The Palace (or, Future Archeologies)

Nuclear energy itself has become a symbol of our age; the double edged sword of technological utopia and universal doom. Nuclear semiotics is an interdisciplinary field of research, exploring the complexities of leaving long term nuclear waste warning messages for future generations, to deter human intrusion at nuclear waste repositories.

Radioactive waste hidden at these repositories will potentially remain dangerous for one million years. The secureness of the site must therefore, last forever, and so should its memory; ensuring that future generations do not accidentally, or through curiosity, disturb its contents. Languages have a habit of disappearing. Signs and symbols can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Communities, environments, landscapes shift over thousands of years. Scientists, anthropologists, archeologists, architects, philosophers and semioticians have all been trying to answer the question of how you leave a warning that future societies can understand and respect? Creating a culture of memory around burial sites is seen as one answer.

Using nuclear semiotics as a starting point, the work considers how and what we leave behind for future generations. Between representation and abstraction, I explore the quest for a universal visual language, our cultures of memorialisation, and our future archeologies - what we might communicate over the abyss of deep time.