Browsing by Subject "Atomic bomb"
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Item The artist, the atom, and the Bikini Atoll : Ralston Crawford paints Operation Crossroads(2010-08) Gorski, Susanna Brooks; Henderson, Linda Dalrymple, 1948-; Clarke, John R.This thesis explores Ralston Crawford’s canvases painted after witnessing the events of Operation Crossroads at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. Commissioned by Fortune, the artist provides the viewer with a unique and captivating view of the destruction wrought by atomic weaponry. Through a careful look at Crawford’s relationship with Fortune, Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery, and Crawford’s artistic contemporaries, this thesis positions the paintings within the art historical and cultural context of the mid-twentieth century and asserts their importance to the history of the Atomic Age. The thesis traces Crawford’s artistic development and his use of an Americanized Cubist language. In addition, the thesis looks closely at the rich cultural fabric of the postwar era and evaluates Crawford’s position in the American Art scene.Item Stockpile reduction : the key to transition and infrastructure management at Los Alamos(2010-08) Gubernatis, David Charles; Nichols, Steven P.; Kautz, Douglas D.; Kornreich, Drew E.Since the end of World War II the United States has grown and maintained a stockpile of nuclear weapons in the interest of preserving world peace, and with the specific intent to provide unparalleled national security to its citizens. It was a commonly held view during this time that a large diverse stockpile was a fundamental key to national security. However, in today’s ever-changing environment, Los Alamos National Laboratory finds itself with an infrastructure unable to quickly adapt to new national security needs and threats. Burdened by the management of a Cold-War-era stockpile, nuclear operations at Los Alamos will benefit from a reduced stockpile initiative. Contrary to previously held beliefs, Los Alamos can be the prime beneficiary to such an approach, and use such a monumental shift in strategy to modernize infrastructure, revitalize critical staff, and effectively manage critical materials and facilities while simultaneously reducing waste and environmental impacts to better support national security needs.Item "The world in miniature" : testing Bruce Conner's CROSSROADS(2016-05) La Brasca, Jana Lee; Reynolds, Ann Morris; Charlesworth, Michael JThe subject of this thesis is Bruce Conner’s 1976 film CROSSROADS, a 37- minute filmic portrait of the world’s first underwater nuclear detonation at the Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946. CROSSROADS consists of 23 segments of declassified United States National Archive footage and two original soundtracks composed by Patrick Gleeson and Terry Riley. Documentary and aesthetic at once, the work invites a meditation upon the terrifying violence and evanescent beauty of a key 20th century icon: the atomic mushroom cloud. In this thesis, I examine CROSSROADS under the generative conceptual prism of the miniature as theorized by Claude Levi-Strauss in The Savage Mind and Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space. I expand upon the miniature idea flexibly throughout this paper: I find that it is equally relevant to nuclear weapons testing history, landscape, cinema, description, and the artwork of Bruce Conner. Remaining focused on questions of scale and making relevant comparisons to works of art, films, and contemporary visual culture, I structure my analysis loosely around episodes in the life of the film: the production of its source material in the 1940s, Conner’s process of modifying it in the 1970s, and the resulting work’s reception after its premiere in 1976.