Fotoudstilling om “atom-maskinen”

The nuclear machine: Atomic metabolism on display – photographic exhibition

The proceedings will be conducted in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use our online registration form on

https://www.conferencemanager.dk/thenuclearmachine/sign-up.html

And do so no later than Monday, 16 May at 12.00 noon.

Background

The nuclear revolution markeds the beginning of a new global age characterized by the possibility of the total destruction of all human life on planet Earth.

This photo exhibition on the nuclear machine gauges the complex legacy of the nuclear age through the lens of Clay Lipsky’s Atomic Overlook series and John O’Brian’s Atomic Archive.

“The Nuclear Machine: Atomic Metabolism on Display” invites you to reflect on the massive socio-political and techno-scientific investments required to keep the wheels of the nuclear machine grinding.

These dynamics are best understood through the metaphor of metabolism (flytning /forandring). Karl Marx originally used the idea of metabolism to argue that industrialization harmed the environment and undermined human existence.

This exhibition radicalizes Marx’s original insight and applies it to the nuclear weapons complex – a central cause for metabolic distress from the mid-20th century onwards.

Indeed, the nuclear machine has commanded a compulsive gluttonizing of resources and human beings, leading to a radical transformation of Western politics and society, as well as human-Earth relations.

The global footprint of this atomic metabolism can be traced in the vast infrastructural networks – including uranium mines, enrichment facilities, military industries, weapons laboratories, test sites, missile launch pads, satellite technology, fallout shelters and environmental clean-up operations – that now span the entire planet.

While nuclear war often is imagined in the nightmarish Cold War terms of instant (mega)death, these photographs bring to light that atomic metabolism – whether performed in the name of energy, security or profit – also is a long-term, on-going and highly destructive experiment in global geo-engineering.

Radioactive fallout from nuclear testing in particular serves as a powerful reminder that the effects of atomic metabolism are now permanently engraved upon our planet.

This exhibition concludes the DIIS seminar on Nuclear Weapons and Democratic Politics, occasioned by the book launch of “Nuclear Realism: Global Political Thought during the Thermonuclear Revolution” (by Rens van Munster, DIIS and Casper Sylvest, SDU).

Co-curator John O’Brian will briefly introduce the exhibition. DIIS will provide drinks and snacks.

It is also possible to visit the exhibition without attending to the seminar.

If interested in attending the seminar, go to

https://globalnyt.dk/content/hoerer-atomvaaben-hjemme-i-demokratier

The photo exhibition is co-curated by

John O’Brian, Professor of art history, University of British Columbia
Rens van Munster, Research Coordinator, Senior Researcher, Peace, Risk and Violence, DIIS

Programme

Læs videre på http://www.diis.dk/event/the-nuclear-machine