nuclear energy & art 3: chicago & henry moore

to finish the thread, there is also a (in my eyes) disturbing sculpture `nuclear energy' by henry moore, which was commissioned to mark the place where the first makeshift nuclear reactor was realized in chicago (chicago pile-1). the sculpture was erected in 1967 at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the splitting of the atom on the grounds by enrico fermi on december 2, 1942.


henry moore, nuclear energy (picture lenka reznicek, click on the image for an enlargement, cc-license see the link)

It’s a rather strange thing really but I’d already done the idea for this sculpture before Professor McNeill and his colleagues from the University of Chicago came to see me on Sunday morning to tell me about the whole proposition. They told me (which I’d only vaguely known) that Fermi, the Italian nuclear physicist, started or really made the first successful controlled nuclear fission in a temporary building. I think it was a squash court - a wooden building - which from the outside looked entirely unlike where a thing of such an important nature might take place. But this experiment was carried on in secret and it meant that by being successful Man was able to control this huge force for peaceful purposes as well as destructive ones. They came to me to tell me that they thought where such an important event in history took place ought to be marked and they wondered whether I would do a sculpture which would stand on the spot. (Henry Moore quoted in Art Journal, New York, spring 1973, p.286)

i think moore captured this duality rather too well...the sculpture reminds me of a giant skull. i don't think this is quite coincidental either, because imho moore was a great artist.

lenka reznicek writes a blog called radioactive! the nuclear blog, below is another of her pictures (creative commons licensed, go to her flickr page -link above- for the full license).


plot m marker, red gate woods chicago (photo lenka reznicek, click on the image for an enlargement).

enrico fermi died in 1954 of stomach cancer, as a result of overexposure to radiation. below his image in a graffiti tribute from vitoria in spain:

self-fulfilling post: more posts in january 2011 than in the entire year 2010 (self reference intermezzo)

title says it all. this post is self-fulfilling ;-) since it is the 20th post of january, and in 2010 there were only 19 posts on this blog. just to show you how empty self-reference can be...although in the foundations of mathematics, self-reference is a profound tool. kurt gödel's incompleteness theorems hinge on the possibility of encoding mathematical statements about our number system in numbers. [the whole numbers 0,1,2,...with addition and multiplication]. combine this with the fact that formal derivations in the number system can also be coded as calculations on numbers, and with quite some work one gets a statement Q about numbers which talks about itself...namely Q, when decoded, reads:

the statement Q cannot be formally derived in the formal number system.

suppose Q can be formally derived...then -assuming the number system is consistent- this means that Q is true, but then Q cannot be formally derived! contradiction. since the assumption that Q can be formally derived leads to contradiction, we conclude that Q cannot be formally derived. this means that Q is true!

wow, you say, so what. but this is one of the most profound insights in the limited power of formal human reasoning that i have ever come across. roughly speaking, it means that no matter how hard we try to formalize our reasoning, if the formal system is strong enough (and consistent) then we will always come across statements which are obviously true but which cannot be derived in our formal system hence the name `incompleteness theorem'. the second incompleteness theorem states that especially the consistency of the system cannot be formally derived within the system.

gödel's incompleteness theorems were a shattering blow to the program of david hilbert, who wanted to formalize all of mathematics. the dutch mathematician l.e.j. (jan) brouwer had already predicted in his phd-thesis (1907) that this would be impossible, on mathematical-philosophical grounds. but gödel gave a sharp mathematical proof, in 1931.

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for me, there is some relevant personal history here...since you could say that both my mathematical career and my artistic career were fueled by the absolutely marvelous book `gödel escher bach - an eternal golden braid' (written by douglas hofstadter, and winner of the pulitzer prize for non-fiction in 1980 - when i was fifteen).



few other books have so sparked my interest in art, neuroscience and mathematics as this book, and it is wonderful that there are people like douglas hofstadter devoting time and energy to translate difficult concepts from mathematics and natural science to a more general audience.

and yes i will come back to maurits escher once more in later posts...(did i mention somewhere how much i love bach's music? but i know very little about music, so i won't write about it on this blog i think).

in art, also self-reference can play various important roles. one obvious role is that of the self-portrait...(see some recent previous posts for digital self-portraits) and i will come back to that also, after i finish the thread on nuclear energy and art.

