Nuclear Aesthetics. IMPAKT Centre for Media Culture
Video channel. Online, 26.04.2021.
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Graeme Arnfield, Bruce Conner, Extinction Rebellion, Jeanne C. Finley, Ted Hunt, Benjamin Nuel
The invention of nuclear energy introduced a new imaginary: the awareness that time itself could end. The iconic imagery of atomic blasts has permeated public consciousness as a terrible beauty—destructive, yet awe-inspiring. This paradoxical experience of the atomic sublime elevated dystopian anxieties and myths of progress to the level of an aesthetic event.
The Cold War’s age of anxiety takes on renewed relevance amid contemporary crises. The pandemic and climate emergency bring the specter of doomsday close once again. Does the destruction of the past haunt the present? Does its imagery return, not as a “bright and wonderful future,” but as the end of the future itself? Catastrophe looms, yet society carries on, absorbed in the everyday, until suddenly confronted by the fear of the unknown.
This programme explores the visual language of apocalyptic anxiety and technology, both historically and in contemporary contexts. From the atomic sublime to political fear-speak, responsibility, uncertainty, and ignorance, Nuclear Aesthetics reveals the varied ways the terrible beauty of doomsday has been represented.
Full programme available on impakt.nl/channel