What are these floating icons? SALT. CLAY. ROCK. semiotics
Katarina Šević
24/09/08
Berlin
Notes on Visual Identity
To begin the development of the visual identity for SALT. CLAY. ROCK. I had to be clear about my own connections and thoughts on the project’s subject. For me, the question of nuclear energy is inseparable from peace movements (1), I conflate denuclearization and disarmament. I conflate anything to do with nuclear with war because nuclear material invariably carries the possibility of a war - it's not restricted only to energy. And by war I mean not just the war between nations or countries, but total destruction - people destroying nature, animals…
Nonetheless, the topic one encounters most often when looking into the problem of nuclear energy is the problem of nuclear waste.
My initial point of departure in researching the design concept was centered on concepts of deep time and the ungraspability and (in)visibility of nuclear legacies. I was challenged by how these aspects related to the nuclear topic evoke or relate to things beyond our rational thinking and knowledge. Thus, I wanted to develop a visual identity which would convey the most primal of associations, such as fear, danger or the vastness of time to which the topic relates.
I appreciated the design experiments (visual, verbal, non-verbal or physical) others have undertaken around the (im)possibility of communicating and signaling nuclear waste repositories for the far future and generations to come. While examining already existing design and technical solutions, my research centered on the field of nuclear semiotics. Nuclear semiotics is a challenging field, whose goal is to somehow transcend language, communication and meaning as we can comprehend them. Various specialists have been asked how to mark deposited radioactive material, and most importantly, the danger it represents. They have wondered what designs, signals or signs could remain comprehensible through the lifetime of the deposited radioactive material–at least 100,000 years, and which could work for all living creatures, not just humans. Of particular interest is the work of Thomas Sebeok - a Hungarian-born American polymath, semiotician and linguist who studied both human and non-human systems of signaling and communication, as well as the philosophy of mind - and is noted for his involvement with the Human Interference Task Force (HITF)(2). The HITF analyzed the problem of nuclear semiotics and proposed solutions that aim to warn future civilisations against entering areas contaminated by nuclear waste. Within the field of nuclear semiotics we can find proposals to incorporate myth and ritual through the development of the "folkloric relay system" and proposals for the establishment of an "atomic priesthood" (3) that might, supposedly, outlive all civilisational changes. There have also been proposals for a "living radiation detector" (4), a genetically engineered species that would, after genetic modification, change its appearance in the presence of nuclear radiation, thus signaling danger.
While the nuclear project promises almost limitless energy for all, it immediately comes up against the limits of our security and communication tools. Nuclear waste repositories already exist around the world, but the message that could be able to communicate their danger in the future has probably not yet been constructed. This, just as there are still no technical means that can permanently protect us from potential hazards.
Through the design process, my goal was to create a visual identity for SALT. CLAY. ROCK. that could be used in a variety of scenarios and situations. I wanted the design to always juxtapose the complexity of the above concepts. Between the need for communicative clarity around nuclear issues, its dangers and its power, and the unfathomable questions of deep time and future life I developed a visual strategy with the use of simple graphic forms.
I decided that the project’s visual identity would consist of various easily recognisable ideographs derived from my research, created as vector drawings for the purpose of the project and combined with strong typography (5). The ideographs were developed from the information and images I collected during my research and are presented as archetypal symbols. Their style is reminiscent of DIY/protest techniques; the protest being, for me, another important aspect connected to the nuclear projects. The ideographs are juxtaposed in different combinations, for different purposes, thus presenting many specificities and questions raised by the project. The ideographic combinations also aim to point to the (sur)reality of the nuclear issues. I want the viewer to wonder: what does an owl and the orbit of an atom have to do with each other? How about a cat and a cloud?
Subject areas of particular interest that I looked at during my research included: images utilized for nuclear waste storage and disposal, on-site warning signs communicating the toxic nature of the material; images following my specific interest in the role of animals within visual campaigns related to nuclear issues (including ray cats, cranes, owls and doves), explanatory diagrams of atoms and nuclear fission, as well as images and other representations of 'the bomb,' and finally archival information on social reactions to various nuclear projects.
Overall, the project's visual identity is simple, bold and straightforward. The central visual element is the title of the project, SALT. CLAY. ROCK.. All visual elements can be reproduced in various scales, color schemes and, most importantly, without fossil fuel, nuclear, or green energy - drawn or silkscreened and reproduced by hand.
Footnotes:
1. Besides the number of peace symbols and signs that were used throughout history (e.g. dove, olive branch), the most well known peace sign in our time, also known as the “peace and love” sign, was originally designed for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958, by Gerald Holtom. It is built from the flag semaphore signals which represent the letters N and D (standing for nuclear disarmament), enclosed in a circle. It was adopted by the American antiwar protest movement and counterculture activists in the ‘60s, and still stands for the desire for world peace.
2. HITF was formed in 1981 on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy and Bechtel Corp. with a goal to research ways to prevent future unintentional intruding of the deep geological nuclear repository of Yucca Mountain.
3. The Atomic Priesthood is a proposal for a constructed religion that would have to preserve the knowledge about locations and dangers of radioactive waste. The priesthood would indicate off-limits areas and the consequence of disobedience, through a set of constructed legends, rituals and myths.
4. The idea of the “living radiator detector” has been proposed in 1984 by the philosophers Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri in reaction to HITFs ideas on transmitting messages about radiation danger. They coined the term “ray cat” as a suggestion of a particular animal species that would change color in the proximity of radiation sites.
5. The title SALT.CLAY.ROCK. was hand drawn.