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this post was partly sparked by my lunch today with paul, staunch supporter of this blog and its author, who repeated his earlier remark that i should not forget to combine my mathematical background with my artistic endeavour from time to time.

so thank you paul!

nuclear energy & art 2 (into eternity)

[continued from the previous post]

apart from its ominous content, i found michael madsen's documentary `into eternity' quite artistic, showing people in a natural setting, answering well-structured questions, but at the same time painting a contradictory canvas of the issue and human arrogance/insecurity at the same time.

still, i was even more triggered by one of the main problems posed in the documentary:

Once the repository waste has been deposited and is full, the facility is to be sealed off and never opened again. Or so we hope, but can we ensure that? And how is it possible to warn our descendants of the deadly waste we left behind? How do we prevent them from thinking they have found the pyramids of our time, mystical burial grounds, hidden treasures? Which languages and signs will they understand? And if they understand, will they respect our instructions? While gigantic monster machines dig deeper and deeper into the dark, experts above ground strive to find solutions to this crucially important radioactive waste issue to secure mankind and all species on planet Earth now and in the near and very distant future.

especially of course the question: which languages and signs will people still understand after 50,000 years?

in the documentary the conclusion seems to be (and i agree) that visual language (art!) is so universal for humanity, that it can be assumed that even 50,000 years from now people will still understand parts of well-executed comics, cartoons, drawings and paintings. other languages and communication mechanisms appear to be rather less time-resistant. many old languages can no longer be understood by us, but the pictorial representations are still easily recognized.

however, in the special case of radiation, one has to wonder if one can visualize radiation if the phenomenon is outside the scientific awareness of the people involved. the second question is: will any visual sign/representation be endurable enough to survive such an onslaught of time?

this ties in to the earlier discussion this year about the importance of art and art education: since our thinking has a large visual component, our ideas can often be expressed far clearer in pictures than in words. so here you have an example of a real challenge to art: can we visualize (the presence of) radiation in such a way that even people with little or no scientific background will understand its dangers and enough of its working mechanisms?


trailer from `into eternity'

nuclear energy & art: into eternity

last week i saw a documentary by michael madsen called `into eternity'. let me cite from wikipedia:

Into Eternity is a feature documentary film directed by Michael Madsen.[1] It follows the digging and pre-implementation of the Onkalo nuclear waste repository in Olkiluoto, Finland. Director Michael Madsen is questioning Onkalo's intended eternal existence, addressing a remotely future audience. More importantly, this documentary raises the question of the authorities responsibility of ensuring compliance with relatively new safety criteria legislation and the principles at the core of nuclear waste management.[2]

Background information
This movie is the only full-length documentary about nuclear waste underground repository storage solution. The concept of long-term underground storage has been explored already from the 50's. The inner part of the Russian doll-like storage canisters is to be composed of copper. Hence in the case of Onkalo it is tightly linked to experimentations on copper corrosion in running groundwater flow.[3] Application for the implementation of spent nuclear fuel repository was submitted by Posiva Oy in 2001. The excavation itself started in 2004. With a total of 4 operable reactors providing 25% of the country energy supply, Finland ranks 16th in the world nuclear power reactors country list topped by USA (104 reactors), France (58 reactors) and Japan (54 reactors).

Synopsis

Every day, the world over, large amounts of high-level radioactive waste created by nuclear power plants is placed in interim storage, which is vulnerable to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and societal changes. In Finland, the world’s first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock – a huge system of underground tunnels – that must last the entire period the waste remains hazardous: 100,000 years.

