Demon Core

Full description

Background
Since the invention of the Atom Bomb, artists have engaged with the dark realm of nuclear physics and the terrifying agency of nuclear matter. Exhibitions such as “Black Mist Burnt Country” (2016) have presented Australian artists response to this, and other artists, such as Yanobe Kenji, have worked with radioactive materials. However, there have been no previous installation works have used nuclear materials in a way that engages with the specific experiment known as “Demon Core”. In 1946, a plutonium orb (made for the third WWII atom bomb but never used) accidently went supercritical, causing a fatal nuclear chain reaction in the research laboratory.

Contribution
Demon Core is a site-specific immersive installation commissioned for DARK MOFO 2019, selected by DARK MOFO director Leigh Carmichael. The project was specifically designed for the Queen Victoria Powder Magazine (a building designed to explode) in the Hobart Botanic Gardens. The installation manifests the energy within nuclear matter. Uranium and americium in the core of the Demon Core installation controls “Cherenkovesque” UV light emissions, and low-frequency tones, creating a dynamic and stochastic environment in which to contemplate, as Robert Oppenheimer stated, the sins of physicists. The project also manifests my own ethical dilemas in working with nuclear physics such as at CERN. Collaborators include curator Tony Lloyd, programmer Toby Gifford, and CERN physicist Matteo Volpi.

Significance
The work is significant in that it was personally selected for DARK MOFO, arguably Australia’s premiere arts festival. Demon Core was the first installation on the “Dark Path”, the main public art attraction for the 2019 DARK MOFO festival. The exact attendance figure is 16,371. The project had over $20,000 budget and a dedicated install team. Working with naturally occurring uranium, plus radioactive waste, in an OH&S compliant setting is in itself a complex and significant process.