04-24-2021, 01:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-24-2021, 10:01 PM by ant1quarian-h.
Edit Reason: weird bug multiplying how many gaps between each paragraph there are
)
Long time nuclear warning messages have become really fascinating to me; the plans of how to despose of, and to warn people upto 10,000 years into the future about, nuclear waste sites. There's a wikipedia article about this, aptly titled "Long-time nuclear waste warning messages" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_...g_messages which contains some diagrams. This article is the main way in which i've heard people talk about these warning messages, and mostly that's people laughing at parts of it, which I do agree, are pretty unintentionally funny due to some meme-y faces and sentences such as "This place is not a place of honor... nothing valued is here". But my reaction to learning about the concept of these warning messages was pretty much the opposite and was much more emotional and unsettled?
There's definitely something quite emotionally impactful about these for me, although I don't really know how to explain it. The main source of the wikipedia article is a 1993 report from the Sandia National Laboratories, which denotes a plan to despose of nuclear waste underground in the desert in New Mexico which will be further destroyed by the salt in the earth there. There are both ideas of strutures that physically stop people from exploring and messages that are drawn in pictograms to try and convey warning (as opposed to many writtten messages due to langauge being so susceptable to change). There's also a quite bizzare section on the wiki article called cultural memory, which explains plans to insert the knowledge of the nuclear sites into a cultural memory by establishing an "atomic priesthood" who will preserve the memory through myths, aswell as ideas of genetically modifying cats to change colour when in the presence of radiation.
The warning messages are supposed to convey these ideas
![[Image: 450px-Pictogram-for-nuclear-sites-US-Dep...y-2004.png]](https://i.ibb.co/JsTQdTX/450px-Pictogram-for-nuclear-sites-US-Department-of-Energy-2004.png)
I would best describe this as that I felt that it was sad, unsettling, kind of innocently sweet in a weird way, trying earnestly to warn people from harm the of our own terrible ideas, a desperate call from the past. There's something definitely dystopian about it. It's like these are the plans for structures of the type that we've found made by ancient civilations, and we've wondered why on earth would anyone make them. If you were from a future civilation and you came across this desert site it would seem so bizarre until you learn why its there, but if you did learn why it was there (assuming you couldn't make sense of the warnings) it would be too late. We are making structures of that magnitude and of that macabre significance. We are making the cryptic structures of our civilisation that future people will find and be baffled but intrigued by. There's such a magntiude to it.
It's like the feeling you have sometimes when you see an some ancient structure, a type of wonder about the people who made it and an awe for their capabilities, mixed with the kind of sadness that you'll never fully understand them and the knowledge that they (the people responsible for the building) didn't survive. Overall the otherwordlyness of the structures. The feeling I get from the nuclear waste warning messages is like that flipped on it's head. This should be a relic, but it's not. I'm one of the ancient people who knows why this structure was built and it's fucked up. There's an intrigue and awe that feels like it should be there, but there's nothing to be intrigued about: I already know.
My favourite part of the wikipedia article is one of the ideas for a physical structure designed to deter people from the site, an idea intriguingly named "forbidding blocks". Really all the ideas from the physical markers section are incredible and again fill me with this feeling of awe for the otherworldlyness, undercut by dread and knowledge, but forbidding blocks does this the most. All of the possible designs are supposed to not only physically stop people from uncovering the nuclear waste but also to convey an emotional warning and idea of danger and harm.
For example there's "landscape of thorns", a "mass of many irregularly-sized spikes protruding from the ground in all directions.", and "Spikes Bursting Through Grid: A large square grid pattern across the site, through which large spikes protrude at various angles." Aswell as that there's "Menacing Earthworks: Large mounds of earth shaped like lightning bolts emanating from the edges of a square site.", "Black Hole: An enormous slab of basalt or black-dyed concrete, rendering the land uninhabitable and unfarmable.", and "Rubble Landscape: A large square-shaped pile of dynamited rock, which over time would still appear anomalous and give a sense of something having been destroyed."
These designs are all incredible, the mixture emotional power that they have through archetecture aswell as the theoretical permant destruction of the earth that is necessitated by the toxicity they are supposed to conceal.
But my favourite : "Forbidding Blocks: A network of hundreds of house-sized stone blocks, dyed black and arranged in an irregular square grid, suggesting a network of "streets" which feel ominous and lead nowhere. The blocks are intended to make a large area entirely unsuitable for farming or other future use."
That is fucking insane! There is a level of potency that this idea has that I'm so suprised I've never seen any references to it on the internet, not even the few people I have seen talk about the nuclear warning messages at all have thought to mention this absolutely devastating concept of archetecture! This is, a, dare I say, very liminal spsace idea. A ghost town made intentionally to deter people from dying from digging up our fucking nuclear waste! There's also the magnitude and scale of this: "a network of hundreds of house-sized stone blocks": that is very very big, and not mention that they are dyed black which is very imposing and they are also spiked. They are uninhabitable houses, too hot to live due to the black colour, the streets to small to be practical, at irregular and odd angles. The emotional deterant effect this is supposed to have whilst also physically preventing people from using the space, this is so incredble and so sad!
