I'd like to write a paper about the radioactive, how we define it (and control it) culturally. It is precisely its uncontainability that interests me. Also, its formlessness which is not simply form-defying but deforming. I will revisit gestures which domesticate the radioactive, such as the use of isotopes on luminescent watch dials, also ones that profit from the radioactive, like x-ray machines and finally nuclear power, a promise of labour without labor...limitless, free energy. Everywhere, however, there is the labor of containing the radioactive, and its menace. What is the true productivity of radioactivity but accelerated genetic mutation? I wonder if new calls for nuclear energy in these end-times of the fossil fuel are linked to changing attitudes towards "the radioactive."
At present, I am still casting about for a theoretical apparatus but god-willing it will be found, if I have to split the library to do it!
--Andrew
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You might look at this interesting article on
Burroughs and the radioactive:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/v005/5.1langeteig.html
-Hollis
In 'Rückblicke', Kandinsky linked his pursuit of new artistic modes, not to mention a fundamental change of personal philosophy, to the impact of the discovery of radioactivity, which he recalled as:
'In my soul, the disintegration of the atom equaled the disintegration of the whole world. Suddenly the stoutest walls came tumbling down. Everything became uncertain, unsteady, fragile. It seemed to me that science was shattered...'
Kandinsky's transition from faith in form, to the terror of the formless seems a particularly evocative moment given the kinds of considerations you've sketched out.
--Ryan
If you look at the periodic table it seems that a lot of radioactive compounds have names that reference either their creator or a country or a mythical figure or something strange. I wonder how these namings happened. Also, a lot of radioactive elements on the periodic table don't really exist except for incredibly small portions of time. What/why are they even marked as elements if they only exist in extreme laboratory environments?
-George
so many superheros have radioactive origins, and there's a character in the Watchmen who's all about that. Also, the Simpson's Radioactive Man, and all the nukeyalur plant stuff in the show might give a good grounding in how it's thought of in the 90s pop culture/harvard educated lampoon alum comedy writer world.
Am I really wrong, or doesn't carbon dating have something to do with radioactivity? The idea of the radioactive as our only way of dating anything (maybe getting into young earth creationist debates) seems interesting.
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