A design show for the ages; Chosen as a radioactive dump, Yucca
Mountain could be dangerous for eons. So dozens of artists have
imagined a warning sign to match.:[HOME EDITION]
Hugh Hart. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 15, 2003. pg. E.2
Full Text (1133 words)
Copyright (c) 2003 Los Angeles Times)
How do you spell D-A-N-G-E-R 10,000 years from now? That question was posed two years ago
when Nevada's Desert Space Foundation challenged artists to submit designs for the ultimate notrespassing sign. A system of markings is needed to scare away people who happen to wander
into the vicinity of Yucca Mountain because the ridge, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was
picked by Congress to serve as the final burial ground for 35,000 tons of high- level nuclear
waste.
But the Environmental Protection Agency ordered the Department of Energy to come up with a
program that would last 10 millenniums before shipments of radioactive material can begin.
Inspired by signage developed for the same purpose at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in
Carlsbad, N.M., Desert Space director Joshua Abbey issued a call for entries that would "deter
intruders ... and effectively communicate over the course of the next 10,000 years that the
integrity of the site must not be compromised in any way in order to prevent the release of the
radiation contained within." He received 300 submissions, 50 of which are featured in "The
Universal Warning Sign: Yucca Mountain." The show debuted last year in Las Vegas and runs
through Nov. 7 at UCLA.
Ashok Sukumaran, a graduate student in UCLA's Design/Media Arts Department, won best of
show with "Blue Yucca Ridge." His proposal would seed the site with genetically altered bluecolored Yucca cactus hybrids that reproduce over the coming eons until they completely blanket
the radioactive ridge. Sukumaran, on hand at Kinross South Gallery as Abbey unloaded a van full
of pieces after driving in from Las Vegas, explained his concept: "Nuclear technology is kind of a
mutation of the atom -- the blue yucca would be a malignant manifestation of that.
"For example, the orange [fruit] has been modified in a certain way by genetic engineering, but it
still falls within the larger image of an orange, so it's accepted by the public. It was my intention to
tweak that equation, to have these blue yucca cactus plants represent the mutation that had
occurred."
Contemporary symbols would likely be incomprehensible to generations a few dozen centuries
down the line, just as Egyptian hieroglyphics, developed about 4,000 years ago, appear as
gibberish to most people today. So, Sukumaran avoided conventional graphic design altogether.
"My consideration," he said, "was that the language with which we perceive the world now is
going to change, so how can we impose a visual sign that might not remain valid 10,000 years
from now."
Other exhibition concepts represent the notion of a toxic zone by emulating the pictograms
inscribed by prehistoric man about 8,000 BC.
Savannah College of Art and Design student Macho Kasha, for example, depicted a giant drill
piercing the ground as a stick figure kneels alongside it. "The commission is leaning toward
symbols like this one," Abbey said. "I think it goes back to the early cave drawings in France, the
oldest messages we have, which talked about the hunting of animals. Simplistic, primal images
that transcend language probably have the best chance to span the test of time.
"This message here is very evident: 'If you drill, you die.' "
Kasha's stick-figure symbolism was lost on UCLA professor Jennifer Steinkamp, who introduced
Sukumaran and other students in her tangible typography class to the "Universal Warning Sign"
project. "I guess I don't get that out of this image," she said. "It looks like he's bowing to it."
One other potential problem: Most of the submissions incorporate the triple-blade radioactive icon
devised in 1946 by a group of Berkeley scientists. But, Steinkamp said, "I don't think the nuclear
sign is going to last 10,000 years. To me, it looks peaceful. It doesn't scare me at all. Reusing it
doesn't make sense."
In fact, Steinkamp has come to question the show's very premise: "The more I thought about it,
the more I realized the impossibility of this notion. You almost have to take it tongue-in-cheek
because it's so absurd: making a sign that, A, would last 10,000 years, and B, would be
understood in 10,000 years."
Abbey emphasized that the exhibition is intended to be a purely educational effort, but his
personal feelings about storing plutonium at Yucca Mountain were clear: It's a bad idea.
Many of the entries reflect that sentiment. "The show breaks down into practical approaches to
the problem and then the more cynical commentary about the futility of the exercise," Abbey said.
"Some artists approached this with a sense of humor."
That would include Las Vegas artist Lloyd Heslip, whose "Poppin Fresh" suggests that a huge
thermometer would spring out of the Yucca Mountain site in 10,000 years to indicate the region
has been thoroughly "cooked."
More earnest solutions deployed forms of nature to repel potential interlopers. San Francisco's
Andy Griffiths imagined a man- made, steam-spewing volcano layered over the ridge, which
would likely endure as a frightening force of repulsion. Ann Arbor artist Yulia Hanansen counted
on a certain level of scientific literacy with her idea of sculpting an enormous mosaic replica of the
uranium molecule. A plan by Fred Harris of Washington called for magnetic fields that would
generate eardrum-shattering sonic waves.
One proposal singled out by Abbey was developed by MIT graduate Jason Fiering. His "Plague
of Sands" concept would sprinkle the site with millions of fingernail-size silicon chips imprinted
with skull and crossbones and other symbols. "In my estimation, this one is probably the most
tangible possibility of something that might actually last 10,000 years," Abbey said. "It's not
relying on some monumental work of architecture because these chips would be mingled
organically with the dirt that's already there."
A final decision on the Yucca Mountain warning system has yet to be made. Abbey said planners
are favoring graphics modeled on Edvard Munch's famous 19th century painting "The Scream."
"Basically, the idea is that facial expressions are universal in nature."
Some believe that skeletons -- real ones -- may turn out to be the best deterrent. When members
of the Yucca Mountain Task Force showed up at the exhibition in Las Vegas in February, "the
reaction they had for me was that regardless of what sign they put up there, the most effective
sign will be the dead bodies of those foolish to ignore whatever sign was put in place," Abbey
said. "Honest-to-God truth, that was their response."
*
'The Universal Warning Sign'
Where: Kinross South Gallery, 11000 Kinross Ave., UCLA
When: Mondays-Fridays,
9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Ends: Nov. 7
Price: Free
Information: (310) 825-9007 or www.Desertspace.org