by Eric LoPresti on June 21, 2016
Imagery of atomic test sites loomed large in public consciousness during the 1960s and 70s, when weekly atomic tests made front page news in the New York Times and in Life magazine. During the Cold War, the US detonated detonated over 80 devices between 10kt and 1200 kt each, for a total explosive yield of around ~50,000,000 tons: an overabundant earthmoving that happened to coincide precisely with the birth of Land Art.
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by Aaron Williams on June 14, 2016
I keep a folder of images on my desktop, culled from internet searches and random meanderings around the net. There isn’t much curation involved in these images, and I’m not always sure why an image calls to my collection, but themes arise nonetheless. A unifying quality is the bleak reality that’s laid bare by the breakdown of a system– bygone expressions of power like Brutalist architecture, panopticons, and military camouflage. I feel ambivalent about these images, uncomfortable with taking pleasure in the aesthetic forms that hides insidious subtexts.
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