The Trinity Series, 2006 - ongoing

The Trinity Series is a large multi-media body of work I have been developing since Fall of 2006. In its completion, the body of work is comprised of watercolors, video, film, performance, photographs, an interactive networked installation and immersive media.

Thematically the project is centered on the New Mexico location of nuclear arms assembly and testing, Trinity Site; ground zero of the first ever atomic bomb test. Trinity Series is also conceptually informed by the 1950s “Duck and Cover” educational film, Trevor Weart's book Nuclear Fear, and the notion of the sublime.

Some performances, film, video and photographs are based on the 1951 “Duck and Cover” film and function as a close examination through re-enactment at an actual site where the atomic bomb detonated.

Others are set at the McDonald Ranch [construction site of the Trinity Test A-bomb], and are conceived as a film noir/science-fiction/cinematic-type with a narrative structure that mirrors pre and post nuclear discourses—attraction/repulsion pathologies, early scientific theories of total atmosphere combustion as a consequence of atmospheric nuclear testing, and mutation from radiation exposure.

As a whole, the work weaves a complex narrative about nuclear culture/cultures of fear since the 1950s--one in which anxiety and uncertainty dominates the climate.

His Memory, Like the World’s, Was Getting Spotty, 2006
C-prints

This work is a juxtaposition of two war related signifiers: 1) A declassified war document from July 1945 instructing the use of a “special bomb” upon Japanese sites along with correlating surveillance of the bombing for military and civilian research purposes 2) A camouflage pattern taken from a Berlin subway train, with coloration inspired by the United States national flag. Coupled together, the images convey a U.S. military narrative of concealment.