Nuclear Mickeys (2003)

• Nuclear Mickey, digital prints with sound, Disaster Group Exhibition, Truck, Calgary, AB, 2004
• TSCharlie & Co, digital prints, Faculty exhibition, ACAD, Calgary, AB, 2004

Nuclear Mickeys (Images)
The Disneylandization of fears and the Benettonning of all experiences

The Nuclear Mickeys is a series of manipulated images of nuclear explosions that got a fashion makeover for easy and safe consumption.  The grafting of a Mickey Mouse head on the top of the mushroom cloud brands the disaster, and creates a cultural event, much like the Benetton publicity campaigns of the 1990’s.

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The first atomic bomb was detonated at Los Alamos, New Mexico on July 6, 1945. Upon witnessing the first test of a nuclear weapon, the Diroctor of The Manhattan Project stated:

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”
J. Robert Oppenheimer

666 seconds of Oppenheimer’s hesitation (Sound)

While listening to the sound file of the quote, I became fascinated by the silences and hesitations of Oppenheimer.  The historic audio recording of Oppenheimer was 58 seconds in length. Of those 58 seconds, 28 seconds were comprised of silences and hesitations. This audiowork is made up of the hesitations repeated 23.78 times, to create a new track 11 minutes and 6 seconds, or 666 seconds in length.  The silence became for me, the incarnation of our ‘loss of grip’ on ‘ the social meaning of nuclear weapons’

Daniel Dugas, Calgary, April 2004