Temporary Index.
Temporary Index is an online database of live decay-rate counters. It can be embedded in specific sites, syndicated online, and presented in art galleries. A semi-permanent version is included in a state-owned nuclear archive. The work contributes to the field of art and the Anthropocene by making visible the largely invisible temporal and spatial landscape of nuclear waste facilities. The project was developed with support from Swedish partners, HUMLab, and Bildmuseet Umea, as well as Arts Catalyst, Arts Council of England, British Council, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. See Portfolio Booklet for documentation of research dimensions.
- Submitting institution
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The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- qv41w
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- First exhibited at Material Nuclear Culture, group show at Karst, Plymouth, June 17–August 13, 2016. Further details in portfolio.
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of production
- February
- Year of production
- 2016
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
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- Criminology
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- Interdisciplinary
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- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
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- Reserve for an output with double weighting
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- Additional information
- Craighead and Jon Thompson’s collaborative project evolved from research into the global proliferation of nuclear waste and long-term management issues. Making apparent the timescales of the decay of nuclear material at different sites, they developed an aesthetic form of presentation to engage audiences beyond the scientific community and embed this knowledge in collective cultural memory.
As a live database, Temporary Index extends perceptions of the indexical. The decorative, real-time numeric counters are based on the probabilities of decay of existing nuclear waste from the earliest weapons’ development programmes in the United States to contemporary waste from nuclear energy production across the world today. These abstract numerical representations explore the condition of hyper-objectivity, the intentional or displaced dimension of human activity too large or too small to perceive, such as climate change, pollution and radioactivity.
Following its exhibition internationally in UK, Sweden, Los Angeles and Holland, the NDA’s installation of Temporary Index at its archive in Wick brings the artwork full circle from a cultural site back into a scientific context.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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