Here are some images of the forbidding blocks design from the origianl report:
![[Image: forbiddingblocks.png]](https://i.ibb.co/2dLQqpn/forbiddingblocks.png)
![[Image: forbiddingblocks2.png]](https://i.ibb.co/t4xY6mQ/forbiddingblocks2.png)
and here's the original report if you want to read more, because this is so captivating in my opinion:
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/675...g%20blocks
If you know anymore about this topic please add it to this thread, I also think that this concept had so much artisitc and emotional potential, I'm interested in how it relates to other ideas like liminal spaces.
There's definitely something quite emotionally impactful about these for me, although I don't really know how to explain it. The main source of the wikipedia article is a 1993 report from the Sandia National Laboratories, which denotes a plan to despose of nuclear waste underground in the desert in New Mexico which will be further destroyed by the salt in the earth there. There are both ideas of strutures that physically stop people from exploring and messages that are drawn in pictograms to try and convey warning (as opposed to many writtten messages due to langauge being so susceptable to change). There's also a quite bizzare section on the wiki article called cultural memory, which explains plans to insert the knowledge of the nuclear sites into a cultural memory by establishing an "atomic priesthood" who will preserve the memory through myths, aswell as ideas of genetically modifying cats to change colour when in the presence of radiation.
The warning messages are supposed to convey these ideas
Quote:This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!This is a pictogram supposed to warn of the underground toxicity that due to a very ambiguous emotion made me cry when I saw it:
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
I would best describe this as that I felt that it was sad, unsettling, kind of innocently sweet in a weird way, trying earnestly to warn people from harm the of our own terrible ideas, a desperate call from the past. There's something definitely dystopian about it. It's like these are the plans for structures of the type that we've found made by ancient civilations, and we've wondered why on earth would anyone make them. If you were from a future civilation and you came across this desert site it would seem so bizarre until you learn why its there, but if you did learn why it was there (assuming you couldn't make sense of the warnings) it would be too late. We are making structures of that magnitude and of that macabre significance. We are making the cryptic structures of our civilisation that future people will find and be baffled but intrigued by. There's such a magntiude to it.
It's like the feeling you have sometimes when you see an some ancient structure, a type of wonder about the people who made it and an awe for their capabilities, mixed with the kind of sadness that you'll never fully understand them and the knowledge that they (the people responsible for the building) didn't survive. Overall the otherwordlyness of the structures. The feeling I get from the nuclear waste warning messages is like that flipped on it's head. This should be a relic, but it's not. I'm one of the ancient people who knows why this structure was built and it's fucked up. There's an intrigue and awe that feels like it should be there, but there's nothing to be intrigued about: I already know.
My favourite part of the wikipedia article is one of the ideas for a physical structure designed to deter people from the site, an idea intriguingly named "forbidding blocks". Really all the ideas from the physical markers section are incredible and again fill me with this feeling of awe for the otherworldlyness, undercut by dread and knowledge, but forbidding blocks does this the most. All of the possible designs are supposed to not only physically stop people from uncovering the nuclear waste but also to convey an emotional warning and idea of danger and harm.
For example there's "landscape of thorns", a "mass of many irregularly-sized spikes protruding from the ground in all directions.", and "Spikes Bursting Through Grid: A large square grid pattern across the site, through which large spikes protrude at various angles." Aswell as that there's "Menacing Earthworks: Large mounds of earth shaped like lightning bolts emanating from the edges of a square site.", "Black Hole: An enormous slab of basalt or black-dyed concrete, rendering the land uninhabitable and unfarmable.", and "Rubble Landscape: A large square-shaped pile of dynamited rock, which over time would still appear anomalous and give a sense of something having been destroyed."
These designs are all incredible, the mixture emotional power that they have through archetecture aswell as the theoretical permant destruction of the earth that is necessitated by the toxicity they are supposed to conceal.
But my favourite : "Forbidding Blocks: A network of hundreds of house-sized stone blocks, dyed black and arranged in an irregular square grid, suggesting a network of "streets" which feel ominous and lead nowhere. The blocks are intended to make a large area entirely unsuitable for farming or other future use."
That is fucking insane! There is a level of potency that this idea has that I'm so suprised I've never seen any references to it on the internet, not even the few people I have seen talk about the nuclear warning messages at all have thought to mention this absolutely devastating concept of archetecture! This is, a, dare I say, very liminal spsace idea. A ghost town made intentionally to deter people from dying from digging up our fucking nuclear waste! There's also the magnitude and scale of this: "a network of hundreds of house-sized stone blocks": that is very very big, and not mention that they are dyed black which is very imposing and they are also spiked. They are uninhabitable houses, too hot to live due to the black colour, the streets to small to be practical, at irregular and odd angles. The emotional deterant effect this is supposed to have whilst also physically preventing people from using the space, this is so incredble and so sad!
Here are some images of the forbidding blocks design from the origianl report:
and here's the original report if you want to read more, because this is so captivating in my opinion:
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/675...g%20blocks
If you know anymore about this topic please add it to this thread, I also think that this concept had so much artisitc and emotional potential, I'm interested in how it relates to other ideas like liminal spaces.
Local Cryptid
![[Image: blockinfo.png]](https://i.ibb.co/74N5jSs/blockinfo.png)
