Temporal Matter, Spatial Withdrawal, Human Stewardship: Radioactivity in Art and Nuclear Waste Repository Marking

This thesis investigates the intersection of conceptual art and nuclear semiotics. It explores how radioactive artworks can contribute to the systemic marking of geological disposal facilities (GDFs) for nuclear waste. Current strategies, such as those proposed by the Records, Knowledge and Memory (RK&M) initiative, predominantly advocate for visual and linguistic markers to warn and inform future generations. By contrast, this research posits a shift towards conceptual and post-conceptual art modalities and the integration of radioactive materials as an alternative approach to deep-time meaning-making.

Through a speculative methodology, this thesis examines six core artworks including pieces by Robert Barry, Taryn Simon, Trevor Paglen, and the collaborative duo Erich Berger and Mari Keto, that utilise radioactive elements as central components. The argument is structured around three primary actors within the nuclear waste narrative: time, space, and people. First, radiation is conceptualised as a temporal art material, employing the framework of ‘slow violence’ to advocate for an anachronistic approach over strictly linear intergenerational processes. Second, the spatiality of radiation is analysed through the dialectic of site and non-site, exploring how the spatial withdrawal of toxic materials fosters the nuclear sublime. Third, the thesis addresses the complex role of human stewardship, highlighting how rumour, myth-making, and radiophobia can drive a self-perpetuating cycle of social memory when institutional frameworks inevitably collapse.

Ultimately, the thesis argues that a successful radioactive art marker must entirely escape its art-historical contexts to function effectively as an artistic ecological intervention. By anticipating the inevitability of toxic drift, it concludes that the perpetual ontological vitality of radioactive matter provides a robust, self-signifying warning mechanism. This approach shifts the burden of deep-time communication from the fragility of human-to-human transfer to the enduring collaborative narratives of contaminated landscapes and human stewardship.