These drawings are from a fascinating design commission by the U.S. Department of Energy. The goal of the commission was to develop a system of signs and monuments to communicate the danger of nuclear waste deposits to future generations, for up to ten-thousand years. The document unpacks the different modes of meaning and abstraction which are relevant to the communication between civilizations across yawning expanses of time and forgetfulness. The advice of the design committee was largely ignored by the bureaucrats, who shied away from more abstract or emotive forms in favour of signage.Link to the "Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Sandia National Laboratories report " (the design commitee report)
Link to "U.S. Department of Energy : Permanent Markers Implementation Plan" (the government follow-up)
Link to a related Village Voice article.
source: Jill Butler, Kritina Holden and William Lidwell. Universal Principles of Design (Gloucester, Mass: Rockport, 2003),24-25.
4 comments:
I remember reading about this project while back at SAIC. I was fascinated about its context necessitating the admission by our government that the good old US of A isn't going to be, you know, eternal (someone hold my mint julep, I'm feeling faint!)
I also remember reading a MetaFilter thread about this a while back and the strong majority of posters responding that such a depository should have no markers because anything marked, regardless of what said mark is meant/not meant to communicate, will be dug up because humans are too fucking curious for their own good. Better just bury it really deep and hope the otter-men of the 532nd century are smart enough not to mess with it...
The information wants to be free, and so do the depleted fuel-rods, apparently...
The underground repository needs an entrance, though.
That's assuming that the hot cell would be completely impervious. In the likely event that it wasn't, the seepage might very well make the surrounding landscape a poison field. And the husks of the settlements would function very much like the spike fields in the illustrations. So either we could build these monuments, or they will happen by accretion, anyway.
I have to say that I very much like the grainyness and dreamlike quality of these badly reproduced drawings.
"I have to say that I very much like the grainyness and dreamlike quality of these badly reproduced drawings."
They remind me of landscape work from Fantastic Planet...
Absolutely!
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