Once the repository waste has been deposited and is full, the facility is to be sealed off and never opened again. Or so we hope, but can we ensure that? And how is it possible to warn our descendants of the deadly waste we left behind? How do we prevent them from thinking they have found the pyramids of our time, mystical burial grounds, hidden treasures? Which languages and signs will they understand? And if they understand, will they respect our instructions? While gigantic monster machines dig deeper and deeper into the dark, experts above ground strive to find solutions to this crucially important radioactive waste issue to secure mankind and all species on planet Earth now and in the near and very distant future.

before talking about the artistic aspects, once again, dear reader, i wish to draw your attention to the ominous content of the documentary, and the enormous implications of our current involvement in nuclear energy.

i repeat from an earlier post: we are apes playing with fire. but even that is a weak metaphor. we are apes playing with Eternal Pollution, we are producing nuclear waste that will pollute our world for hundreds of thousands of years, and we DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SOLVE THAT PROBLEM. we also have currently no nuclear waste storage facilities which will withstand natural disasters, so the problem is not only in the future, it is here and now. (and don't forget all the incidents that happen in nuclear plants, please don't think that they are safe because they aren't, we could easily have another chernobyl. and even if that could be addressed, what do you think the greatest nightmare of anti-terrorist agencies is?)


radiation map of chernobyl in 1996, 10 years after the chernobyl disaster (image from the cia factbook, click on the image for an enlargement)


chernobyl seen from the abandoned town of pripyat in 2007, 20 years after the chernobyl disaster (photo by jason minshull, click on the image for an enlargement)

[to be continued]

exhibition slightly shortened to 7 february

the showing of my paintings in the hogeschool arnhem nijmegen (han) is slightly shortened, the paintings will be on show until 8 february, so the last day to see them is monday 7 february.


clouds over fallow field (own work 2000-2010, click on the image for an enlargement)

paul cézanne (intermezzo)

ok, just a short intermezzo, because google happened to mention his birthday (19 january 1839). but also because paul cézanne is one of the first western artists, if not the first, to truly question the relation between what we see and what we think we see and what we think is reality...

this questioning is of scientific nature in my eyes, and finds its counterpart in neuroscience, but also in philosophy.

the below painting may seem just another still life to you, but there is something more going on. in fact, just in the places where the attention naturally shifts, so do certain `visual laws'. in my eyes this is a poignant reference to the way we perceive reality: in bits and pieces.

later, cézanne's work of course led to cubism, which in its dissection of reality is even more radical in its approach. but to me cézanne is more disturbing in a sense, because his distortions are more subtle.


paul cézanne, the basket of apples (1895, click on the image for an enlargement)

what is art for? 4 (art in our merchant society)

but let's forget about the economic importance of art and art education. this importance should be evident to anyone who ... has had enough education to understand the importance of education...although this maybe isn't dependent on how much education one gets. many of our current political `leaders' have had quite a lot of education...but of what type, one cannot fail to wonder.

that is where art comes in, and art education as well.

ultimately, in my not so humble opinion (imnsho), the question `what is art for?' revolves around the same sun as the question: `what gives our existence meaning?'. personally i do not believe that money, power, sex, drugs [let's say the four modern horsemen of the apocalypse...] come close to this sun, although our current merchant society would really have us believe that these four horsemen are the beginning and the end of all our longings, and that the sun shines out of their arse...


albrecht dürer, the four horsemen of the apocalypse (click on the image for an enlargement)

i mean, look at italy, where a complete `civilized' country is being dominated by the arch-caricature of money power sex drugs: berlusconi. after all the scandals and corruptions, has italy managed to regain the upper hand? no. do the other countries of the european union even try to stop the incredible corruption in italy from spreading throughout the union? i for one fail to notice any real progress in this matter.

and all of this is because we as a society -at EVERY junction- stress the importance of money. the importance of power. the importance of sex, and drugs as well. because the main societal credo seems to be: "as long as I feel happy, as long as I am in control of things around me, as long as I am rich and powerful, who cares about the rest?".

since money is the generic means to obtain all of the above four horsemen, our merchant society drools over money like one wouldn't believe.

what then is one of the main ways to illustrate that money isn't everything? if we need to get across the message that there are other values in this world which need protection from the money-scheming white-collar criminals? i would say that art is in a unique position for this. (this includes all forms of art, not just the visual arts).