educator; the Conference Chair 2016; digital media scholar at University of Texas),
Amit Zoran (HCI and craft researcher; the Art Gallery Chair 2015; Post-Doc at the Fluid Interfaces Group, MIT Media Lab),
Kate Armstrong (curator, artist and writer; Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design),
Cezanne Charles (artist, designer and policywonk; Co-Director of rootoftwo – hybrid design studio, Director of Creative Industries at ArtServe Michigan), and
Mushon Zer-Aviv (designer, educator and media activist, faculty member at Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art).

There will be an opening reception on Tuesday, August 12 from 2–3:30 pm. In addition I will be giving an Artist Talk on Wednesday, August 13. Here is the full schedule of talks and projects:

Tuesday, 12 August
Art Gallery Talk SESSION 1
Moderator: Basak Senova, Koc University and SIGGRAPH 2014 Art Gallery Chair
Tuesday, 12 August, 2.00pm -3:30 pm

Art Gallery Panel: On SIGGRAPH Art Gallery: Basak Senova in Conversation Sue Gollifer, Mona Kasra, and Burak Arikan.

Wednesday, 13 August
Art Gallery Talk SESSION 2
Moderator: Basak Senova, Koc University and SIGGRAPH 2014 Art Gallery Chair
Wednesday, 13 August, 10.45-12.15 pm

Points of View
Zohar Kfir

Subway Stories
Alon Chitayat Animishmish Studio/ITP and Jeff Ong ITP, New York University

The Evolution of Silence
Rachele Riley

Art Gallery Talk SESSION 3
Moderator: Basak Senova, Koc University and SIGGRAPH 2014 Art Gallery Chair
Wednesday. 13 August, 2:00pm -3:30pm

Can digital art have the same emotional impact and historical significance as masterworks in painting, drawing, and sculpture?
Joseph Farbrook, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mother
Inmi Lee, Kutztown University

Thursday, 14 August
Art Gallery Talk SESSION 4
Moderator: Basak Senova, Koc University and SIGGRAPH 2014 Art Gallery Chair
Thursday, 14 August, 10.45-12.15

On Everyware
Hyunwoo Bang
Yunsil Heo
Everyware

Technological Error, Power and Metamorphosis
Emilio Vavarella

From Virtual to Reality
Ed Konowal/GraphicsNet

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Thanks again, everyone, for helping me fund my project and enabling me to take it to this level. I am very grateful!

Version 1. Launched.

The Evolution of Silence version 1—www.evolution-of-silence.net

The Hatchfund fundraiser ended in October, and thanks to all my wonderful supporters, I raised $3,827 towards my project!

Part of the funding has already covered the costs of working with web developer, Danniel Gaidula. We have completely revamped and refined the web-based archive. This is a significant programming achievement! ‘The Evolution of Silence’ requires that over 900 individual images be processed at once (to form the aerial tiling of the landscape), and as other image, video, and audio layers are revealed it can become very intense for any system. We developed a unique approach to the design and coding, and I am happy to say that is now live and working!

I invite you to explore:

www.evolution-of-silence.net

*Refresh your browser cache if you have visited before.
*Works in Chrome (fastest), Safari, Firefox and IE 10. Requires a modern browser.

Update on Fundraiser at USA Projects.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to my USA Projects fundraiser over the last two days! The USA Projects Open Match Fund matched $250 of your contributions. Please continue to share the link. Thank you!

http://www.usaprojects.org/project/the_evolution_of_silence

All donations are tax-deductible and the fundraising model is ‘all or nothing.’ If you have not yet made a donation, please know that your contributions will make a difference and will mean a lot to me. I have a few art perks to offer for donations at $50 or $100 (at the Haymaker or Noggin levels—named after denotations, of course!).

Please consider making a contribution today and share the link with others!

Pahranagat Valley, NV, first research trip in 2008.

In related news: the Web-based archive will launch in 10 days! I will be presenting it in conjunction with ‘Praxis and Poetics’ at the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, September 3–5. This week my focus is to develop the section of the website that presents and interprets the LA Darling Co Mannequins. As you saw in my USA Projects video, I have a lot of research material to incorporate!

Scans of mannequins and tests. Images courtesy of the National Archives.

Fundraising at USA Projects.

I just posted ‘The Evolution of Silence’ to USA Projects!

I have been working on the writing for about two weeks, and just finished the video yesterday. I have one month to fund the project and I need your help. Please consider contributing, and do share the link with others! Thank you!

http://www.usaprojects.org/project/the_evolution_of_silence

About USA Projects: a nonprofit organization that provides a platform for artists and designers to raise money for their independent work. Supported by separate donations, they charge no fee to artists to use their website tool.

Adding USGS ‘Before’ and ‘After’ Shots.

