The Evolution of Science / Rachele Riley (US)
The Evolution of Silence is a multimedia design research project by Rachele Riley (2008–present). As part of a series of explorations on the subject of conflict and representation, Version 1 is a web-based map, which visualizes and interprets the impact of forty-one years of post-WWII nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, a remote and highly-restricted area roughly 80 miles north of Las Vegas, NV. The project focuses on every individual nuclear detonation that occurred in Yucca Flat, an area within the Nevada Test Site, which is marked by hundreds of sinkhole craters caused by these underground nuclear explosions.
Through an experimental and methodical approach to making archival and marginal data visible and palpable, ‘The Evolution of Silence’ combines fact and interpretation into a multivalent investigation of the dynamics of conflict, transformation of landscape, and the human element. By mapping the individual location of every nuclear detonation that occurred in Yucca Flat, the project extends the official data of the Department of Energy by connecting spatial data with other attribute data. Developing a poetic approach to design language, coding, mapping, and imaging, the project further expands upon what is known or can be known about this damaged place.
Fragments of satellite images form a partially reconstructed aerial view of the valley floor. One is able to break the larger composite image apart, and is free to rearrange or separate the individual nuclear sites from one another. In this way, the viewer is challenged to make sense of the scale of what happened, and to confront the malleability and authority of data as it relates to memory, war, reconciliation, and place. Through this aspect of viewer participation, one is conceptually involved in reclaiming this contested landscape and in effectively dismantling what Susan Sontag calls, ‘the aggregate image of war’—by confronting the scale of ‘war’s murderousness.’ (Sontag, S. Regarding the Pain of Others, 2003)
I explore the theme of the nomadism perhaps most traditionally through a focus on non-linear experiences of place, geography, and interpretation. I am interested in generating and collecting data that represents the marginal, or which points to the periphery and claims it as significant. I am drawn to programmes and methods as much as I am to what is random and unpredictable. This is an important aspect to my practice: to trust in artistic research and to be open to the unknown.