I returned to my image research, writing, mapping, and art making connected to the Nevada Test Site and the LA Darling mannequins (several photos posted in earlier posts). The LA Darling display mannequins were used in the 1953 and 1955 civil defense nuclear detonation operations at Yucca Flat. I have experimented with some of the imagery over the years and my goal now is to visualize and reflect on the presence, outfitting, damage, and representation / identity of each mannequin used in the detonations, and their connection and contrast to nuclear violence and the concerns in the world of actual people, places, and environments. I am researching the use of these images of before-and-after-detonation-captured bodies and scenarios in the publications and exhibitions of the time, and am thinking about who and what is missing, and asking why. I am interested in protests and resistance to the civil defense stylizations and alert exercises, and what images of these operations mean now. Continue reading
Tag Archives: mannequins
Annie animation, scanning via Processing.
In 2019 I participated in a cyanotype and coding workshop at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado led by Casey Reas. The focus was on experimenting with image printing and hand coding programs in Processing to scan large images. Practicing this technique and experimenting later, I created an animation using imagery of one LA Darling mannequin from the 1953 Annie detonation at the Nevada Test Site. The work explores a bodily focus and expresses aspects of the material quality of prints. It is a single-channel video, HD1920 x 1080, 17s, loop.
Presenting at ‘Praxis and Poetics’ at the BALTIC in Gateshead, UK.
Rachele Riley presenting The Evolution of Silence at ‘Praxis and Poetics’ at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK on September 4, 2013. Photo by Dr Joyce Yee.
I traveled to England on September 2 to participate in the conference ‘Praxis and Poetics: Research Through Design.’ The conference was held at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK, Continue reading
Fundraising at USA Projects.
I just posted ‘The Evolution of Silence’ to USA Projects!
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. Continue reading
Update on the ‘Annie’ test mannequins.
In Las Vegas I found photos of the mannequins being dressed and on display at the J.C. Penney store before the March 17, 1953 detonation.
Las Vegas Review Journal, March 6, 1953.
Continue reading
The subject of my archival research, appreciating Las Vegas.
There are three main threads to my archival research. I am searching for:
(1) any images or textual accounts of the L.A. Darling Co. Mannequins, information on their public display at the downtown J.C. Penney store in Las Vegas and the tour they allegedly made of other cities, confirmation that they were displayed both before and after the March 17, 1953 ‘Annie’ Test, and any leads to their current whereabouts; Continue reading
Artifacts of Atomic Testing.
On Tuesday, December 11, I met with Jennifer Cornthwaite, Director of Emergency Arts, at Fremont and sixth to discuss exhibiting in LV, and to get insight into the arts center. I met with Karen Green afterwards at the National Atomic Testing Museum. She is Curator and Collections Director at the Museum. The National Atomic Testing Museum has a collection of artifacts from the atomic testing period, mostly from the Nevada Test Site, but growing in scope to include objects and artifacts from all of the U.S.’s testing locations. I was able to visit the exhibition quickly, and then we went upstairs to the collections room. Karen had received an anonymous donation of two 1950s era mannequins that were used in testing at the NTS, a woman and a boy. The words ‘Property of the Atomic Energy Commission Yucca Flat Range Ground Zero’ are stenciled in black on their backs. Their hair wigs are lost, but their eyes are intact. They have hand-painted glass eyes. Continue reading
In the meadows.
I am in Las Vegas, Nevada for ten days (I arrived Sunday, December 9, 2012). On the first morning, Monday, December 10, I met with curator and historian, Brian Paco Alvarez, and filmmaker and producer, Dan Garrison, at The Beat café in the Emergency Arts Center in downtown Las Vegas (Fremont and 6th). It is in the former J.C. Penney building, the store which donated clothing for Federal Civil Defense Administration tests at the Nevada Test Site in the early 1950s, and the site where the L.A. Darling mannequins, who experienced the force of nuclear blasts, were put on display for public viewing.
Emergency Arts, the former J.C. Penney building:
Research at the National Archives, Mannequins and real people.
The more I search for details on the mannequins the more the realities begin to blur. Coordinated operations, in which mannequins were carefully dressed and typical social and domestic scenes were staged, began as isolated test scenarios at the Nevada Test Site in 1953. Extending beyond the boundaries of the NTS across the nation, their story culminates in Operation Alert, in which responses to nuclear attack were simulated by real individuals. Here are few images of mannequins and real people:
(Images courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
Continue reading
Research at the National Archives, Annie Test Mannequins.
I have been doing research at the National Archives facility in College Park, MD for the last three days. I looked at hundreds of archival documents: photographs, moving pictures, slides, and textual records that relate to nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, the Department of Energy, and the Federal Civil Defense Administration. In particular I am searching for any image of the L.A. Darling Co. Mannequins used in the early tests of the 1950’s and documentation of the activities that were carried out in preparation for measuring and assessing the effects of nuclear weapons. I have yet to find evidence of the nationwide tour that the mannequins are supposed to have taken after withstanding the nuclear blast of March 17, 1953.
I requested over 35 boxes of archival records at the Archives and was able to capture reference shots of the material. I will be returning to the Archives to scan the most important findings. Special thanks to my research assistant, Millie Riley.
Here are few images of mannequins used in the 1953 Annie Test that were new to me:
(Images courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
Before the test, the mannequins are gathered for a photo shoot:
Mannequins, selected sun prints.
Here are a few of the sun prints that I made last week. There is one print for each of the fifty L.A. Darling Co. mannequins used in the March 17, 1953 Annie Test at Yucca Flat. I am investigating ways to represent damage, disappearance, shadow, and trace, as well as a feeling of irradiation.
Mannequin sun prints, the process shots.
The first group of cut-outs in the sunshine. Some prints are scenarios of characters and others are single silhouettes. The compositions are created by overlapping the shapes, shifting their orientation to the light, positioning them at different degrees of contact to the paper, and making multiple exposures. Continue reading
Researching the L.A. Darling Co. Mannequins.
The project also reveals and memorializes the role that display mannequins played in the Civil Defense program. Representing human subjects, they experienced the force of nuclear explosions in the 1950s. I have been researching their involvement and trying to determine their whereabouts. Their story offers compelling historical perspective on the cultural view of the atomic bomb. The mannequins offer a formal counterpoint to the abstraction of the craters and point to the human cost of war. (Image courtesy of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation.)
