Claudia X. Valdes

[192:291 installation view (in shelter)]

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192:291, 2002

Digital Video, 5m 0s, Dimensions Variable

NFS

According to the world almanac, there are 192 officially recognized countries in the world. 192:291 is composed of 192 repetitions of a film tiled at half-second intervals. The content of this film is the first-ever-televised broadcast of an atomic bomb test done on March 17, 1953 at Yucca Flats, Nevada. Narrated by Walter Cronkite, the broadcast communicates his impressions and emotive responses while simultaneously describing the military operation as it unfolds.

My intention for the work is to have it convey the complexity of our response to viewing such footage. We are seduced by the sublime visual qualities of nuclear explosions. Yet this attraction is coupled with a horror which stems from understanding the destructive power of such instruments. The viewer, observing the work can calculate: if every country were hit by 3 repeated bombs, the destruction of the world would occur in 5 minutes.

Artworks by Claudia X. Valdes

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