The academics dismiss out of hand a keep out sign a woefully lacking solution since nuclear waste will remain dangerous much much longer than such a message would remain intelligible. Designing a nuclear waste warning symbol that will still make sense in 10 000 years by 99 invisible the waste isolation pilot plant in the new mexico desert is the nation s only permanent. On a smaller scale erich berger and mari keto s open care 2016 imagines nuclear waste passed down through heirloom objects bronze disks pocked with steel pellets through which.
10 the radioactive lifetime of nuclear waste makes it an entirely unique problem for humans. 9 for comparison the species homo sapiens is on the order of 100 000 years old. Some nuclear waste repositories including onkalo in finland however are being designed to keep the nuclear waste isolated for an astonishing 100 000 years.
French artist bruno grasser second laureate of a prize launched in 2016 by andra on memory came up with a way to transmit information on nuclear waste storage sites using etching an art. How workers who buried radioactive waste from 43 us nuclear explosions hid a middle finger salute statue inside radioactive dome on pacific island as warning for future visitors. How do we tell our distant descendants people 10 000 years fr.
Nuclear semiotics is the discipline of communicating the nature of radioactive waste to people who don t know what it is. Andra the french nuclear waste agency behind the project opened an art competition last year to address this issue. Art by michael brill.
A nuclear warning designed to last 10 000 years. Many argue the team wrote that the origins of our. The concept was informed by a careful reading of mythologist joseph campbell on the subject of archetypes.
Amid more traditional warning signs which included berms engraved with edvard munch s the scream 1893 the pièce de resistance of team a s recommendation was the architectural marker at the center of the monument. A 1993 report from sandia national laboratories recommended that any such message should. Nuclear semiotics is an interdisciplinary field of research first done by the human interference task force in 1981.
Long time nuclear waste warning messages are intended to deter human intrusion at nuclear waste repositories in the far future within or above the order of magnitude of 10 000 years.