I added 296 images to my Web-based archive last week. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ test shots (or ‘pre’ and ‘post’ shots) that I acquired via Freedom of Information Act Request from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Site Office are now included in the project.

If you are visiting the project site, be sure to ’empty your cache’ and ‘refresh.’
Instructions again:
Safari
File > Develop > Empty Caches

Firefox
Tools > Clear Recent History > Cache

BETA Version 1.2

I am working towards my September 1 launch date. BETA 1.2 is up. I am now taking advantage of the interval pause between the background images (as they fade in and out of one another behind the tiling of the valley) to evoke the sight and trace of atmospheric tests.

Here is the background image in the body of the HTML (behind all the other background images that show the ground level of the landscape). Still fine tuning the timing of those interval pauses.

From my field notes (2008):

go or no go
goggles
braced for heavy wave of motion
suddenly a great ball of light
ball of orange
a long mass of blue
swirling clouds of desert dust and sand
wonderfully western

Hovering over Annie Test:

Interacting with Pages, Experiments.

I am in the studio, finding a creative work flow, and engaging some of my material (drawings, prints, photos) in different ways. In describing these experiments to a friend, she said they sounded meditative. I love this insight. She offered thoughts on documentation, documentation of performance, and animation. After our talk, I am inspired to continue the experiments, now with greater emphasis on time structure and meaning. Currently, these are shot without much thought to duration and pacing (though there were clearly ‘seasons’ to nuclear testing, periods of intense activity and then of pause). I would like to be more sensitive to this in my project.

Interacting with Pages (First 199 nuclear detonations at Yucca Flat), Experiment 4
Interacting with Pages, Experiment 3

I don’t know how these experiments will exactly influence my project yet, but I feel it is important to try some new things in my studio, especially as I test ideas that relate to these questions: What lies at the core of successful interaction? Is the process of mapping and dismantling a reflective practice? How do I create the conditions for this, for myself and for others?

BETA Version 1.1.

The web-based archive of ‘The Evolution of Silence’ will officially launch on September 1, 2013. I have made progress this week and am now sharing the BETA site more widely for feedback. Over the next two months, I will be incorporating more of my research material, writing, and art (solar prints, animations, and coaxial cable drawings, etc.), testing programming and design ideas on my local file, and updating the BETA versions regularly for your feedback.

Be sure to empty your browser cache each time to view the changes. Currently the site works well in Safari and Firefox.

Instructions for emptying your cache in
Safari:
File > Develop > Empty Caches

Firefox:
Tools > Clear Recent History > Cache

Plans for Part One.

I finished fixing the coordinates last week, and now the images tile correctly to form a view of every single detonation in Yucca Flat. It is intentional that it is still fragmented, in order to make visually clear that in those areas of the valley no nuclear detonation occurred. These gaps in information are views through the accumulated image, and lead to more and more complex layering of image, text, video. My goals with these layers are to explore the valley over time, convey dynamics and scale, present the ruins of testing, and share documentation of the impact on people’s lives and the environment. At the moment, photographs from the Desert Wildlife Range and the surrounding areas of the Nevada Test Site are visible.

My plans for Part One (the web-based part):
1. Create a scale that shows proportion and relates the images of detonations to geography.

2. Create more complex and transforming soundscapes.

3. Connect sounds to each detonation that convey their yield or detonation type, or some other attribute.

4. Explore CSS animations to convey yield of detonation.

5. Create more drawings and expressive scans to incorporate as hover captions to detonation images.

6. Create captions that load dynamically for the lightbox images.

7. Animate vector drawings to convey impact and yield of detonation.

8. Create a toggle option to view the project organized by time continuum or by location (currently it is a combination: the atmospheric tests are organized by time and the underground tests by location).

9. Create a text list of every detonation as a way to emphasize the naming of tests and to help viewers locate detonations in the tiling.

10. Create search function so that a viewer’s entry point could be a date, or a name, or an Area of the valley. Currently one travels from most northern part of the valley and heads South.

11. Create a system for showing how the viewer is navigating North, South, East, West.

12. Incorporate other archival research:

USGS photographs of detonation sites (before and after)
images of atmospheric tests from the National Archives
images of mannequins being dressed and set in houses
images of mannequins from the JC Penney advertisement (before and after)
images newspaper articles on the mannequins and other tests
images of houses, cars, furniture, food items, roof tiles, paint samples, animals tested
transcript (or recordings): for example of Baneberry trial
images of protests
images of ephemera and printed material
transcripts of oral histories
notes from two Nevada Test Site tours

13. Create a participatory interface in which viewers can submit their own interpretations or repsonses to form a layer on the site.

Part Two, as you may remember from earlier introductory posts, is to extend the website into an exhibition. I am hoping to have more time soon to design a proposal and to research ways to translate interactivity for the web into an interactive physical environment.